Taylor v. The Board of Commissioners of Jay County

• Decision Date: 25 September 1889
• Docket Number: 14,757
• Citation: 22 N.E. 108,120 Ind. 121
• Parties: Taylor et al. v. The Board of Commissioners of Jay County
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

22 N.E. 108

120 Ind. 121

Taylor et al. v. The Board of Commissioners of Jay County

No. 14,757

Supreme Court of Indiana

September 25, 1889

From the Jay Circuit Court.

The appeal is dismissed.

D. T Taylor, R. H. Hartford, W. H. Williamson and J. A. Jaqua, for appellants.

T Bosworth and F. H. Snyder, for appellee.

OPINION

Olds J.

This is an action upon a contract entered into between the appellants and appellees, by which the appellees employed the appellants as the attorneys for Jay county for a period of three years from December 5th, 1887, for a price stated, payable quarterly.

The appellants brought suit for one quarter's salary, and recovered judgment in the court below, and afterwards brought this action upon the judgment rendered, and for two quarters' salary in addition thereto.

An answer in several paragraphs was filed to the complaint in this cause, and at this stage of the proceedings the appellees moved for a stay of the proceedings in this cause until a decision was had in the Supreme Court in the original cause, supporting the motion by the affidavit of one of the board of commissioners setting forth the fact of the prosecution of the former action on the contract to final judgment in the circuit court, and that an appeal had been taken, which was now pending in this court, which involved the validity of the contract sued upon.

The court heard the motion, and ordered "a stay of the proceedings until said cause now pending in the Supreme Court shall be finally decided, unless it should hereafter be made to appear to the satisfaction of the court upon application that a stay until said time ought not to be granted."

The appellants excepted to the order of the court, and notified the court that "they reserved the question, and would take the same to the Supreme Court upon a bill of exceptions only," and filed their bill of exceptions, setting out all the pleadings, motions, and orders of the court in the cause up to that time, and from such order of the court this appeal is prosecuted.

The appellees move to dismiss the appeal, for the reasons that "the order of the court from which the appeal is taken is an interlocutory order, from which no appeal will lie," and that "no final judgment was rendered in the lower court from which an appeal can be taken."

Appellants assume that the appeal is properly taken under section 630, R. S. 1881, and proceed to discuss the alleged error of the court in granting a stay of the proceedings.

Section 630 only points out how questions of law decided by the court during the progress of the cause may be reserved for the decision of the Supreme Court, and does not authorize an appeal for the decision of such questions before final...