Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

503 P.2d 218

Kitchens v. McGowen

Supreme Court of Oklahoma

Decided October 31, 1972

Supreme Court of Oklahoma · decided 1972-10-31

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“This court must not be led too far astray from its appellate work, as this court was by the framers of the Constitution intended primarily as an appellate court.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including WHITE AND WADDELL v. STITT

Relies on Jarman v. Mason

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1972-10-31

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently January 2026

7 state decisions

30197219801990200020102020decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

DAVISON, Vice Chief Justice:

¶1 In an original action filed in this court by John G. Kitchens, against the defendants hereinbefore designated, wherein plaintiff’s petition is in the nature of Quo Warranto alleging that plaintiff was illegally removed from his office as County Superintendent of Schools of LeFlore County, Oklahoma, and for damages in the amount of $7,245.00, said amount alleged to being equal to his lost salary for allegedly being unlawfully forced to vacate said office by defendants.

¶2 The defendants have each filed a Special Demurrer in said cause on the ground that there is a defect of parties defendant, and requests that action be taken on the Demurrers before required to plead further.

¶3 In the present case the alleged cause of action arose in LeFlore County, and without question the District Court of LeFlore County, has original jurisdiction in the case, and has power to grant adequate relief.

¶4 We have many cases before us awaiting decisions on appeals from various courts, boards and commissions. All of the cases on appeal before us are important to the litigants. Many of the litigants are aged and needy.

¶5 Should we assume original jurisdiction in the present case, and other similar cases to follow, we would have to delay the cases which are before us on appeal from the various courts, boards and commissions. *219 This would be unfair to the litigants in those cases.

¶6 This court has heretofore spoken on the question involved herein. In the case of Jarman v. Mason et al., 102 Okl. 278, 229 P. 459, as follows:

“Naturally all litigants would like, in the first instance, to step into this court of last resort, thereby avoiding the expense and delay incident to appeal, but the interests of the whole people of the sovereign state are paramount to those of the individual litigants in a single case. This court must not be led too far astray from its appellate work, as this court was by the framers of the Constitution intended primarily as an appellate court.”

¶7 For the reasons stated, we refuse to assume original jurisdiction in the above cause.

All Justices concur.
/503/p2d/218 · .json · Public domain