Rayner v. State

Alvey, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The first question to be determined is, whether this case is properly before us. The statute under which the proceeding originated before the justice of the peace gave the right of appeal to the Circuit Court for Charles County (Act of 1872, ch. 198, sec. 6,) and from the judgment of the latter no appeal or writ of error will lie to this Court, unless expressly given by statute. It is only where the Circuit Court has proceeded without right or jurisdiction to hear and decide the case that an appeal or writ of error may be taken to this Court to reverse the judgment thus unwarrantably rendered.

But here the statute, under which the proceedings were taken, byi express ³⁷⁵ terms, gave the right of appeal from the judgment of the justice to the Circuit Court, without giving any right of appeal to this Court. The judgment of the justice being against the present plaintiff in error, whereby he was fined and his boat and nets were confiscated, he took the appeal to the Circuit Court, and gave bond to prosecute that appeal with effect, or to abide the judgment of affirmance. Having invoked that jurisdiction and submitted himself to it, and the case having been regularly tried, he has no redress by an appeal or writ of error to this Court. If the Circuit Court had power and jurisdiction, under the appeal taken, to revise and reverse the judgment of the justice, either for the want of jurisdiction in the justice or upon other grounds, it had right and jurisdiction to affirm the judgment of the justice, and that judgment of affirmance must he taken as final and conclusive, as the judgment of reversal would have been, if such judgment had been rendered.

There is no pretence hut that the case was properly before the Circuit Court on the appeal, and that it was regularly tried; hut it is insisted that the statutes under which the proceedings were taken are, in several of their provisions, unconstitutional and void, and therefore there was no jurisdiction either of the justice or the Circuit Court to try and decide the case. But, whatever may be thought of the particular provisions of the statute supposed to he obnoxious to constitutional objections, and if the objections were conceded to he well taken, it does not follow that the right of appeal was not well and validly given, and that the Circuit Court would not have power and jurisdiction to hear and decide the case. It is true, the Circuit Court in hearing and adjudicating upon the appeal was not in the exercise of its ordinary common law jurisdiction, hut was acting as a Court of special limited jurisdiction, hound to observe and conform to the provisions of the statute, if, in its judgment, the statute was válid. Its judgment, however, rendered within ³⁷⁶ the limits of the special jurisdiction conferred, is not only binding, but is final.

This Court has no power to review it, and consequently the assignment of errors must be dismissed. The cases of the State vs. Mister, 5 Md., 11 , and State vs. Bogue, 5 Md., 352 , following the previous cases of Wilm.