Vitt v. Owens

• Decision Date: 31 July 1868
• Citation: 42 Mo. 512
• Parties: JOHN T. VITT, Petitioner, v. JAMES W. OWENS et al., Respondents.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

42 Mo. 512

JOHN T. VITT, Petitioner,

v.JAMES W. OWENS et al., Respondents.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

July Term, 1868.

In this case no counsel appear of record.

HOLMES, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

This is a suggestion on behalf of John T. Vitt, presiding justice of the County Court of Franklin county, representing to us that the defendant, James W. Owens, judge of the Ninth Judicial Circuit of this State, and others who are parties plaintiff in a certain cause pending in the Circuit Court of Franklin county, are proceeding in said cause in respect of a matter over which the said Circuit Court has no jurisdiction, and are therein transgressing the bounds of the lawful jurisdiction of said court. The suggestion is accompanied with an exemplification of the record of the proceedings in said cause, and prays for a writ of prohibition. To the rule granted requiring the defendants to appear and show cause why a prohibition should not issue, they severally make return, substantially admitting the facts suggested, and the case is submitted upon a demurrer to the return.

Giving all possible weight to the statements made in this return, there appears to be nothing in it which can afford any justification whatever in support of these proceedings, upon any grounds of law or equity.

It appears by the suggestion that the County Court of Franklin county had taken some steps toward submitting the question of a removal of the county seat of said county to a vote of the people, under the statutes relating to that subject; and further, that in the meantime the court was proceeding to make certain repairs, by them deemed necessary, upon the court-house in the town of Union. It appears further that certain citizens and tax-payers of the county (defendants herein), believing such repairs to be injudicious and unnecessary, filed a petition in the Franklin Circuit Court, stating the facts in detail, and praying the court to grant an injunction against the justices of the County Court to restrain them from any further proceeding in the matter of making such repairs; and, upon application to the judge of the Circuit Court in vacation, a temporary injunction was granted. It appears, also, that the presiding justice of the County Court was afterward committed to jail for an alleged contempt in disbeying said injunction.

The petition (as appears by the exemplification of the record) prayed for an injunction; the order granted is in effect an injunction, and is so called; but, besides the name, we discover no other element or feature in this proceeding which can properly be said to be of the nature of a petition in equity for an injunction. The County Courts have an exclusive jurisdiction over the subject of repairs of county buildings and the removal of the seat of justice. (Gen. Stat. 1865, chap. 36, chap. 137.) These matters belong to the administrative and ministerial functions of the County Courts, and not to the judicial branch of their jurisdiction; and for this reason it has been decided that even a prohibition will not lie from the superior courts of justice to restrain them from...