Case ID: scl_12/html/0172-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Johnson\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Hartwell Macon vs. Israel G. Mathis.
    Where a Judg’e has granted an order to docket a cause, that order can only be set aside by the Constitutional Court.
    Tried at Sumter, March Term, 1821.
    A. MOTION was made before Judge Johnson, at the last term for Sumpter district, to strike this case from the writ of enquiry docket, on the ground that the declaration was not filed on or before the first day of the second term, after the return of the writ, as required by the rule of Court.
    In shewing cause against this motion, the plaintiff produced the following order, which had been obtained at Chambers, immediately after the. adjournment of the court on the last day of the preceding term, viz. “ Hartwell Macon vs. Israel G. Mathis. On, motion of A. Silliman, ordered, that this case be docketed on the writ of Enqui-ry docket, October 14, 1820.”
    “(Signed,) C. J. COLCOCK.”
    In reply to this, it was objected that this order was ex parte, and without notice to the defendant. But Judge Colcock reported, that he had granted the same motion in open Court, before the adjournment, in the presence of the defendant, who was also the clerk of the Court, and ordered it to be entered on the journals. That after the Court adjourned, it was represented to him that the defendant had neglected to enter the order, and refused to put the case on the docket, and he then gave the order above stated.
    Judge Johnson refused to grant the present motion, and the case came before this Court, on a motion to reverse that decision, on the grounds taken in the Court below.
    
      S. D. Miller, for the motion.
    
      W. F. De Saussvre Holmes, contra.
   Mr. Justice Johnson

delivered, the opinion of the court.

Whether the order in this case be regarded as having been granted at Chambers or in open Court, is wholly immaterial. In either view the Circuit Court had no power to rescind it -; one Judge has not the power of rescinding the decisions of another. But it cannot be otherwise regarded than an order, made in open Court; and the subsequent written order was only, an additional sanction to what had been previously done, intended to leave the defendant no excuse for disobeying it; and if the defendant was aggrieved by it, his remedy was an appeal to this court.

It is with difficulty I can persuade myself to think seriously of the present motion. To say the least of it, a more groundless one has never found its way into this Court; and the counsel would, I think, deserve censure, but for the well known-fact that the defendant was himself long, (perhaps twenty years) a practitioner, Well skilled in the technical rules of practice, and astute in their application. His pretence that he had no notice of the motion is without foundation, and his conduct as clerk, in refusing to enter the order on the journals, and to docket the cause conform-ably thereto, is highly reprehensible.

Justices Nott, Colcock, Richardson, I-Ivger and Ganttt concurred.