State v. White

Citation40 Fla. 297,24 So. 160
PartiesSTATE ex rel. REYNOLDS, Comptroller, et al. v. WHITE, Judge, et al.
Decision Date26 July 1898
CourtUnited States State Supreme Court of Florida

Proceeding by the state, on the relation of William H. Reynolds, as comptroller of the state, and John A. Pearce, as sheriff of Leon county, for a writ of prohibition directed to John F White, judge of the Third Judicial district, and the Florida Central & Peninsular Railroad Company. On demurrer to the suggestion for the writ. Overruled.

Syllabus by the Court

SYLLABUS

1. A decree which disposes of every question involved in a chancery case, leaving nothing open for future decision, and contemplating no further action in the cause, other than to enforce the decree, is final.

2. The judgment and mandate of an appellate court act directly upon the decree of an inferior court appealed from, without the intervention of any action on the part of the inferior court.

3. The maxim, 'Id certum est quod certum reddi potest,' will sustain a decree in equity which refers to record data in the suit for determining what is otherwise uncertain on the face of the decree.

4. Where the official capacity of a party defendant to a bill in equity had ceased before the entry of a decree in his name and subsequent to the entry of such decree the court, upon application of complainant, made the successor of such former official a party defendant in the place of such former official, the defect of parties at the entry of such decree cannot be made the basis for a bill of review at the instance of the complainant.

5. Circuit courts have no jurisdiction of bills to review decrees entered by them in obedience to the mandate of an appellate court, because of errors of law or fact alleged to have been committed by such appellate court in rendering its judgment, and the attempted exercise of such jurisdiction will be restrained by prohibition.

6. Where this court upon an appeal held that a circuit court should not entertain jurisdiction of a bill to review, for newly-discovered matters, a decree entered by it in pursuance of this court's mandate on a former appeal, without permission from this court granted one of the parties to apply to the circuit court for leave to the such a bill, and thereafter the circuit court granted leave to one of the parties to file a bill to review the entire decree, for newly-discovered matters, although the permission given by this court embraced a review of a part only of the decree this court will, under its power to issue all writs 'necessary or proper to the complete exercise' of its jurisdiction, grant a writ of prohibition to restrain the proceedings in so far as they seek to review those features of the decree not embraced in the permission granted.

7. Where the want or excess of jurisdiction relates to the subject-matter, and is apparent upon the face of the proceedings of an inferior court sought to be prohibited, and that court has made some order in the exercise of such unauthorized jurisdiction, prohibition will lie, even though no plea to the jurisdiction has been tendered to, and ruled upon by, the inferior court.

8. Prohibition lies to restrain an excess of jurisdiction, as well as to prevent a court from proceeding in a case where it has no jurisdiction whatever.

9. Where a party applies for a prohibition, and asks the court to prohibit another court more than he ought to ask for, yet if part of his request is well founded, the court ought to mold the prohibition, and limit it to so much of his request as is proper to be granted.

COUNSEL

William B. Lamar, Atty. Gen., for plaintiffs.

John A Henderson and T. L. Clarke, for defendants. On November 2, 1892, the Florida Central & Peninsular Railroad Company filed its bill of complaint in the circuit court of Leon county against William D. Bloxham, as comptroller of the state of Florida, and John A. Pearce, as sheriff of Leon county, Fla., praying that a decree be rendered adjudging:

(1) That the entire line of railroad from Jacksonville to Chattahoochee, and branches to Monticello and St. Marks, and the lines of its road from Fernandina to Cedar Keys, and from Waldo to Plant City, are covered by the exemption from taxation provided in the internal improvement act.

(2) That its several lines of railroad are exempt from taxation for state and county purposes for the period of 35 years from dates, as follows: The line from Jacksonville to Lake City, the line from Lake City to Quincy, with branches from Drifton to Monticello, and the line from Tallahassee to St. Marks, from --- day of ---, 1866, the date of their completion; the line from Fernandina to Cedar Keys from --- day of -----, 1864, the date of its completion; the line from Waldo to Ocala from --- day of -----, 1877, the date of its completion; the line from Ocala to Plant City from the date of its completion to the waters of Tampa Bay; the line from Quincy to Chattahoochee from the --- day of -----, 1874, the data of its completion.

