Case ID: thomp-cook_5/html/0167-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Talcott, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

People ex rel. Hallock v. Sleight.
    
      Certiorari — review of judgment injustice’s court.
    
    A common law certiorari held not to be allowable to review a justice’s court judgment, for the reason that the time for appealing had expired. The only mode of reviewing such judgments is by appeal, as provided by the Code, § 351.
    Certiorari issued upon the relation of George W. Hallock, to review a judgment recovered before Brinley D. Sleight, a justice of the peace of the town of East Hampton, Suffolk county.
    The judgment in question was recovered against the relator, under the name of Richard Roe, by one Nathaniel Dominy, for a penalty. The only papers in the case were the following writ and the return of the respondent thereto:
    “The people of the State of New York, to Brinley D. Sleight, Esq., one of the justices of the peace of the county of Suffolk, greeting: Whereas, in a certain cause lately pending in our court held before you, wherein Nathaniel Dominy was plaintiff and George W. Hallock, by the name of Richard Roe, was defendant, of a plea for a penalty, judgment has been given by you in our said court against the said George W. Hallock, as it is said, and we being willing, for certain causes, to be certified of the same, and of the proceedings therein, do therefore command you that the said proceedings and judgments, with the process, pleadings and all other .things touching the same, in as full and ample a manner as the same remain before you, distinctly and plainly under your seal, you send to our justices of our supreme court, at the court-house in Riverhead, in Suffolk county, on the 4th Monday of April next, together with this writ, so that our said Supreme Court may further cause to be done therein what of righ.t ought to be done.
    “Witness, Abraham B. Tappen, Esq., justice of our said [l. s.] Supreme Court, at the court-house in the city oi Brooklyn, the 18th day of March, 1874.
    “George C. Campbell, Olerk.”
    
    Such other facts as are of importance appear in the opinion.
    
      
      George Miller, for relator,
    cited People v. Fuller, 40 How. 35; People v. Wheeler, 21 N. Y. 82; 4 Wait’s Dig. 186; 8 Abb. Dig. 132.
    
      Geo. W. Whitaker, for respondent.
   Talcott, J.

This proceeding is an attempt to review the judgment rendered in a justice’s court by means of a common-law certiorari. The certiorari appears to have been issued without any application for the same, or any allowance by the court, but merely at the option of the attorney of the party against whom judgment was rendered in the justice’s court, and for the reason that the time for appealing has expired. The writ must be quashed. It is expressly provided by law that the only mode of reviewing such judgments is by appeal, as provided in chapter 5th of the Code of Procedure. Code, § 351.

The certiorari is quashed with costs against the relator.

Writ quashed.