129 Ala. 275 | Ala. | 1900
Under this, act, twelve persons, on August 25th, 1899, filed their petition in the probate court of Henry county to establish a stock law for beats 6 and 21, and that portion of beat 16 lying south of the Shelby Mill Creek, wherein live stock should not be allowed to run at large.
The petition reads: “Notice is hereby given that we, the undersigned citizens, owning lands” in the beats above described, make application, etc. The petition did not set out that the petitioners resided in the district described.
Under tliis application the said court, at the November term thereof, proceeded and established the district as prayed for.
On the trial of this case, the plaintiff offered separately said petition and the order of said court establishing said district, and the petition of the twelve citizens applying therefore, to which evidence the defendant separately and severally objected as to the petition, because it was illegal, and further, that it failed to state that the petitioners were freeholders and.resided in the
These rulings of the court were clearly erroneous. The petition did not contain the averment of facts necessary to give the commissioners’ court jurisdiction of the subject matter. The ten “citizens” who it is averred owned lands in said district, might have resided in any other county of the State, or in any part of the county of Henry outside of the district described. It is not upon such persons the law bestows the privilege of making such an application, and upon whose application an order of the .kind prayed for may be granted; but the order may be granted only when “ten freeholders,” who “reside in such district,” make application therefor. The commissioners’ court, as has been uniformly held, in the exercise of statutory powers, as were here conferred, is esteemed a court of limited jurisdiction, and to uphold its proceedings under the statute, its records must affirmatively show the existence of the facts upon which its authority rests.—Joiner v. Winston, 68 Ala. 130; Stanfill v. Commissioners Court, 80 Ala. 287; Brooks v. Johns, 119 Ala. 412.
The order establishing said distilct was void and no action accrued to the plaintiff- in this case for any violation of it. If the court for a wrong reason rendered a proper judgment, it is error without injury.
Affirmed.