23 Ga. App. 212 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1919
The sole question in this case is, whether, by the terms of the act of the General Assembly creating it, the municipal court of Macon is given jurisdiction to try and determine issues made under dispossessory warrants. The legal purpose and intent of the act in this respect will suffice to determine the only question involved in the case. ' The Supreme Court has held that an act giving to a city court concurrent jurisdiction to try an issue formed by a counter-affidavit to dispossessory warrants is not unconstitutional as being a special law where there is an existing general law. McDonald v. Vaughn, 130 Ga. 398 (60 S. E. 1060).
In .the case just mentioned, the statement made in Stephenson v. Warren, 119 Ga. 504 (46 S. E. 647), to the effect that "exclusive jurisdiction over such a proceeding is, by statute, conferred upon the superior courts,” is stated to be obiter, since the point in the Stephenson case was not at all whether a county court had such jurisdiction, but pertained solely to the question as to whether or not such jurisdiction was in the city court of Moultrie. The ruling made in the Stephenson case, however, to the effect that the city court of Moultrie was without such authority was in nowise overruled. By reference to the act of the legislature creating the city court of Moultrie, and cited in the Stephenson case (Ga. L. 1901, p. 136, § 2), it will be seen that the jurisdiction of that court is at least fully as broad as that which is conferred upon the municipal court of Macon. The city court of Moultrie was given general and sweeping authority to "try and dispose of all cases of whatever nature, except cases over which exclusive jurisdiction is vested in other courts,” whereas the jurisdiction given to the municipal court of Macon is defined (Ga. L. 1913, p. 253,
While, as we have seen, the jurisdiction given by section 5388 of the code to the superior courts is not exclusive, since the code itself gives concurrent jurisdiction to the county courts, and since the provisions of various acts of the legislature creating city and municipal courts have legally given and may legally continue to give concurrent jurisdiction in such cases, still, before any other court shall have such concurrent jurisdiction, it must first have been actually granted to it by the law-making body. In other words, all dispossessory warrant cases shall, in accordance with section 5388 of the code, be returned to the superior court of the county in which the land lies, except in so far as concurrent jurisdiction may be or has been given, either under other provisions of the code or under the special acts of the legislature creating city and municipal courts. Can the language of the act creating the municipal court of Macon be taken as giving to it such concurrent jurisdiction? The summary process by which claims for rent are to be collected is that of distress warrant. The primary purpose and intent of a dispossessory warrant against a tenant holding over is to obtain possession of the premises thus wrongfully withheld. Section 5386 of the code provides that when the affidavit provided for to be made by the owner of the property against ten
The municipal court of Macon is given very large and important powers and functions, but it is nevertheless a court of limited and not general jurisdiction, and thus can claim only such jurisdiction and authority as has been specifically granted to it. The provisions of the act by which it was created confers general power and
Affirmed.
