Court Opinion

ID: 9610663
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:44:57.063177+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:03.139632
License: Public Domain

Bussey, Justice
(dissenting) :
While counsel apparently concedes that the Probate Court has jurisdiction of a proceeding to remove an executor, no authority for such is cited. Assuming, without deciding, thát the Probate Court does have such jurisdiction the Circuit Court, in my opinion, quite correctly decided that the Probate Court did not have exclusive jurisdiction as contended by appellant.
*179Under Article V, section 7 of the Constitutor the Circuit Court has original jurisdiction in all civil cases except those in which exclusive jurisdiction shall be given to inferior courts. The jurisdiction of the Probate Court of Chesterfield County is presently only that with which it was vested prior to the new Article V of the Constitution, to wit: only such jurisdiction as was vested in it by the General Assembly, but limited by section 19 of Article V of the Constitution of 1895.
I observe nothing in the statutory law which either literally or by necessary implication gives to the Probate Court exclusive jurisdiction in a case such as this. Assuming that the Probate Court does have jurisdiction, the entire case law of this State supports the conclusion of the Circuit Court that it has concurrent jurisdiction and that any jurisdiction which the Probate Court has is not exclusive. Stairley v. Rabe, McMullans Equity 22; Walker v. Russell, 10 S. C. 82; Witte Brothers v. Clarke, 17 S. C. 313; Witherspoon v. Watts, 18 S. C. 396; Epperson v. Jackson, 83 S. C. 157, 65 S. E. 217; Smith v. Heyward, 115 S. C. 145, 105 S. E. 275 ; Beatty v. National Surety Co., 132 S. C. 45, 128 S. E. 40; Davis v. Davis, 214 S. C. 247, 52 S. E. (2d) 192; Vasiliades v. Vasiliades, 231 S. C. 366, 98 S. E. (2d) 810. Additional cases holding the jurisdiction of the Court of Common Pleas to be concurrent with that of the Probate Court are collected in West’s South Carolina Digest, Courts Key No. 472(4).
In Davis v. Davis, supra, the Court held “In such matters as the Probate Court may be granted jurisdiction, it is no longer subject to doubt but that the Court of Common Pleas has concurrent jurisdiction on such matters with the Court of Probate.”