People ex rel. Comstock v. Judge of the Wayne Circuit Court
Michigan Supreme Court
Application for mandamus. The relator commenced a suit before a justice of the peace, against one Francis W. Fifield, by short summons, and it was not stated in the summons that either 'party was a non-resident of the county. On the return day the justice, on the defendant’s motion, dismissed the suit for want of jurisdiction for this alleged defect in the summons.
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Application for mandamus. The relator commenced a suit before a justice of the peace, against one Francis W. Fifield, by short summons, and it was not stated in the summons that either 'party was a non-resident of the county. On the return day the justice, on the defendant’s motion, dismissed the suit for want of jurisdiction for this alleged defect in the summons. The relator appealed to the circuit, and the circuit judge, ón a special motion by counsel for defendant and appellee, dismissed the appeal on the ground that the decision of the justice was not a judgment, and therefore was not…
1Opinion of the Court
The Court
held that the decision of the justice was equivalent in effect to a judgment of non-suit, and that an appeal would lie; and that mandamus,- and not a writ of error, was the proper remedy, because the return to a writ of error would not disclose the whole proceedings on the special motion made by the appellee, and without them the grounds of the dismissal, under the order entered in the cause, could not be made sufficiently to appear.
Writ granted, with costs against Fifield.
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