Case Name: Judge v. Kahl et al.
Court: Iowa Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Iowa
Decision Date: 1888-05-18
Citations: 74 Iowa 486
Docket Number: 
Parties: Judge v. Kahl et al.
Judges: 
Reporter: Iowa Reports
Volume: 74
Pages: 486–487

Head Matter:
Judge v. Kahl et al.
Intoxicating Liquors : enjoining nuisance : removal of plaintiff from county. An action to enjoin as a nuisance the sale of intoxicating liquors can he begun only by a citizen of the county where the nuisance exists, but his right to prosecute it to judgment does not cease upon his removal from the county.
Appeal from Clinton District Court. — Hon. W. P. Brannan, Judge. '
Filed, May 18, 1888.
Action in equity to enjoin the defendants. from maintaining a nuisance. Plaintiff was a citizen of the county when the suit was instituted, but afterwards removed to another county in the state. The defendants then moved the court to vacate the temporary injunction, on the ground that plaintiff, not then being a citizen of the county, was not entitled to maintain the action; it having been brought under chapter sixty-six, Acts Twenty-first General Assembly. The district court sustained the motion, and plaintiff appeals from that order.
J. 8. Darling, for appellant.
Walter I. Hayes and A. L. Schuyler, for appellees.

Opinion:
Reed, J.
The statute provides that any citizen of the county may institute and maintain an action of this character in his own name. Chapter 66, Acts 21st Gen. Assem. sec. 1. In Applegate v. Winebrenner, 66 Iowa, 67, we held that the action could not be maintained by a person not a citizen or resident of the county where it was instituted. Under the language of the statute, the right, i. e., the right to institute the suit, is clearly dependent on the residence or citizenship of the party in the county; but we are of the 'opinion that when that right has attached, and the suit has been instituted, the right to prosecute it to judgment does not terminate by the removal of the party to another county. The language of the statute is that " nothing in this section shall prevent any citizen of a county from instituting and maintaining in his own name an action," etc. It may be said that two rights are conferred by this language, viz., the right to institute the suit in his own name, and the right to prosecute to judgment; and that both are dependent on the citizenship of the party in the county. But it is his citizenship when the suit is instituted that is referred to, and it is upon that fact that both rights depend. This is the fair import of the words made use of, and there is nothing in the nature of the case requiring them to be construed in any other than their ordinary sense.
Reversed.