Weiskittle v. State ex rel. Samuel

Stone, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Two questions have been presented in this record for our consideration. 1st. Whether a party in a civil action has, since the amendment made to the. Constitution, by the Act of ISW, chap. 364, the right to remove his case to a different circuit, if he should so elect? 2nd.

Whether a removal of the case from the Court of Common Pleas to the Superior Court of Baltimore City, is a removal “to some other Court,” as provided for by sec. 8 of Aft. 4 of the Constitution? It is enough for the purpose of this decision to say,' that none of the Constitutions that have been in force in this State, ever gave to the party seeking the removal of his case, the right to determine that it should go to a different circuit, except the Constitution of 186L That Constitution did give the party applying for a removal, the unrestricted right to have his case removed, to a different circuit, if he should so elect. ¹⁵⁷ After an experience of seven years it was found that the 8th section of the 4th Article of the Constitution of 1867, (the section that relates to removals,) did not work well in practice, and it was amended by the Act of 1874, ch. 364, which was adopted by the people, and is now a part of the organic law. It is asserted in the preamble of that Act, that it was to “supersede and stand in the place of sec. 8th, of Art. 4.’' The whole subject of removals was dealt with in that Act, and the original section in the Constitution of 1867 entirely recast. In the amendment, the right of election contained in the original section was omitted, and we cannot doubt, upon either reason or authority, that such an omission operated as a repeal of this right of election, and that now it rests in the discretion of the Court, from which the removal is sought, to send the case to some other Court having jurisdiction, either within or without the circuit, as it may think best.

We may concede that a repeal of a statute by implication is not favored by law. But where a new statute is passed, which is declared in terms to be a substitute for the old, and which embraces the whole subject-matter, those parts of the old statute which are left out in the; new, are repealed and annulled. We must presume that such a statute was made for some purpose, and that purpose must necessarily be either the addition of some provision not in the old, or the repeal of something that is in it, or for both purposes. When therefore an important provision in the old statute is omitted from the new, (which was intended as a