Case ID: ohio_2/html/0186-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

*William Vancleve v. Ralph Wilson.
    In cases certified to court of common pleas, upon attachment from justices of the peace, the jurisdiction of common pleas is original, not appellate.
    This case was commenced by attachment before a justice of the peace, for the sum of sixty-four dollars and ninety-ono cents. A garnishee was summoned, in whose hands eleven dollars and thirty-one and a half cents were secured. Afterward, an affidavit was made, and the justice issued an attachment against lands and tenements. The officer returned a levy upon lands, and the justice certified his proceedings, with the return of the officer, to the court of common pleas. The defendant appeared in the court of common pleas, and entered bail, pleaded to the action, and went to trial. The jury gave a verdict of fifty-six dollars for the plaintiff, and the defendant appealed to the Supreme Court of Montgomery county, where the proceedings were all had. The plaintiff moved to quash the appeal, and the decision of the motion was adjourned to this court.
    Munger and Fales, in support of the motion:
    22 Ohio Laws, sec. 99, p. 72. In civil cases, an appeal shall be allowed of course, to the Supreme Court, from any judgment or decree rendered in the court of common pleas, in which such court had original jurisdiction. Id., p. 50, sec. 2. Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction from the court of common pleas in all cases in which the court of common pleas has original jurisdiction.
    Id., p. 50, sec. 4. Courts of common pleas shall have original jurisdiction in all civil cases, both in law and equity, where the sum or matter in dispute exceeds the jurisdiction of justices of the peace, and appellate jurisdiction from the decision of the justices of the peace in their respective counties, in all cases.
    The amount claimed and proved did not exceed the jurisdiction of justices of the peace.
    The Supreme Court, therefore, could not have appellate jurisdiction by virtue of the foregoing section defining its appellate powers.
    N either does the law regulating attachments give the Supreme Court appellate jurisdiction in this case.
    *It is a well-settled principle, that when jurisdiction is given to a court, the presumption is that it was intended by the legislature to be final, unless that presumption is repelled by some provision of law. There is no such provision of law.
    In 22 Ohio laws, 157, section 22, it is provided, when the justice certifies his proceedings to the court of common pleas, that there shall be had thereon the same proceedings as in other cases of attachment, sued out originally from the court of common pleas.
    The legislature could not have intended, by this, to give an appeal to the Supreme Court, but to give the court of common pleas full power, in the suits thus brought before them, to enable them to order sale of property, etc., in the same manner as if the suit had been originated in the court of common pleas.
    Stoddard, for defendant, submitted no argument.
   By the Court:

Section 17 of the act regulating attachments before justices of the peace, passed in 1816, under which these proceedings were had, gives jurisdiction of the cause to the court of common pleas. This jurisdiction can not be appellate, for nothing is appealed from; no judgment is rendered to be revised, and the cause does not come into the court of common pleas by any act of either party, but in consequence of a legal duty imposed upon the justice. The proceedings in the court of common pleas, in taking bail, filing declaration, and other proceedings, and in the trial of the cause, are all essentially of the original character. The jurisdiction, therefore, must be original, and the motion to quash the appeal is overruled. 
      
       Note by the Editor. — See note to the case on page 28, ii.