Court Opinion

ID: 9711410
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:31:12.110986+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:04.604736
License: Public Domain

Opinion on Rehearing
Mulroney, J.
We granted rehearing in this ease to allow the parties to argue the application of section 766.4, Code, 1950. *581That 'section provides: “Where forfeiture is entered before a justice of the peace, or a court of limited jurisdiction * * * such court * * * shall within ten days file the same, with a copy of all official entries in relation thereto, in the office of the clerk of the district court of the county * * *.” The section goes on to provide for judgment on the. forfeiture in the district court. The specific question, which was not argued in the original briefs, is whether the municipal court of Sioux City, which entered the judgment in this case, is “a court of limited jurisdiction” within the purview of: the above statute.
There is no clear line dividing courts of general and limited jurisdiction. In a sense all courts are circumscribed by boundaries of-jurisdiction in that there are circumstances under which their ¡jurisdiction will and'will not attach. The Georgia Supreme Court in an early case (Tucker v. Harris, 13 Ga. 1, 7, 58 Am. Dec. 488, 491) observed:
“The line of demarcation between courts of general and limited jurisdiction is not so definite however, as is generally supposed. It is usual to state what particular courts fall within the one class, and what within the other. But what author has undertaken to mark with accuracy and precision the boundary between the two? Bacon has not, nor has Blackstone, nor any other elementary writer.”
The question of whether a court is of general or limited jurisdiction usually arises in attacks on judgments. Broadly stated the judgment of a court of general jurisdiction need not set forth the jurisdictional facts upon which it is rendered while judgments of courts of limited jurisdiction must show jurisdictional requisites.* Whether a court is of general or limited jurisdiction depends on the nature of the jurisdiction conferred and it does not depend on territorial limitations or an amount in controversy range within which that jurisdiction is to be exercised. 21 C. J. S., Courts, section 2; Colagiovanni v. District Court, 47 R. I. 323, 133 A. 1.
The district courts of this state are by statute made courts of general jurisdiction. Section 604.1, Code, 1950. Mu*582nicipal courts are given “concurrent jurisdiction with the district court in all civil matters where the amount in controversy does not exceed one thousand dollars” except in certain specified cases. Section 602.14, Code, 1950. And in section 602.15, Code, 1950, it is provided that “in all criminal matters the [municipal] court shall exercise the jurisdiction conferred on the district court for the prosecution of misdemeanors * *
These statutes make it abundantly clear that the nature of the jurisdiction conferred is that of the district court or a court of general jurisdiction. It is not necessary that jurisdiction be exclusive in order to be general. Pursley v. Hayes, 22 Iowa 11, 34, 92 Am. Dec. 350, 368. If it be thought a bail-bond forfeiture is a criminal matter as pertaining to a pending criminal case, it is within the broad grant of jurisdiction of section 602.15, giving the municipal court the district court’s general jurisdiction “in all criminal matters” involving misdemeanors.
In the following cases municipal courts have been held to be courts of general jurisdiction: Enosburg Grain Co. v. Wilder, 112 Vt. 11, 20 A.2d 473; Town of Brighton v. Town of Charleston, 114 Vt. 316, 44 A.2d 628; McDevitt v. Connell, 71 N. J. Eq. 119, 63 A. 504.
It is our conclusion that the municipal court of Sioux City was exercising general jurisdiction in entering the judgment on the forfeiture and section 766.4, Code, 1950 has no application. With this addition our former opinion is reinstated.
All Justices concur except Mantz, J., not sitting.

This distinction is abrogated in tbis state by section 622.56, Code, 1950, giving a presumption o-f regularity to proceedings of courts of “limited and inferior jurisdiction.” See In re Appeal of Head, 141 Iowa 651, 118 N.W. 884.