Case ID: mich_30/html/0098-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "The Court", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The People on the relation of Alexander G. Comstock v. The Judge of the Wayne Circuit Court.
    
      Justice's courts: Dismissal of suit: Judgment: Appeal: Non-suit. The decision of a justice dismissing a suit on motion for want of jurisdiction for an alleged defect in the summons is held to he equivalent in effect to a judgment of non-suit, and is appealable.
    
      Semedy: Mandamus: Writ of error:' Dismissal of appeal. Mandamus is the proper remedy to correct an order of the circuit dismissing such an appeal on the ground that such decision of the justice was not a judgment, and therefore not appealable; a return to a writ of error would not regularly disclose the whole proceedings on the motion to dismiss, or the grounds of the dismissal.
    
      Heard and decided July 21.
    
    Application for mandamus.
    
    The relator commenced a suit before a justice of the peace, against one Francis W. Fifield, by short summons, and it was not stated in the summons that either 'party was a non-resident of the county. On the return day the justice, on the defendant’s motion, dismissed the suit for want of jurisdiction for this alleged defect in the summons. The relator appealed to the circuit, and the circuit judge, ón a special motion by counsel for defendant and appellee, dismissed the appeal on the ground that the decision of the justice was not a judgment, and therefore was not appeal-able. Mandamus is now applied for, to require the circuit judge to set aside the order dismissing the appeal.
    
      F. A. Baker, for relator.
    
      H. C. Wisner, for the respondent,
    argued, among other things, that mandamus was not the proper remedy.
   The Court

held that the decision of the justice was equivalent in effect to a judgment of non-suit, and that an appeal would lie; and that mandamus,- and not a writ of error, was the proper remedy, because the return to a writ of error would not disclose the whole proceedings on the special motion made by the appellee, and without them the grounds of the dismissal, under the order entered in the cause, could not be made sufficiently to appear.

Writ granted, with costs against Fifield.