(3) That its lines of road, and every part thereof, are not subject to the payment of the state and county taxes assessed against them in 1885 for the years 1879, 1880, and 1881.

(4) That each and every the assessments made by William D. Barnes, comptroller, for taxes for state and county purposes on its lines of road for each of the years from 1879 to 1886, inclusive, are illegal and void.

(5) An injunction directed to Bloxham, comptroller, and Pearce, sheriff, restraining them, and each of them, from making any levy or sale, or attempting the same, on the property of the lines of complainant's railroad on account of any of the assessments for taxes made thereon for the years from 1879 to 1886 inclusive, and from executing or attempting to execute any warrants of sale issued under said assessments, or either of them, and restraining said Bloxham, comptroller, from hereafter making any further assessments for such purposes, or for any purposes of taxation, upon the lines of complainant's road which are upon the routes between Jacksonville and Chattahoochee, or branches therefrom to Monticello or St. Marks, or on the line from Fernandina to Cedar Keys, or from Waldo to the waters of Tampa Bay, until the expiration of 35 years from the date of the completion of said several lines.

(6) That said Bloxham do pay to complainant all moneys which have been improperly collected from it on account of said assessments for taxes; and such other and further relief as to equity may appertain.

Such proceedings were had subsequent to the filing of said bill that on November 25, 1893, a decree was entered in said cause by Hon. John F. White, judge of the Third judicial circuit (the judge of the Second circuit being disqualified), as follows:

(1) That the several lines of railroad now owned by complainant, and described in the bill of complaint, to wit, the line from Lake City to Quincy, with branches to Monticello and St. Marks, the line from Lake City to Jacksonville, the line from Waldo to Ocala, and the line from Ocala to Tampa, are, and were in 1885, each and all subject to taxation as other property in the state of Florida, even though said lines of railroad were built on the lines indicated by the general internal improvement act of 1855-56, c. 610, Laws Fla., and under the provisions contained in said general internal improvement act, and at the time or times severally alleged in complainant's bill.

(2) That the several lines of railroad aforesaid, with the branches aforesaid, were not exempt from taxation for the years A. D. 1882, 1883, and 1884, and that the taxes thereon demanded of the Florida Railway & Navigation Company under an assessment in A. D. 1885, and paid under protest, as alleged by complainant, were lawfully exacted and collected from said company, notwithstanding portions of some of the aforesaid lines of railroad, or all of the same, were constructed under the provisions of the general internal improvement act of Florida (chapter 610, Laws Fla.), and notwithstanding said lines of railroad were built on the lines indicated thereby and therein.

(3) That the said lines of railroad properties are subject to taxation for the year A. D. 1886, and that complainant's prayer that defendants be enjoined from assessing and collecting the same for said year be, and the same was thereby, denied.

(4) That the taxes now attempted to be collected on said several lines of railroad owned by complainant, by the defendants Bloxham, comptroller, and Pearce, sheriff, under assessment made thereon in A. D. 1885 by virtue of a statute passed A. D. 1885 (chapter 3558, Laws Fla.), on the aforesaid lines of railroad and branches, now the property of the complainant, but which were so assessed on the same for the years A. D. 1879, 1880, and 1881, and which were assessed on them as the property, respectively, of the Jacksonville, Pensacola & Mobile Railroad, the Florida Central Railroad, and the Transit Peninsular Railroad Companies, were and are not liens on said several lines of railroad for the several years aforesaid for which said assessments were made, and were and are not assessable against the Florida Railway & Navigation Company; that said statute under which the assessments were made for the years last aforesaid was a special statute for the collection of general revenue, and did not provide or attempt to provide a uniform, equal, and just assessment or collection of taxes for the years A. D. 1879, 1880, and 1881; and that so much and such part of said statute of 1885 (chapter 3558, Laws Fla.) as attempts to provide for an assessment and collection of taxes for the years A. D. 1879, 1880, and 1881 is, as to complainant's said property, unconstitutional and void; and the state of Florida, by its legislature, having...

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