114 Fla. 552 | Fla. | 1934
Prior to the rendition of the opinion of this Court in Hillsborough County v. Temple Terrace Assets Co.,
Complainant's remedy is by petition in the nature of an original bill in the nature of a bill of review, by which means a final decree in chancery can be directly attacked and set aside upon equitable principles, through resort to those equitable processes which are not collateral but direct in their nature.
To maintain a proceeding in prohibition after final decree in equity to restrain the ordering of processes about to be issued to enforce such a decree, the decree attacked must not only be erroneous or voidable, but must be wholly void and therefore subject to collateral attack. Otherwise, the remedy is a direct attack on the decree by an original bill in the nature of a bill of review. See Sapp v. Warner,
Where a chancery court's jurisdiction to hear and determine an equity cause has been once duly acquired by it *555 through proper filing of the suit and service of process upon the parties, the fact that the relief granted by a final decree in such suit is predicated upon an unconstitutional statute that the court necessarily had the right and power to decide was constitutional in order to grant the relief prayed for and awarded, does not make the resultant final decree void, nor is such decree rendered subject to collateral attack, merely because a court of superior appellate jurisdiction has, subsequent to the rendition of such final decree, declared unconstitutional the underlying statute upon which the final decree was awarded. This is true, although such subsequent decision of the court of superior appellate jurisdiction may afford equitable grounds upon which to directly attack and have reversed and vacated such final decree upon equitable considerations governing proceedings in the nature of an original bill in the nature of a bill of review.
The rule nisi in prohibition is denied.
WHITFIELD, TERRELL and BUFORD, J. J., concur.