95 Va. 602 | Va. | 1898
delivered the opinion of the court.
A motion was made by the defendant in error to dismiss the writ of error awarded in this case.
The plaintiff in error did not attempt to controvert the fact that such contest had been made, and decided in favor of his opponent, but asserted that, if this were true, it was not competent to show it by extrinsic evidence; that this court could only consider the transcript of the record of che judgment appealed from; and that if from that it appeared that the judgment was erroneous, he was entitled to have it reversed.
"Whenever it appears or is made to appear that there is no actual controversy between the litigants, or that, if it once existed, it has ceased to do so, it is the duty of every judicial tribunal not to proceed to the formal determination of the apparent controversy, but to dismiss the case. It is not the office of courts to give opinions on abstract propositions of law, or to decide questions upon which no rights depend, and where no relief can be afforded. Only real controversies and existing rights are entitled to invoke the exercise of their powers.
When it appears from the record, or from matters of which courts may take judicial notice, that the controversy that once existed has terminated by lapse of time, the appellate court will dismiss the writ of error or appeal. Shumate v. Spilman, 10 Va. Law Journal 443,; Mills v. Green, 159 U. S. 651; and Cutcomp v. Utt, 60 Iowa 156.
In Sherman v. Com., 14 Gratt. 677, it was permitted to be shown that the plaintiff in error, since the judgment of conviction, had escaped from custody, and was at large; whereupon this court ordered that the writ of error be dismissed, unless it should be made to appear, by a certain day, that the plaintiff in error was in the custody of the proper officer of the law. And, in Leftwich v. Com., 20 Gratt. 116, it appearing to the ■court after the decision of the case that the plaintiff in error had escaped from custody, the court stated that if it had been informed of this fact before hearing and'deciding the case, it would have followed the same course that was pursued in Sherman v. Com., supra.
The record and affidavits filed in support of the motion to dismiss the writ of error establish that the controversy which •existed in regard to the title to the office of Attorney for the Commonwealth, at the time the judgment appealed from was rendered, was subsequently judicially determined by a court of ■competent jurisdiction, from whose judgment no appeal was taken, and the same remains unreversed, and in full force, so ■that the matter in dispute is not open to a further contention. If this court were to reverse the judgment, which it is here .sought to review, it could not result in any effectual relief to the plaintiff in error.
Writ of error dismissed.