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137 So. 2d 513

Docket No. 510.

Moity v. Mahfouz

Warren J. MOITY, Plaintiff-Relator, v. Alex MAHFOUZ, Defendant-Respondent.

Louisiana Court of Appeal

Decided November 21, 1961.

Certiorari Denied November 29, 1961.

Louisiana Court of Appeal · decided 1961-11-21

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““Each court of appeal has supervisory jurisdiction, subject to the general supervisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, over all inferior courts in all cases in which an appeal would lie to the court of appeal." (Emphasis added.) [LSA-Const. Art. 7, § 29]”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 212 So. 2d 281 - Gallagher v. Gallagher

Relies on Hattier v. Martinez · State ex rel. Dowling v. Ray · 94 So. 2d 95 - White v. Louisiana & Arkansas Railway Company

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1961-11-21

How this case has been cited

Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently August 2000

17 state decisions

9019611970198019902000decided

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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¶1*514 Warren J. Moity, New Iberia, plaintiff-relator, in pro. per.

¶2Simon & Trice, By: J. Minos Simon, Lafayette, for defendant-respondent.

¶3Before TATE, FRUGE, SAVOY and HOOD, JJ.

¶4PER CURIAM.

¶5The relator was convicted of contempt for making immaterial and scandalous allegations in pleadings filed in connection with a civil suit for judgment upon a note for $308. He was sentenced to serve ten days in the parish jail under the provisions of LSA-R.S. 13:4611. He has applied to this court's supervisory jurisdiction for relief.

¶6The general rule is that a conviction for contempt is not appealable in the absence of a constitutional or statutory provision for review, the court of record being the exclusive judge of a contempt committed against its authority and dignity. In Louisiana, there being no such general legislative provision, an appeal does not ordinarily lie from a judgment of contempt, the appropriate remedy to review the validity of the contempt proceedings being to apply to the general supervisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.

¶7See: Hattier v. Martinez, 197 La. 121, 1 So.2d 51; State ex rel. Dowling v. Ray, 150 La. 1030, 91 So. 443; White v. Louisiana & Arkansas Ry. Co., La.App. 1 Cir., 94 So.2d 95. See also: Note, "Contempt—Remedy of Respondent—Supervisory Power of the Supreme Court", 17 Tul.L.Rev. 655 (1943).

¶8Further, even though the case within which the contempt is committed is appealable, the appellate court with jurisdiction of the appeal on the merits does not have appellate jurisdiction of the contempt proceeding, the latter being regarded as an independent proceeding. State ex rel. DeBuys v. Civil Sheriff of Parish of New Orleans, 32 La.Ann. 1225; In re Lindner, 5 Orl.App. 121; cf., White v. Louisiana & Arkansas Ry. Co., above cited.

¶9Since no appeal lies to this court from the conviction for contempt, we do not have supervisory jurisdiction to review its validity, for the 1958 amendment conferring supervisory jurisdiction upon the courts of appeal specifically limited such jurisdiction to "cases in which an appeal would lie to the court of appeal" in question. La. Constitution, Art. VII, Section 29, as amended by Act 561 of 1958, LSA.

¶10The application for supervisory writs is therefore denied.

¶11Writs denied.

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