Hodges v. Ward

Decided December 15, 1846

Texas Supreme Court · decided 1846-12-15

This was an application to the judge of the second judicial district for a mandamus, to compel the deputy collector of the port of Mata-gorda to deliver to the appellees certain goods imported by them, upon the payment of the duties in the exchequer bills of the country, at par.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1846-12-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently February 1936

6 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Wheeler, J.

¶1The record before us purports to contain the proceedings of “ a district court for the county of Matagorda held in chambers,” on the 10th day of November, 1842, and to have been brought here by appeal from the judgment of that court.

¶2By the laws then in force, appeal lay to the supreme court, only from the judgment or decree of a district court. 1 Stat. 203, sec. 15; 5 id. 168, sec. 19.

¶3But no district court could, by law, be holden in the county of Mat-agorda where this proceeding purports to have been had. Const. Hep. Tex. art. 4, sec. 2; 6 Stat. 115.

¶4*(174)At that time and place, therefore, there could have been no judgment or decree of a district court pronounced; and consequently no appeal taken to the supreme court.

¶5We are therefore of opinion that the appeal be dismissed.