Court Opinion

ID: 9824603
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 10:57:45.747933+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:39:52.769562
License: Public Domain

*706On Petition for Rehearing.
After the foregoing opinion was handed down, to wit, on August 26, 1909, there was filed in this court in this cause the writ of error sued out and filed in the trial court October 8, 1907, and a petition for rehearing, attached to which is a waiver of issuance of summons in error dated December 5, 1907, alleged to have been filed in this court, with averment, in effect, that plaintiff in error, being in doubt which way to nroceed, had sought to bring this case here both by proceeding in error with petition in error and transcript and by writ of error pursuant to the federal appellate procedure in force in the Indian Territory by Act Cong. March 3, 1905, c. 1479, § 12, 33 Stat. 1081 (U. S. Comp. St. Supp. 1907, p. 208), and that this case is properly here under said act. We do not think so for the reason that, as nothing was done during the life of said writ and pursuant thereto to lodge the transcript in this court, it became functus officio after the time for making return thereunder had passed, and its subsequent filing in this court amounted to nothing. This was, in effect, the ground upon which the court dismissed the appeal in Castro v. U. S., 3 Wall. 46, 18 L. Ed. 163, and Villabolos v. U. S., 6 How. 81, 12 L. Ed. 352, speaking of which the court in Mussina v. Cavazos et al., 6 Wall. 355, 18 L. Ed. 810, said:
“The ground of that decision, and also of the case of Villabolos v. U. S., 6 Plow. 81, 12 L. Ed. 352, which preceded it, is the general principle that all writs which have not been served, and under which nothing has been done expire on the day to which they were made returnable. They po longer confer any authority, an attempt to act under them is a nullity, and new writs are necessary, if the party wishes to proceed. * * * In these cases the appeals were dismissed because no returns of the transcript to this court were made until by analogy to the writ of error the time for making such returns had passed; and the writs, if writs had been issued, would have become functus officio.”
The petition for rehearing is denied.
All the Justices concur.