Weed v. Lewis

McSherry, J. delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal from an order of the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County, refusing to issue a writ of certiorari The facts alleged in the application for the writ are substantially these: On the twenty-second day of June, 1894, the appellee caused a writ of attachment and summons to be issued by a justice of the peace of Prince George’s County against the appellants, under which attachment certain property of the appellants was seized, and they were notified to appear before the Justice on July 16th, at 10 o’clock A. M., the return day named in the attachment. They failed to appear on the return day and the Justice entered judgment of condemnation of the property seized. In eight days thereafter the application for the writ of certiorari was made.

The application was based upon the assumption that the Justice of the peace ought, on the return day, and upon the failure of the defendants to appear, to have continued the case for not less than six, nor more than fourteen days, for trial; and also upon the alleged irregularity that no bond had been given before the attachment was issued. In the recent case of Gaither v. Watkins et al., 66 Md. 576, it was contended that a eertiorari ought not to issue in any case where a party has a remedy by appeal or writ of error. But this Court said: “We are not prepared to go to this extent. This much, however, we may say, that as it is a matter resting in the legal discretion of the Court, the ¹²⁸ writ ought not to be granted in any case where the party has a right of appeal, except for the purpose of testing the jurisdiction of the tribunal below.” Now, the Code of Public General Laws gives-to justices of the peace jurisdiction to issue attachments by way of execution (Art. 52, sec. 67, Code), also against non-resident or absconding debtors (Art. 52, sec. 39), and also for fraud (Art. 52, secs. 6 and 45), when the amount claimed in any of these instances does not exceed one hundred dollars.

It does not appear by the petition for the writ of certiorari to which class of attachments the one complained of belonged, but if it belonged to any and the amount claimed was not in excess of one hundred dollars, the Justice had undoubted jurisdiction of the subject-matter. If having jurisdiction of the subject-matter he subsequently proceeded irregularly or erroneously, this in no manner affected his jurisdiction and the