Case ID: fla_15/html/0317-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "WESTCOTT, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

State of Florida ex rel. Pensacola and Louisville Railroad Company, vs. Hon. W. W. VanNess, Judge of the First Judicial Circuit of Florida.
    Where a Judge has determined that, under the statutes-of this State, he is disqualified from hearing a cause, mandamus does not lie to make him reverse that decision and to hear the cause.
    This cause came before the Supreme Court by petition for a writ of mamdamus to compel Judge YanNess, of the First Judicial Circuit, to try certain causes.
    The respondent set forth, for the reason of his making an order declining to hear the cause, that the parties complainants in the said causes were related to the wife of the respondent within the ninth degree. ;
    Respondent set forth the statute of December 6, 1862, which provides “that no Judge shall sit or preside in any cause to which he is a party, or in which he is interested, or in which he would be excluded from being a juror by reason of interest, consanguinity, or affinity to either of the parties.”
    The petitioners maintained that the Pensacola and Louisville Railroad Company was a party to the suit, and that the stockholders, who were interested, were not parties of re'cord to the suit, and, consequently, that the objection of the Circuit Court Judge to ‘ trying the cause did not come within the statutory restriction.
    
      O. C. Yong’e and JR. JB. JERlton for the Petitioners.
    
      Pa/py <& Barney for Respondent.
   WESTCOTT, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court;'

A mandamus does not lie in this case. The only duty which the Judge had to perform was the exercise of his judicial discretion and judgment in the matter of'determining his qualification. This he has done,' and this,writ does not lie to make him reverse his decision, even though it be wrong.