Court Opinion

ID: 9528401
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:40:48.060149+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:05.879631
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion
Emmert, J.
Relator by this original action for a writ of prohibition seeks to attack what he alleges to be an attempt to enforce a judgment entered under the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act, §§3-3101 to 3-3120, Burns’ 1946 Replacement (Supp.), (Acts of 1951, ch. 224, as amended by ch. 148 of the 1953 Acts). The certified copies of the proceedings in the trial court made exhibits to the petition in compliance with Rule 2-35, fail to show any petition to cite relator for contempt of court for failure to comply with the judgment. Exhibit G is a bill of exceptions containing the evidence on the hearing had before the judgment.
One of relator’s contentions is that the finding of the Arizona court was a judgment without notice and ex parte as to him, and therefore in violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as decided in Pennoyer v. Neff (1878), 95 U. S. 714, 24 *232L. Ed. 565, and cases following it. It is quite evident from §3-3111, Burns’ 1946 Replacement (Supp.), it does not have the effect of any judgment, since it is limited to a finding that “the complaint sets forth facts from which it may be determined that he defendant owes a duty of support and that a court of the responding state may obtain jurisdiction of the defendant or his property.” The statute in no place makes this finding evidence in the Indiana trial court, and since the proceedings in the Arizona court are ex parte as to him, under the rule nothing will be taken by intendment in a special statutory proceeding, we are not at liberty to imply the finding or the complaint constitute evidence against the defendant on the issues stated therein.
An original action in this court for a writ of prohibition to the trial court is a direct attack upon the jurisdiction of the trial court, and, with rare exceptions, it has been used to correct a jurisdictional error before judgment.1 Section 3-2201, Burns’ 1946 Replacement, conferring our jurisdiction to issue writs of prohibition, authorizes us “to restrain and confine such circuit, superior, criminal, probate, juvenile or municipal courts, respectively, to their respective, lawful jurisdiction.” We have never held as a general rule that prohibition would not lie where the jurisdictional error could be corrected by appeal. Such a holding would virtually abolish the writ, but on the other hand the writ of prohibition should not be used to abolish the right of appeal after judgment where jurisdictional error is involved.
*233In this original action the temporary writ was improvidently issued, since the matter went to judgment, and relator’s right of appeal would be an adequate remedy. Amer. Aggregates Corp. v. Superior Court of Marion County (1935), 207 Ind. 544, 194 N. E. 148.
It is unnecessary in this case to attempt any classification of jurisdiction into the various rules as stated by the countless cases. Unfortunately mere definition of several classes of jurisdiction does not always solve the problems involved in the particular cases, and it is generally unsafe to use any definition as a major premise for determining an issue in any particular case. There is much conflict in the language in the opinions, and the words must always be interpreted in the light of the facts of the particular case. The correct result often depends upon whether the attack was a direct attack, made by prohibition before judgment, or a direct attack made by appeal after judgment. The reasoning in such cases may be inapplicable on an appeal from a judgment in a collateral attack. Questions of law as distinguished from questions of fact are also material in correctly interpreting the precedents. In view of the jurisdictional difficulties involved, the court is on safer ground to limit the relator to his right of appeal. Therefore, I concur in the result.
Henley, C. J., concurs in this opinion.
Note.—Reported in 125 N. E. 2d 794.

. In State ex rel. Wm. H. Block Co. v. Superior Court of Marion County (1943), 221 Ind. 228, 47 N. E. 2d 139, this court did prohibit the enforcement of a judgment entered by a special judge after the regular judge had sustained a motion for a new trial, and further mandated the special judge to expunge the judgment.