Court Opinion

ID: 9722931
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:56:19.564899+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:00:43.467490
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION
Draper, C. J.
I agree that the relator is not entitled to a change of venue from the county in the contempt *623proceeding and that he is entitled to one in the main action.
So far as prohibition is concerned, it is a preventive writ which commands the person or tribunal to whom it is directed, to refrain from doing something which the court is informed he is about to do. 42 Am. Jur., Prohibition, § 2, p. 139. In this case the respondent is not threatening to do anything further either within or without his jurisdiction, unless by his refusal to grant the change of venue from the county it could be inferred that he is threatening to try the main action in the face of a proper application for change of venue from the county. If such is the case, I think the respondent should be prohibited from so doing. He is threatening nothing else. He has rendered a final judgment in the proceeding, which judgment has been executed. See 50 C. J., Prohibition, § 18, p. 662. I see nothing to prohibit except as above mentioned.
So far as mandamus in connection with the contempt proceeding is concerned whether the court could revoke the commitment after the expiration of the term is at least debatable, and the writ should not be granted in doubtful cases. It is an extraordinary writ which can be issued only to compel the performance of a clear legal duty. 34 Am. Jur., Mandamus, § 36, p. 831. But in any event the court was never asked or requested to revoke the commitment. Courts will not be mandated to do something they have never been requested to do. State ex rel. Tonan v. Bottorff, Judge (1941), 219 Ind. 26, 36 N. E. 2d 766; State ex rel. Shoemaker v. Fry (1946), 224 Ind. 337, 67 N. E. 2d 142; State, ex rel. v. Jeffries (1925), 83 Ind. App. 524, 149 N. E. 373.
I, therefore, see no room for either mandate or prohibition in this case except to prohibit the relator from trying the main action and mandating the relator to *624grant the change of venue from the county in the main action.
The relator was charged with a civil contempt. The respondent had full and complete jurisdiction thereof with full power to decide the matter, but erred in rendering a punitive judgment. The test of jurisdiction is the court’s power to act, and not the correctness of its decision, for the power to decide necessarily carries with it the power to decide wrongly as well as rightly. 21 C. J. S., Courts, § 27, p. 38.
Certainly it must be unnecessary to cite cases to the effect that neither mandamus nor prohibition will lie unless the complaining party has no other plain, adequate and complete remedy. It seems to me that the relator’s remedy by appeal was fully adequate and complete, and he should have pursued that remedy. Surely that remedy was as adequate as the one he has pursued. If he had appealed, he might have been able to go free on bond pending review. As it is, he has in fact served his full sentence.
It seems to me that the majority has actually treated this original action as an appeal. That is not permissible. State, ex rel. v. Gleason (1918), 187 Ind. 297, 119 N. E. 9; State ex rel. Claffey v. Goett (1946), 224 Ind. 391, 68 N. E. 2d 497; State ex rel. Mock v. Whitley Circuit Court (1937), 212 Ind. 224, 8 N. E. 2d 829; State ex rel. Williams v. Goshorn (1942), 220 Ind. 369, 43 N. E. 2d 870; Gregg, Justice of the Peace v. State, ex rel. Branch (1898), 151 Ind. 241, 51 N. E. 359.
It may be that there was available to the relator an approach to the problem other than by appeal. If so, it was not, in my opinion, either by way of mandate or prohibition.
Note.—Reported in 100 N. E. 2d 676.