Judgment before a justice of the peace of the District of
Columbia against Key and Scott, and appeal to the Supreme Court of
the District with a Guaranty Company as surety on the undertaking
on appeal. Judgment in the latter court in favor of Scott, and
against Key and the Guaranty Company. Appeal to the Court of
Appeals by Key alone without summons and severance or any
equivalent, and motion to dismiss for want of parties, and want of
jurisdiction of such an appeal. Dismissed on the latter ground in
accordance with previous ruling.
Held: that an application to this Court for a writ of
mandamus to the Court of Appeals to reinstate the appeal and decide
the case on the merits must be denied.
The case is stated in the opinion of the Court.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER delivered the opinion of the Court.
William F. Roberts brought an action against J. S. Barton Key
and James P. Scott in February, 1901, before a justice of the peace
of the District of Columbia, and recovered judgment for $196.30,
whereupon Key and Scott carried the case by appeal to the Supreme
Court of the District of Columbia, giving an undertaking on appeal
with the United States Fidelity & Guaranty Company as surety.
The case was tried in the District Supreme Court, and resulted in a
judgment in favor of Scott and against Key and the guaranty
company. From this judgment, Key alone prosecuted an appeal to the
Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, without summons and
severance or any equivalent. Roberts moved to dismiss on two
Page 189 U. S. 85
grounds: (1) the want of parties,
Mason v. United
States, 136 U. S. 581;
Hardee v. Wilson, 146 U. S. 179; (2)
that the Court of Appeals had no jurisdiction on appeal from the
judgment of the court below in such cases.
The Court of Appeals had held in
Groff v. Miller, 30
Wash. Law Rep. 434, that such an appeal could not be maintained,
and accordingly dismissed the appeal in this case on the second
ground. 20 Wash.Law Rep. 436. Key then applied to this Court for
leave to file a petition for mandamus requiring the Court of
Appeals to reinstate the appeal and proceed to a hearing and
determination of the same on the merits. Leave was granted, and due
return has been made to a rule entered on the petition thereupon
filed.
The case could not have been brought here on appeal or writ or
error. Code District of Columbia, § 233. And no application for
certiorari was made under § 234. Act of March 3, 1901, 31 Stat.
1189, c. 854.
The controversy in respect of appeals to the Court of Appeals
from judgments in the Supreme Court of the District in cases
appealed from justices of the peace, raised under sections 82 and
226 of the act of 1901, was not only disposed of by the Court of
Appeals in
Groff v. Miller, but determined by the repeal
of section 82 by the Act of June 30, 1902. 32 Stat. c. 1329.
The writ of mandamus cannot be used to perform the office of an
appeal or writ of error, and does not lie to review a final
judgment or decree sustaining a plea to the jurisdiction, even if
no appeal or writ of error is given by law. It is not granted in
doubtful cases, or where there is another adequate remedy, and
whether it shall go or not usually rests in the sound discretion of
the court. If sometimes demandable
ex debito justitiae, it
is certainly not on a record like this.
American Construction
Company v. Jacksonville Railway Company, 148
U. S. 379;
In re Rice, 155
U. S. 403; High on Extr. Remedies, 3d ed. § 9.
Tested by these well settled principles
The rule must be discharged and the petition
dismissed.