Case Name: Poplarville Sawmill Co. v. A Marx & Son
Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 1917-10
Citations: 117 Miss. 10
Docket Number: 
Parties: Poplarville Sawmill Co. v. A Marx & Son.
Judges: 
Reporter: Mississippi Reports
Volume: 117
Pages: 10–37

Head Matter:
Poplarville Sawmill Co. v. A Marx & Son.
[77 South. 815,
In Banc.]
Constitutional Laws. Justice of the peace. Distribution of powers. Mayor as ex officio justice of the peace.
Section 3399, Code 1906, making the mayor of a town an ex officio justice of the peace, is not-in violation of section 2 of the Constitution of 1890, prohibiting members of one department of government from exercising the powers of another department.
Appeal from the chancery court of Pearl River county.
HoN. D. M. Russell, Chancellor.
Injunction by the Poplarville Sawmill Company against A. Marx & Sons. From a decree sustaining a demurrer to the bill and awarding damages, complainants appeal.
The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.
J. M. Shivers, for appellant.
The question is, has the mayor of a town the right to try civil actions in his capacity as a justice of the peace within the corporate limits of his municipality. S. C. Smith was the' duly elected and qualified mayor of the town of Poplarville for the term of two years from the first Monday in January, A. D. 1915, .to the first Monday in January, A. D. 1917. He was a mayor de jure, and under the statute was police justice and as police justice was ex offi.cio a justice of the peace in and for the corporate limits of the said town. The exact wording of the statute being as follows: The mayor or mayor pro tempore, shall he the police justice; and in either case the police justice shall be ex officio a justice of the peace in and for the corporate limits (Code 1906, section 3399). Under this statute it seems that the mayor is not the ex officio justice of the peace, hut that the police justice is and not only that, but in the alternative th§ mayor pro tern may be the police justice hut also may be.ex officio a justice of the peace.
If it be true that the mayor, by virtue of his additional office of police justice and ex officio justice of the peace is authorized by law as well as by the Constitution of the state to try civil actions, then would it not also be true that his alternative in the said offices, the mayor pro tern is invested with the same authority. And if the pro tempore mayor and police justice should exercise the right claimed by the mayor, police justice and ex officio justice of the peace to try civil actions would he be an officer de jure or de facto ? After long search we can find no authority for the establishment of a court for the trial of civil actions composed of a judge and a substitute to act in his place.
Smith was police justice and on account of this fact ex officio justice of peace, the mayor pro tern was . incumbent of both said offices with the same identical powers; there is nothing like this in the judiciary depart ment of the state of Mississippi or in that of the United States. If so, it would be a violation of the Constitution of the state of section 1 of article 1 thereof.
“The powers of the government of the state of Mississippi shall be divided into three departments, and each of them confided to a separate magistracy, to wit: Those which are legislative to one, those which are judicial to another, and those which are executive to another. Section 2 of article 1, declares that no person or collection of persons, being one or belonging to one of these departments, shall exercise any power properly belonging to either of the others. The acceptance of an office in either of said departments shall - of itself, and at once, vacate any and all offices held by the person so accepting in either of the other departments.”
S. C. Smith was mayor of the town of Poplarville, but not ex oficio justice of the peace, but on account of the additional office of police justice he held the office as ex oficio justice of the peace; hence he had no legal right to try any case, even of violation of a town ordinance as mayor but by statute he shall be a police justice; he may sit as a committing court in all violations of the criminal laws of the state committed within the county outside of the municipal corporation and of all felonies, and bind over the accused to appear before the proper court having jurdisiction to try the same, or refuse bail and commit the accused to jail in cases not bailable. “He shall also be ex oficio justice of the peace in all cases arising within the corporate limits of the municipality, and he shall discharge his duties as such.” In addition to this duty he shall, hear and determine all violations of the municipal ordinance and punish offenders therefor as prescribed. All these duties are such as belong to the police power of the municipality and of the state (see Code 19U6,' sections 3398, 3399), and he shall have a police court with the clerk of the municipality as clerk of the said court, and all other adjuncts to said court as is prescribed by Code 1906, section 3400. “Every municipal corporation is provided with, an executive head, usually styled the mayor whose duty usually is to see that the municipal ordinances are executed, and to preside at corporate meetings. Judicial duties are often annexed to those which properly appertain to the office, however, and he is authorized to judicially administer not only the ordinance of the corporation, but also the laws of the state, hut no jurisdiction to try civil cases exist in the mayor unless conferred upon him by charter or statute.” (19 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law (O. S.) p. 51 and note.)
