Court Opinion

ID: 9704660
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:42:13.559121+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:04.070121
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring specially).
Since I began, as a neophyte in the law, some 35 years ago, I was always under the impression, and still believe it to be the law, that an order to show cause is an ancillary proceeding and cannot spontaneously erupt, absent express statutory authorization, without a principal proceeding in existence. See 60 C.J.S. Motions and Orders § 20 (1969 and Supp.1986) (and authorities cited therein); 56 Am.Jur.2d Motions, Rules, and Orders § 34 (1971). Here, we have a child, in effect, the order to show cause, but there is no mother, namely a lawsuit from which the order to show cause was birthed. Ancillary is “aiding”; it is “attendant upon”; it is “describing a proceeding attendant upon or which aids another proceeding considered as principal.” It is “auxiliary or subordinate.” See Black’s Law Dictionary 78 (5th ed. 1979).
In reviewing the record in this case, there is no summons and complaint. There is no lawsuit. Beadle County has never been sued.
If there is no statutory exception, and there is not, the summons is a jurisdictional requirement. Black v. Circuit Court of Eighth Jud. Circuit, 78 S.D. 302, 101 N.W.2d 520 (1960); Ayers, Weatherwax & Reid Co. v. Sundback, 5 S.D. 81, 58 N.W. 4 (1894). See Fischer v. Iowa Mold Tooling Co., Inc., 690 F.2d 155 (8th Cir.1982). Where there has been a failure to issue or file or serve a summons, the court has no jurisdiction. Pearson v. Pearson, 312 N.W.2d 34 (S.D.1981); Deno v. Oveson, 307 N.W.2d 862 (S.D.1981). There is no way, procedurally, that simply mailing a copy of an order to show cause, to a state’s attorney, and that is the fact here, constitutes service on a county or any of its officers. The reason is, there was no lawsuit in existence upon which to predicate the order to show cause. Additionally, the requirement is patent that personal service be made upon a party to try to hold him in contempt. Thomerson v. Thomerson, 387 N.W.2d 509 (S.D.1986); Karras v. Gannon, 345 N.W.2d 854 (S.D.1984) (both citing Krueger v. Krueger, 32 S.D. 470, 143 N.W. 368 (1913)). See SDCL 15-6-5(b).
Therefore, the right and power of the lower court to adjudicate concerning the subject matter never came into existence because the proceeding was, inceptually, fatally flawed.