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35 Tex. 116

Rodgers v. Alexander

Texas Supreme Court

Decided July 1, 1872

Texas Supreme Court · decided 1872-07-01

Proceeding in the Supreme Court for a mandamus to a district clerk, to make out and send up a transcript of the record in a cause determined in the district court, and to which the petitioner had sued out a writ of error, in forma pauperis. The opinion indicates such facts as are of any use. The present proceeding is an outgrowth from the case of Rodgers v. Ferguson, a report of which, on a former appeal, will be found in 32 Texas.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1872-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently February 1926

3 state decisions

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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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Walker, J.

¶1This is a proceeding in mandamus on the part of the relator, Jesse Rodgers, to compel the respondent, Thad. T. Alexander, clerk of the district court of Fayette county, to send up to this court the record of a judgment from the District Court of Fayette •county, wherein Jesse Rodgers is plaintiff and Ñ. B. Ferguson is defendant; under the provisions of the act •of May 3,1871, General Laws of the Twelfth Legislature, page 74. There is no return nor answer to the alternative writ; but both parties have filed briefs.

¶2We are informed from the respondent’s briefs, of the grounds on which he places his defense to the peremptory writ.

¶3First, it is claimed that the act of May 3, 1871, does not apply to cases brought up on writ of error. This ground is manifestly untenable. This court has uniformly treated the writ of error, as a mode of appeal. (See Cheek and Collins v. Rodgers, 1 Texas, 440; Smith and Jaynes v. Gerlach and Levenhagen, 2 Texas, 424; Luckett v. Townsend & Moore, 3 Texas, 119; Tucker v. Anderson, 25 Sup. Texas Rep., 158; Prestig v. Prestig, 25 Texas, 585.)

¶4It is claimed, secondly, that the judgment of the ■district court, in the case of Rodgers v. Ferguson, was .rendered prior to the act of May 3, 1871; and therefore *118the act, in its provisions, cannot apply to this case. We regard the act as purely remedial, and not retroactive in the sense inhibited by the Constitution of the State or of the United States. (See Cooley’s Constitutional Limitations, pages 286, 287, 288, 289; and the very numerous authorities cited in the notes.)

¶5We will not hold the respondent as in contempt of court; he has no doubt acted under advice of counsel.

¶6The reasons given by this court for its opinion in the State on relation of Honey, so far as the jurisdiction of the court is concerned, apply to this case, and will be so regarded.

¶7The peremptory writ of mandamus will therefore issue as prayed for in the petition.

¶8Mandamus awarded.

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