70 Miss. 521 | Miss. | 1893
delivered the opinion of the court.
The record shows that this suit is really an action of trespass brought in a court of equity. The recovery is sought for an oppressive and excessive levy made by a sheriff of a writ of attachment, and is purely an action for damages for a trespass.
Sectiou 161 of the constitution does not confer jurisdiction .in cases of this character upon chancery courts. That section confers jurisdiction on chancery courts, concurrent with the circuit courts, “of suits on bonds of fiduciaries and public officers for failure to account for money or property received, or wasted or lost by neglect or failure to collect,” etc. This is not a suit for the failure of a public officer to account for money or property received for appellee’s benefit, or on her behalf; nor is it a suit for money or property wasted or lost by neglect or failure of the officer to collect under process in favor of appellee. It is a suit for the recovery of damages for an oppressive and grossly excessive levy, and § 161 has no application, and the court below was without jurisdiction, in our opinion.
But the court assumed jurisdiction, and, as this is the only error assigned, or apparent, we cannot reverse the decree overruling appellant’s demurrer to the bill of complaint.
It may be thought by some that the supreme court is forbidden to reverse onlyjftnai'judgments or decrees, where error from want of jurisdiction appears. But the all-sufficient answer to this suggestion is, that the framers of the constitution, with a clear apprehension of the distinction between final and interlocutory decrees and judgments, declare that no decree shall be reversed because of want of jurisdiction in the lower court. There is nothing'to even suggest that only decrees or judgments determining and settling the merits, were included in this constitutional provision. We are not to arbitrarily interpolate qualifying words or expressions to limit a constitutional inhibition. The language is plain, unambiguous, all-comprehensive. The purpose of this section of the constitution is to prevent reversals because of want of jurisdiction in the court below. In other words, a decree or judgment, in all other respects correct, shall not be reversed simply because the right decree or judgment has been rendered or pronounced in the wrong court. If the final decree or judgment cannot, in such case, be annulled or reversed by us, if the laborious result of protracted litigation, in its completed finality, cannot be reviewed by us, what reason can be assigned for holding that an interlocutory order — a single step in the progress of the completed litigation — may be reversed or annulled by this court? Rather, must it not be held that, if the final decree or judgment, the perfected product of the litigation, is irreversible here when the only error is want of jurisdiction in the court below, each step in the course of the litigation, resulting in that perfected product, must be held irreversible also?
That the inhibition laid on this court in this section of the constitution, is not confined , to action on final decrees or judgments, is manifest from a consideration of the startling
We are bound to uphold and observe and enforce the organic law as we find it plainly written; and, if inconvenience, incongruity and seeming absurdity shall mark the administration of civil law, we must not concern ourselves unnecessarily thereat.
The only error assignable is the want of jurisdiction in the court below to render the decree, and, as the learned chancellor entertained jurisdiction, under § 147 of the constitution forbidding a revez’sal in this court because of such error,
The decree overruling the demurrer is affirmed, and the appellants given leave to answer within thirty days after mandate filed in the court below.