Court Opinion

ID: 9807500
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:07:15.180651+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:40:40.455063
License: Public Domain

Clare, C. J\,
concurring: C. S., 637, provides: ‘‘Whenever a civil action or special proceeding begun before tbe clerk of a Superior Court is for any ground whatever sent to tbe Superior Court before tbe judge, tbe judge has jurisdiction; and it is bis duty, upon tbe request of either party, to proceed to bear and determine all matters in controversy in such action, unless it appears to him tbat justice would be more cheaply and speedily administered by sending tbe action back to be proceeded in before tbe clerk, in which ease be may do so.”
This statute was passed in 1887 (chapter 276). As stated in Roseman v. Roseman, 127 N. C., 497, its enactment was caused by tbe inconveniences resulting from tbe course of practice prescribed in Brittain v. Mull, 91 N. C., 498. Tbe office of probate judge having been abolished, tbe duties thereof devolved upon tbe clerk of tbe Superior Court, and be bad, therefore, two sets of judicial powers — one in tbe exercise of the special judicial powers of bis distinct tribunal, and tbe other which be exercised for tbe court as its clerk, with tbe result tbat there was “oft confusion worse confounded.” This act, now C. S., 637, was passed to simplify tbe procedure. It was much needed and has worked effectively.
Roseman v. Roseman, supra, has been very often cited and is now tbe settled practice. See citations to C. S., 637, which bold tbat “Under this section tbe judge to whom a cause is sent by appeal, or otherwise, from tbe clerk, has the full jurisdiction to bear and fully determine tbe cause, or to make orders thereon and send it back to tbe clerk to be proceeded with by him.” Under this statute and tbe decisions construing it, when tbe appeal reaches tbe Superior Court, “on any ground whatever,” tbe judge has tbe right, under tbe statute, to assume jurisdiction and to dispose of tbe case as if it bad originally begun there.
It should be noted tbat tbe decision which formerly held tbat as to a certain class of cases a clerk bad no jurisdiction because be bad no equitable powers, was the survival of outworn ideas and without any foundation in tbe Constitution.
Tbe Constitution, it will be noted, absolutely abolished “all distinctions between actions at law and suits in equity and tbe forms of all such actions and forms.” No jurisdiction of any court or cause is now based upon tbe presence or administration of equitable ingredients.
*108Therefore, when a case goes up from the clerk to the judge, there is no distinction of jurisdiction based upon the ground of an action being equitable or otherwise, and when the case reaches the judge he is vested with full jurisdiction to retain the cause and proceed with it, or to make appropriate orders and remand it to the clerk to be proceeded with, and ■of this the judge of the Superior Court is the sole judge. His discretion in this respect cannot be reviewed by this Couyt on appeal.
The cases to the above effect are fully cited in the opinion-in-chief in this case, and others still are cited in the notes to C. S., 637, and other ■cases have been decided since the annotations in the C. S.
Indeed, there is nothing which deprives even a justice of the peace of the right to pass upon equitable matters when within the amount allotted for his jurisdiction. It is true that a justice of the peace cannot issue an injunction or mandamus, or take action in some other matters, but this is not because the Legislature cannot confer jurisdiction in those matters, but because in allotting the distribution “of that portion of the judicial power and jurisdiction which does not pertain to the Supreme Court among the courts inferior to the Supreme Court,” the Legislature has not conferred upon justices of the peace jurisdiction of injunctions, mandamus and other remedies. Const., Art. IY, sec. 12.