Sherer v. Superior Court

Harrison, J. Certiorari to review the action of the superior court of Lassen County in entering judgment against the petitioner in a cause appealed from the justice’s court of township No. 1 in that county.

Whatever irregularities or errors were committed in the justice’s court cannot be examined upon this proceeding. The writ is directed to a review of the action of the superior court, and its functions are limited to such -acts of that court as were in excess of its jurisdiction.

[355]The provision of the constitution that the superior court “shall have appellate jurisdiction in such cases arising in justices’ and other inferior courts in their respective counties as may be prescribed by law ” limits the exercise of its jurisdiction to the extent and mode which the legislature may prescribe. The superior court can acquire appellate jurisdiction of a cause pending in a justice’s court only in conformity with the steps prescribed by the statute for taking an appeal from that court, nor can it, after such appeal has been taken, exercise any other jurisdiction in the cause than has been authorized by statute. Within the limits thus prescribed, however, its errors in the exercise of its jurisdiction, however gross or glaring they may be, must be submitted to as a part of the sacrifice which every individual is compelled to yield to the infirmities of human government. After its appellate jurisdiction has once been acquired, its action within the limits of that jurisdiction, unless in direct contravention of some positive statute, is entitled to all the presumptions of regularity that attach to the exercise of its original jurisdiction.

It appears from the statement of the case upon which the appeal was heard by the superior court that on July 25, 1891, judgment had been rendered in the justice’s court in favor of the plaintiff, and that on August 1, 1891, upon motion of the defendant, the justice set aside the said judgment, and afterwards, on the same day, when the case came on for trial, gave and entered judgment dismissing the action and allowing the defendant his costs. Thereupon the plaintiff appealed to the superior court, and stated in his notice of appeal that he appealed “ from the judgment entered herein on the first day of August, 1891, in favor of the defendant, and against this plaintiff,” and that “ said appeal is taken on questions of law alone, and from the whole of said judgment.” In due time thereafter, a statement of the case was prepared and settled by the justice, and when the matter was heard thereon in the superior court, that court rendered and filed its decision that the judgment