The said S. C. Smith did not in this case-sign himself, or try the case in his capacity as police justice and ex officio justice of the peace hut as mayer and ex officio justice of the peace.
The mere fact that the statute makes a mayor an ex officio justice of the peace, in certain cases, and thereby annexes to his distinctive duties as mayor, an executive office, certain purely incidental police duties does not alter the paramount fact that the mayor of a town is, under the general law, distinctly an executive officer. All the judicial power which he may, as ex officio justice of the peace, exercise, is incidental, and not primary (see Code 1906, section 3377); Abbott’s Municipal Corporations, section 570.
“In some states he (the mayor) is authorized to arrest and try offenders against certain ordinances passed by virtue of the police power.” In these cases it has been held that the exercise of the power did not make him a part of the judiciary, the act is but an exercise of the police power.-State v. Armstrong, 44 So. 809. We do not consider that this attacks the decision of this court'in the case of Altman v. Walls, 71 So. 318, on any point. The said case having been tried on an agreed state of facts entirely different from those involved in the instant case.
This being in our opinion a void judgment and being without legal effect, it can be attacked at any time, and binds and bars no one. Lake v. Perry, 9'5 Miss. 550, 49 ■ So. 569.
We submit, that we think that the learned Chancellor below erred in dissolving the injunction in this case, and in not overruling the demurrer and making the injunction perpetual.
■ W. A. Shipman and Stevens & Cook, for appellee.
Appellant brings the case here to have this court pass upon the one legal question upon which it bottomed its bill for injunction. That question is whether a mayor and ex oficio justice of the peace can legally, try civil''suits within the limits of the municipality of which he is mayor. Or, as opposing counsel puts it in his brief: “Has the mayor of a town the right to try civil actions in his capacity as a justice of the peace within the corporate limits of his municipality.” We confidently submit that he has under section 172, Constitution of 1890, and section 3399, Code 1906.
Under section 172, Constitution .of 1890, providing that “the legislature shall, from to time, establish such other inferior courts as may be necessary, and abolish the same'whenever deemed expedient,” the legislature has the constitutional authority to give a mayor of a •municipality jurisdiction- of causes civil and criminal, within the municipality. The case of Bell v. McKinney, 63 Miss. 187, expressly holds that:
“Under article 1, section 31, and article 6, section 24, of the Constitution, .which provides that the legislature may establish in addition to the courts designated in the Constitution other inferior courts, and in case of the misdemeanors therein enumerated may dispense with the inquest of a grand jury and authorize prosecutions before justice of the peace or such other inferior courts as may be established,, it is competent for the legislature to invest the mayor of an incorporated town with the criminal jurisdiction of a justice of the peace, or to declare that the mayor of such town shall he ex officio a justice of the peace in the corporate' limits of the town in which he was elected. A mayor’s court thus constituted would be' an inferior court within the meaning of the constitutional provisions above referred to. (Pages 190-191 of the opinion.) ”
It is to be noted here that this decision was rendered • in 1885 when the Constitution .of 1869 was in effect, and that article 6, section 24, of that Constitution is in practically the same identical words as is section 172, Constitution of 1890, and that article 1, section 31, Constitution of 1869, is carried forward in article 3, section 27, .of the Constitution of 1890. It is manifest from a reading of these sections of the two Constitutions that the same constitutional authority existed when the case of Bell v. McKinney was decided as now exists. It. is to be further noted that in that case the briefs of counsel for both parties discussed the constitutional authority of mayors to act as justices of the peace. So the constitutional question as to that right was contended for and against and the opinion of the court was responsive to the specific question' The court upheld the mayor’s court as one authorized by the Constitution. The act of the legislature which was attacked as being unconstitutional in the Bell-McKinney case was the one conferring on mayors all the powers of justice of the peace in and for the several counties' in which theis respective towns were situated. ' Laws 1876, page 33. The provision or act of the legislature so conferring the prerogatives of a justice of the peace on mayors is in effect the same as sections 3398 and 3399, so far as the question at issue is concerned. So not only the sections of the Constitution but the acts of the legislature, relating to the question, were-the same then as now. Not only so, but the constitutionality of the act, making mayors ex-officio justices of the peace was threshed’ out by the parties and adjudicated, by the court in the Bell-McKinney case, supra. It is therefore decisive since dictating Riley v. James, 73 'Miss. 1, in which case our court referred to the said Bell-McKinney case as being decisive of the question under discussion.
