43 W. Va. 207 | W. Va. | 1897
The County Court of Summers county passed an order that it appeared to the court that a dispute had arisen between the county of Monroe and the county of Summers as to the boundary line between them, and that a doubt existed as to the location of said line, and ordered that the circuit court lie applied to for the appointment of commissioners as provided by statute to have said line settled: and a petition was filed in the circuit court of Summers county, ashing it to appoint commissioners, and that court appointed three commissioners for Summers county; and a petition was tiled also in the circuit court of Monroe county, asking for the appointment of three commissioners on the part of that county, and the county
We must first see whether this Court has jurisdiction to decide anything further than as to its own jurisdiction to entertain this writ of error. T remark that a county is not strictly a corporation, but a public, guaní corporation. 1 Beach, Bub. Oorp. § 8. I doubt whether a county, as such, can sue in this (State, since, under the statute and Constitution, the county court is its perfect representative, performing its functions, and that court is by statute a corporation ; but, as this is not a suit dependent on legal title, the petition, though filed in the name of the county, not the county court, will bo held as substantially good in that respect. Coming now to the question of our jurisdiction, the Code of .1891 (chapter 89 section 38) provides that, Avhenever a doubt shall exist or dispute arise as to the boundary line between any two counties, it shall be lawful for the circuit court of the counties interested, or the judge in vacation, to appoint from each of them three commissioners “to ascertain and establish the true line so in dispute,” and that the. commissioners shall choose an umpire, and they shall take an oath to ascertain the true line in dispute, and make true reports of the same, and that they may cause surveying to be done, and take evidence, and that “when the disputed line shall be ascertained, fixed, and marked,” they shall cause to be made three plats of the line, and return one to the clerk of the county court of each county, and the other to the. secretary of State, where they shall be recorded, and such plats shall be evidence of the line. The circuit court heard this case upon the petition, answer of the county court of Monroe county, and other papers, just as if it were a lawsuit, deciding apparently upon the merits of the claims of the respective counties in a controverted line, and dismissed the application of Hummers county for the appointment of commissioners.
I will remark that this proceeding in the circuit court is in nature a law proceeding, to be entered in the law order book. It. has no features to give it place as a chancery suit, and ought not to be recorded in the chancery order book. That book contains only matters purely of chancery jurisdiction. All other matters which a circuit court does are to find their place of record in the common-lgw order book of that court. Its entry by the court, in the chancery order book would itself be reversible error, if we had jurisdiction. State v. Irwin, 30 W. Va. 421, (4 S. E. 413.)
Dismissed.