2 Or. 175 | Or. | 1866
This case develops but two questions: Was the recorder of the city of Portland an officer properly exercising the power of a justice of the peace in taking jurisdiction over civil causes? and, was the judgment below one admitting of an appeal ? Upon the former inquiry references are made to the Constitution of Oregon. Article 4, subdivision 1, section 23, reads thus: “The legislative assembly shall not pass special or local laws in any of the following enumerated cases, that is to say: 1. Regulating the jurisdiction and duties of justices of the peace and constablesand, article 7, section 1, in part, reads thus: “Justices of the peace may also be invested with limited judicial powers, and municipal courts may be4 created to administer the regulations of incorporated towns and cities.” In article 6, section 7, the Constitution declares that such “ township and precinct officers as may be necessary shall be elected or appointed in such manner as may be prescribed by law.” The number of such officers, their appointment or election, are subjects for legislation. Title 4, chapter 38, section 27, of the Code, provides: “ That there shall be elected at a general election, by the qualified electors of the several election precincts of this State, one justice of the peace,” etc. That section proposes that there shall be at least one such officer in each precinct, and that one shall be elected; but there is no prohibition to the appointment or election of as many more as the legislature at a subsequent time might provide. The legislative assembly has supreme power in enacting laws, subject to the Constitution and laws of the United States, and to the Constitution of Oregon. Their acts may be seeming inconsistent with each other; but when the rules of construction are to be applied to them, all State laws are of equal authority, so far as their origin is concerned,
Having answered the first inquiry in the affirmative, it will be necessary to decide the second. Under the statutes of 1855, in our courts, a distinction seems to have arisen between a judgment for default and a judgment on failure to answer. By that statute, in actions for money only, and also in other actions, it seemed that the entry of a default by defendant was necessary, and a precedent to giving of judgment. The statute seemed to provide in terms for that course; and in other causes than those upon contracts for money only, it was necessary, after default properly entered for plaintiff, for him to apply for further proceedings in order to
Judgment affirmed.