We invite the court’s attention to the decision as being conclusive upon the question of what the court held in the Bell-McKinney case. It serves too as a re-affirmance of the principle laid down in the Bell-McKinney case.
We confidently submit that under section 172 of the present Constitution the legislature had authority to confer upon mayors the powers of justice of the peace within the corporate limits of their respective towns. This the legislature did do by section 3399, Code of 1906. Said section should really be read in connection with section 3398. The latter section creates the office of police justice. At the conclusion of the section is this sentence: “He shall also be ex officio justice of the peace in all cases arising within the corporate limits of the municipality, and he shall discharge his duties as such.”
. Section 3399, is in the following language: “Police Justices. — In cities having less than seven thousand inhabitants, the mayor and board of aldermen may elect, at the time provided for the election of other officers by them., a police juátice, and, when necessary may elect a police justice pro tempore; and in all towns, villages and other municipalities where a police justice is not elected, the mayor, or mayor pro tempore, shall be the police justice; and in either case the police justice shall be ex officio a justice of the peace in and for the corporate limits.”
Our supreme court by" necessary inference if not by positive and unequivocal language, has upheld the statute conferring upon mayors the prerogatives of a justice of the peace in every variety of case. For instance, every variety of civil ease has been passed upon by mayors acting in their capacity as ex officio justices of the peace within their corporate limits or beyond their corporate limits where a justice of the peace as such could act beyond Ms district, and all of these cases have been uniformly upheld on appeal; likewise, our supreme court reports abound in decisions upholding convictions in every variety of criminal cases had before mayors acting in their capacity as ex officio justices of the peace. We refer especially to the following cases without undertaHng to collate all of the cases of like character: Smith v. Jones, 65 Miss. 276, 3 So. 740; Burnett v. State, 72 Miss. 994; Nickles v. Kendricks, 73 Miss. 711; Brown v. State, 75 Miss. 842; Washington v. State, 93 Miss. 270, 46 So. 539; McAlister v. City of Moss Point, 51 So. 403; Washington v. State, 93 Miss. 270, 46 So., 539; City of Laurel v. Turner, 96 Miss.-631, 51 So. 403; Ex parte Dickson, 89 Miss. 778, 42 So. 233. Our argument is this: That if under our scheme provided by the Constitution and followed up by legislative enactment a mayor may sit as a court exercising judicial functions to try men for crime, a fortiori may he sit as judge in passing upon his property rights under the Constitution and the legislative enactment conferring this power upon him. There is as much of the judicial function brought into play in the trial of criminal matters as in the trial of civil matters. The same objection to the exercise by the mayor of the judicial function when primarily he is an executive officer may be urged against him whether he be trying men for crime or be determining their respective civil rights. So when it is admitted or found .to be true that mayors may try men for crime it necessarily . follows that he may act as judge in the trial of their property rights. We submit that section 2 of the' Constitution invoked by opposing counsel has no application here because section 172 of the Constitution authorizes the conferring upon the mayor of judicial functions. Furthermore, we submit that this inferior court is not within the contemplation of section 2 of the Constitution and does not constitute a part of the grand division of the government of the state of Mississippi as declared in article 1, section 1 of the Constitution.
We submit that the mayor of Poplarville acted within bis constitutional authority in rendering- the judgment enjoined.
