Court Opinion

ID: 9864842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:13:46.384835+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:32:13.182612
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Burke,
dissenting.
I think the court’s conclusion wrong. This was a suit under the Declaratory Judgments Act to determine a right. The actual existence of a controversy and the infringement of the right, if right there were, are unquestioned. The trial court, however, merely sustained a demurrer for want of facts. That disposition can only be upheld on the theory that the complaint presented nothing for adjudication under the act, a theory first negatived by the pleading itself and now by the court’s opinion. The constitutionality of the statute and the existence of the questioned right, on both of which the trial court failed to pass, are now adjudicated by this tribunal. We have thus acted as a trial court instead of limiting our jurisdiction to that review to which we are restricted by the Constitution.
I think, irrespective of the correctness of certain conclusions reached on questions of construction, this judgment should be reversed and the cause remanded.