State Ex Rel. Tate v. Commissioners of Haywood County

Citations

• 29 S.E. 60
• 122 N.C. 661
• 1898 N.C. LEXIS 324

Syllabus

<p>Mandamus — Jurisdiction—Superior Court— Circuit Criminal Court — Constitutional Lato.</p> <p>1. Under the Statutes of this State the Superior Court alone has jurisdiction of mandamus proceedings.</p> <p>2. While the General Assembly may, under the provisions of Section 12, Article IV, of the Constitution, give to any circuit court, or any other court it may erect, original jurisdiction, either exclusive or concurrent with the Superior Court of all matters, civil as well as criminal, arising in the county or counties for which such court is established, subject to the right of appeal therefrom to the superior court created by the Constitution provided, as to concurrent matters such inferior Court first acquires jurisdiction, yet it cannot emasculate the Superior Courts by transferring the concurrent jurisdiction of cases, which have originated and are pending in them, downwards to the circuit or other inferior courts.</p> <p>8. Section 2 of Chapter 6, Acts of 1897, providing that the Judge of Criminal Circuit Court for Buncombe, Madison, Henderson and Haywood Counties, in addition to the existing criminal jurisdiction, “shall have also, as to all civil business originating and pending in said counties, or either of them, concurrent, equal jurisdiction, power and authority with the judges of the Superior Courts to be exercised at chambers or elsewhere in said counties, in all respects as the judges of the Superior Courts have such power, jurisdiction and authority,” is unconstitutional for the reason that, instead of being an allotment and distribution of a portion of the jurisdiction of the Superior Courts provided for in Section 12 of Article IV of the Constitution, it is, pro tanto, an abolition of the Superior Courts.</p> <p>4. The Judge of the Criminal Circuit Court of Buncombe, Madison, Henderson and Haywood Counties has no jurisdiction of a proceeding in mandamus under Section 2, Chapter 6, Acts of 1897, although the case was entitled in and the summons issu