Opposing counsel cite the case of State v. Armstrong, 91 Miss. 513, 44 So. 809,. as being decisive in their favor, of the question here under consideration. ' In that case Armstrong was elected a justice of the peace ' and while he was holding that office for a regular justice beat and was discharging the duties of that office, which was an elective office created under section 171 of the Constitution providing for the election of justices of the peace, he was elected mayor of the town of Silver Creek and accepted that office and entered upon the discharge of its duties. An action was brought by the attorney-general for the purpose of dusting Armstrong, from the office of justice of the peace on the ground that the two offices, that of justice of the peace for his district and that of mayor for his town, were incompatible and for that reason and also under the constitutional provision of section 2 the action of Armstrong in accepting the office of mayor vacated the office of justice of the peace. The case went up on demurrer. All the court held in that case was that Armstrong could not hold those two offices.
The foregoing discussion is predicated upon the idea earnestly and confidently entertained that the mayor of Poplarville was a de jure justice of the peace at the time of the proceeding and the rendition of judgment complained of. Wé earnestly insist that he was a de jure justice of the peace but whether he was such or not is immaterial for the reason that at the time of the proceeding complained of and of the rendition of the judgment here enjoined he was exercising the duties of mayor and ex officio justice of the peace and was to say the least a de facto mayor and. ex officio justice of the peace when he assumed jurisdiction of the suit and rendered the judgment enjoined. "We invite the court’s attention now to a careful consideration of the case of B. Altman & Co. v. Wall, 111 Miss. 198, 71 So; 318.
In conclusion we desire to say, reverting to the discussion with- reference to section 2 of the Constitution, that there are'many of the creations of the legislature which would fall within the condemnation of that section if the narrow interpretation of the same is had as is being attempted to he had by opposing counsel. For instance, the hoard of supervisors of a county exercise executive, legislative and judicial functions, and yet their acts in any of these departments go unquestioned. Likewise, the Railroad Commission is an executive and judicial and to some extent a legislative institution of the legislature. ' The same is true with reference to. the draináge board ' created, already referred to herein. In fact there is an element of all of the departments in most every one of the organizations created by the legislature..
We therefore respectfully submit that the decree appealed from should be affirmed. ' •

Opinion:
Cook, P. J.,
delivered the opinion of the court.
Appellees instituted a suit upon open account against the appellant in the court of S. C.' Smith, mayor and ex officio justice of the peace for the town of Poplar-ville. Sumitions was issued and served on appellant. On the return day of the summons appellant appeared for the "special purpose of objecting to the jurisdiction of the court." This motion asked the court to dismiss upon two grounds, viz.
"I. The mayor and ex officio justice of the peace of a town is a public officer of the town and of the state belonging to the executive department; has no right"to exercise any judicial power over civil cases.
"II. Because the right claimed by said mayor and ex officio justice of the peace is a violation of the Constitution of the state of Mississippi, in that said Constitution provides in section 2, art. 1, that no person belonging to one department shall exercise any power belonging to another department."
This motion was overruled, and judgment was entered against the appellant for the amount sued for, and execution was issued thereon and levied upon certain named property of appellant.
A hill of complaint was then filed in the chancery court setting up the facts stated above and prayed for a temporary injunction restraining further proceedings in the premises. The temporary injunction was granted by the chancellor and duly served upon the defendants, appellees here. The defendants interposed a demurrer to the bill of complaint assigning the following grounds, viz.:
"(1) The complainant has not in and by its said bill of complaint made or stated such a 'case as entitles it, in a court of equity, to the relief' therein prayed, or to any relief whatever, as against these defendants-touching the matters contained therein, or any such matters.
"(2) Complainant shows by its said bill that the judgment rendered in the court of S. C: Smith, mayor and ex officio justice of the peace in and for the town of Poplarville, on the 3d day of January, 1915, was and is a perfectly good, valid, regular, and subsisting judgment; that it was unsatisfied at the date of the filing of said bill of complaint in this court.
"(3) Complainant further shows by its said bill of complaint that the execution issued on said judgment by the said ex oficio justice of the peace on the said 25th day of May, 1916, was? and is a perfectly good valid, regular, and existing writ of execution.
