Opinion ID: 2618323
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: pleadings and procedure

Text: The petition alleges that in refusing to transfer the requested funds during the period in question both the clerk and the administrative director  were acting without legal authority, and were in violation of the Oklahoma Statutes... . [6] (Emphasis added.) Defendants moved to dismiss for want of district court cognizance to rule upon the validity of a chief justice's directive, as well as for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. The trial court, which sustained the motions based on its conclusion that the defendants acted properly under the pertinent statutes ..., decline[d] to take a position contrary to the clear and unambiguous administrative directive of the Chief Justice... . Judgment went to the defendants. Trustees appeal and challenge both the chief justice's authority to direct the court clerk to withhold the payments here in question and the correctness of the clerk's action in refusing to transfer the funds. Trustees maintain their claim is not against the court fund but rather against the court clerk and indirectly against the Administrative Director of the Courts because the funds collected by the Court Clerk are ultimately transferred to the Director. We hold that the action brought by the Trustees should have been dismissed because (1) their claim is not cognizable in the ordinary course of adjudicative process [7] affordable by the district court's judicature; (2) the relief sought is clearly dehors the purview of the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act, 12 O.S. 1981 § 1651 et seq.; and (3) since the court clerk's rejection of the Trustees' demand stood rested on a chief justice's directive, their claim in suit was coram non judice.