Chester v. Colby

Decided July 1, 1877

California Supreme Court · decided 1877-07-01

Application to the Supreme Court for writ of prohibition. The petitioner Julius Chester was the proprietor and editor of a weekly newspaper published at Bakersfield, Kern County, called the “ Southern Californian and Kern County Weekly Courier,” and on the 22nd day of November, 1877, published an editorial in the paper reflecting on the County Judge for his action-in a case of contempt then pending before him, in which .George V. Smith, an attorney at law, was the party…

Relies on Ex parte Williams · Ex parte City of Little Rock

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1877-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently September 1962

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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By the Court :

¶1It is alleged in the answer that the respondent demurred to the complaint and affidavit on which the warrant was issued for an alleged contempt, on the ground that the Probate Court has no jurisdiction to proceed in the same matter of contempt, and that the demurrer is still pending and undetermined; the pendency of the demurrer was admitted at the argument before us.

¶2The writ of prohibition, under our statute, as at the common law, is a prerogative writ, and will not be issued if the question of the jurisdiction of the inferior Court has been submitted to that Court by any appropriate pleading or objection, while that question remained undetermined by that Court. (High’s Ex. Rem. p. 588, sec. 773; Cox v. St. Albans, 1 Mod. 81; Williams, Ex parte, 4 Ark. 537 ; City of Little Rock, Ex parte, 26 Ark. 52; Meechen, Ex parte, 12 Ark. 70; Bouton v. Hursler, 1 Barn. 71; Edmundson v. Walker, Carth, 106.) Writ denied.