"(4) Complainant further shows by its said bill of complaint that the levy by John T. Boyd, marshal and ex officio constable, of said writ of execution on the 31st day of May, 1916, upon the property of the defendant in execution, the complainant here, and the return thereon, were and are a perfectly good, valid, regular, and lawful levy and return.
"(5) Complainant further shows by its said bill of complaint that the office of ex officio justice of the peace in and for the town of Poplarville was, on the date of the issuance of original process, on the date of the rendition of the judgment, on the date of the issuance of said writ of execution, and on the date of the return of said execution, an office under the law of the state of Mississippi, existing by virtue of a statute creating the same, the duties and functions whereof were performed by the person indicated by said statute and. clothed with the insignia thereof.
"(6) Complainant further shows by its said bill of complaint that the office of ex officio constable in and for the said town of Poplarville was, on the date of the service of original process on the defendant therein, the complainant here, on the date of the return of said process, on the date of the levy of execution upon the property of said defendant in execution, and on the date of the return of said execution to the court from whence issued, an office existing under and by virtue of the law of the state of Mississippi, created by virtue of the statute made and provided therefor, the duties and functions whereof were performed by the person indicated by said statute and clothed with the insignia of said office.
"(7) Complainant further shows by its said bill of complaint that it had a plain, adequate, and complete remedy at law for any and all grievances it may have felt it had in the premises.
"(8) Complainant further shows by its said bill of complaint that it has negligently failed to pursue the-remedy provided in such cases."
Prom a decree sustaining- this demurrer and awarding damages, complainant, still complaining, appeals to the court.
It is earnestly insisted that this court, in State v. Armstrong, 91 Miss. 513, 44 So. 809, holds that a mayor of a town cannot exercise the functions of á justice of the peace; the two offices being incompatible under Constitution 1890, section 2. As we interpret the opinion in that case, the court held that a duly elected justice of the peace vacated his office when he accepted the office of mayor. We can see no reason to question the soundness of this decision. There we had a man who had been elected to the office of justice of the peace by the electors of the district, and afterwards elected by the electors' of the town mayor of the town.- The statute ¡referred to in that case did not authorize, and probably could' not constitutionally authorize, a justice of the .peace to perform the duties of a mayor. The constitutional question raised in that case is thus referred to in the opinion:
' ' The question here is not so much whether the functions of the office of justice of the peace, which are judicial, are inconsistent with those incidental judicial functions which a mayor of a city may exercise as an ex officio justice of the peace under section 3399, Code of 1906, as whether the functions of a justice of the peace, which are strictly judiciary, are inconsistent with the usual, ordinary, and primary functions of a mayor of a city, which are strictly executive. The mere fact that the statute makes a mayor ex officio justice of the peace in 'certain cases, and thereby annexes to his distinctive duties as mayor, an executive, office, certain-purely incidental police duties, does not alter the paramount fact that the mayor of a town is, under the general law, distinctly an executive officer."
The situation in the Armstrong Case was not, as in this case, a mayor exercising the powers of a justice of the peace under the statute within the corporate limits of the town of which he was mayor, , but just the reverse. All the court decided-in the Armstrong Case was that a judicial officer vacated his office when he accepted an executive office.
In this case the statute which makes a mayor of a town ex officio a justice of the peace within the corporate limits of the town is challenged. To • put the question in another way: Is section 3399, Code of 1906, unconstitutional? We do not think that the Armstrong Case decides or considers this question. This precise question was considered and answered in the negative in Bell v. McKinney, 63 Miss. 187, which was cited and approved in Riley v. James, 73 Miss. 3, 18 So. 930.
In Heggie v. Stone, 70 Miss. 39, 12 So. 253, we decided that it was not competent for the legislature to clothe the mayor of a town comprising a part of a district with the jurisdiction of the whole district.
It has not been decided that the legislature could not create an inferior court by making the mayor of a town ex officio a justice of the peace, but this court did expressly decide to the contrary in Bell v. McKinney, supra.
So we believe that the chancery court reached the proper conclusion when it sustained the demurrer to the hill.
Affirmed.