State v. Smith
| Decision Date | 25 January 1932 |
| Parties | STATE ex rel. EVERGLADES CYPRESS CO. v. SMITH, Circuit Judge. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Mandamus proceeding by the State, on the relation of the Everglades Cypress Company, against Frank A. Smith, as Judge of the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit of the State of Florida, in and for Orange County.
Peremptory writ of mandamus denied, and proceeding dismissed.
COUNSEL G. P. Garrett, of Orlando, for petitioner.
Maguire & Voorhis, of Orlando, for respondent.
This is a proceeding in mandamus. The object of the writ is to require the circuit judge of the Seventeenth judicial circuit to issue a subpoena duces tecum directed to one W. H Tunnicliffe, as liquidator of the State Bank of Orlando & Trust Company, requiring him to bring with him and produce the books, records, files, and documents in his hands, as liquidator, to show certain facts material to relator to establish a claim sued on in the chancery court, in suit wherein the Everglade Cypress Company is complainant and said Tunnicliffe, as liquidator of the State Bank of Orlando & Trust Company, is defendant.
A subpoena duces tecum is a process by which the court, at the instance of a suitor, commands a witness who has in his possession or control some document or paper that is pertinent to the issues of a pending controversy to produce it at the trial.
The writ is to compel the production of books and papers, the existence and character of which is already known to the party seeking the evidence, and such books and papers should be described with reasonable certainty in the application for the process. See In re Subpoenas Duces Tecum (D. C.) 248 F. 137; 4 Wigmore on Evidence (2d Ed.) § 2199, pages 663-665; Thompson on Trials, vol. 1, page 589; Hoppe v Ostrander & Co. (C. C.) 183 F. 786; American Car & Foundry Co. v. Alexandria Water Co., 221 Pa. 529, 70 A. 867, 128 Am. St. Rep. 749, 15 Ann. Cas. 641; Ex parte R. D. Gould, 60 Tex. Cr. R. 442, 132 S.W. 364, 31 L. R. A. (N. S.) 835, and note.
The peremptory writ of mandamus applied for in this case should be denied on the authority of Earle v. Detroit Security & Trust Co. (Fla.) 138 So. 65, decided at the present term, wherein it was pointed out that the subject of discovery, interrogatories, inspection, and production of documents, etc., as applied to the parties themselves, in chancery causes is now controlled by sections...
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