Steele v. State Road Commission

• Decision Date: 30 April 1935
• Docket Number: 8173.
• Citation: 179 S.E. 810,116 W.Va. 227
• Parties: STEELE v. STATE ROAD COMMISSION et al.
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court

179 S.E. 810

116 W.Va. 227

STEELE v. STATE ROAD COMMISSION et al.

No. 8173.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

April 30, 1935

Submitted April 17, 1935.

Syllabus by the Court.

It is the general rule that a judgment of acquittal in a criminal action is not res judicata in a civil proceeding which involves the same facts.

Prohibition proceeding by A. A. Steele against the State Road Commission and others.

Writ refused.

Deveny & Furbee, of Fairmont, and Ritchie, Hill & Thomas, of Charleston, for petitioner.

Homer A. Holt, Atty. Gen., for respondents.

HATCHER Judge.

The petitioner herein was acquitted before a justice upon a charge of operating an automobile on the public road while intoxicated, in violation of Code, 17-8-25. He was arraigned later before the state road commission under Code, 17-6-28 upon the charge "that he operated a motor vehicle in a manner endangering the lives and property of those using the public highways." In bar of that arraignment, he introduced evidence of his acquittal before the justice. The commission ignored the acquittal, heard the evidence, which was practically the same as the evidence before the justice and revoked petitioner's license to operate an automobile. He then brought this proceeding to prohibit the commission from taking any further action to enforce the revocation.

The remedy of prohibition is preventive rather than corrective. Town of Hawk's Nest v. County Court of Fayette County, 55 W.Va. 689, 690, 48 S.E. 205. The petition does not aver what further action the commission should or may take. If we waive the uncertainty on that point, still the petitioner does not make a case. Prohibition lies when a tribunal has no jurisdiction or exceeds its jurisdiction. We have held that the commission has statutory authority to hear such cases. See Ellis v. State Road Commission, 100 W.Va. 531, 131 S.E. 7. Petitioner does not controvert that holding. He takes the position that his acquittal of the criminal charge before the justice barred any other proceeding against him based on the same evidence, and that when he introduced that acquittal before the commission, it lost its jurisdiction to proceed further against him. Under the statute, it would have been the duty of the justice to have revoked petitioner's license had he been convicted. He therefore relies specially upon Coffey v. U. S., 116 U.S. 436, 6 S.Ct. 437, 29 L.Ed. 684, which held that an acquittal of the criminal charge under a statute, comparable to ours, prevented further proceedings in rem against the accused upon the same charge.

The charge against petitioner before the justice and the charge against him before the Commission are not identical. While dangerous operation of an automobile is frequently coincident with intoxication, the former is not dependent upon the latter, and may be induced by other causes. So an acquittal of intoxication is not necessarily an acquittal of dangerous operation. Moreover, the rule pronounced in the Coffey Case is the minority rule. See annotation, 31 A. L. R....