Matter of Trammell, 323, 2017

Sussex County Dept. of Finance filed a monition action against a Seaford property for unpaid 2010–2015 property taxes, naming the assessed parties and fee owners.
Prothonotary issued a writ of monition on July 18, 2017; the sheriff posted the monition on the property and no answer or objection was filed.
After no response, the Department filed a praecipe on August 18, 2017 seeking a writ of venditioni exponas to order a sheriff’s sale.
George K. Trammell III filed a petition in the Delaware Supreme Court on August 15, 2017 seeking a writ of prohibition to prevent the sheriff’s sale, claiming heirship to Clifford E. Polk and that he paid taxes in 2014 and 2016.
The Supreme Court treated the writ of prohibition as an extraordinary remedy akin to injunctions and required the petitioner to show clear entitlement and lack of adequate remedy at law.
The Court dismissed Trammell’s petition because he failed to show grounds to challenge the Superior Court’s jurisdiction or that he lacked an adequate remedy; he also had not formally moved to intervene in the Superior Court monition action.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Supreme Court should issue writ of prohibition to stop sheriff’s sale	Trammell: extraordinary relief warranted to prevent sale of property in which he claims interest	Dept. of Finance: monition proceedings were proper and Superior Court has jurisdiction; normal remedies in Superior Court exist	Denied — petitioner did not show entitlement to writ or lack of adequate remedy
Whether petitioner demonstrated lack of adequate remedy at law	Trammell: no adequate remedy because sale would impair his claimed interest	Dept.: monition statute and Superior Court procedures provide adequate remedies including intervention and defense in that court	Denied — adequate remedies in Superior Court available
Whether Trammell properly intervened in the monition proceeding	Trammell identified himself as an "intervenor" in his petition to this Court	Dept.: Superior Court docket shows no motion to intervene; proper step is to move to intervene in Superior Court	Court noted failure to file motion to intervene in Superior Court and directed Trammell to do so if he wishes to participate

In re Hyson, 649 A.2d 807 (Del. 1994) (discusses extraordinary nature and purpose of writ of prohibition)
In re Hovey, 545 A.2d 626 (Del. 1988) (writ of prohibition keeps trial court within jurisdictional limits)
In re Wittrock, 649 A.2d 1053 (Del. 1994) (petitioner bears burden to show clear entitlement and lack of other adequate remedies)