State v. Superior Court of Spokane County

• Decision Date: 25 July 1893
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE EX REL. TILTON ET AL. v. SUPERIOR COURT OF SPOKANE COUNTY ET AL. STATE EX REL. WASHINGTON SAVINGS BANK ET AL. v. SAME.

34 P. 431

7 Wash. 74

STATE EX REL. TILTON ET AL. v. SUPERIOR COURT OF SPOKANE COUNTY ET AL.

STATE EX REL. WASHINGTON SAVINGS BANK ET AL. v. SAME.

Supreme Court of Washington

July 25, 1893

Applications on the relation of Henry L. Tilton and others and the Washington Savings Bank and others for writ of prohibition to the superior court of Spokane county and others. Writ denied.

Stiles J., dissenting.

Turner Graves & McKinstry and Peacock & Boarman, for respondents.

HOYT J.

Relators sought by these proceedings to have the superior court of Spokane county, and two of the judges thereof, prohibited from carrying into effect two certain orders made in cases pending in said court. One of such orders removed a receiver theretofore appointed by the court, and the other appointed a receiver in another action, relating to the same subject-matter. Applications for writs of prohibition are addressed to the sound discretion of the court, and will only be granted when in the opinion of the court such action is necessary to protect the substantial rights of a relator from being interfered with by the action of the court in excess of its jurisdiction. Such writs are in no sense matters of strict right. This being so, it is the duty of the court upon such applications to examine into the circumstances surrounding the case for the purpose of determining as to the necessity of the exercise of the extraordinary power of the court in allowing the writ. In the matters at bar it is made clearly to appear from the two applications, and the records brought here in aid thereof that the only effect of the orders which it is sought to prohibit the court from enforcing is to remove one receiver of a corporation, and appoint in his place another person. Such being the effect of the orders taken together, they must, for the purposes of these applications, be given the same force as they would if made in the same case. The only ground upon which the relators found their claims for the writs is that the execution of said orders has been superseded by appeals duly taken therefrom, in which appeals sufficient supersedeas bonds have been filed and approved hence, if from such orders no appeal would lie, the writs must be denied. It therefore becomes necessary for us to decide as to whether or not orders of this kind are such as will sustain an appeal. It is claimed on the part of the relators that it must be held that they are, for the reason that they come directly within the letter of the statute upon the subject. The language of the statute is that an appeal will lie "from an order appointing or removing or refusing to appoint or remove a...