Adams v. Haskell & Woods

Decided July 1, 1856

California Supreme Court · decided 1856-07-01

The alleged excess of jurisdiction, upon which this writ was sued out, was an order made in the Court below, committing A. A. Cohen for contempt in refusing to pay over the sum of ten thousand dollars to Henry M. Naglee, (the receiver appointed by the Court in this action,) in compliance with a previous order to that effect, directed to Richard Roman, Edward Jones, and A. A. Cohen, former custodians of the fund, as assignees in insolvency of Adams & Co. Against the granting…

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1856-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently October 1939

2 federal appellate · 10 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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

The opinion of the Court was delivered by Mr. Chief Justice Murray.

¶1Mr. Justice Terry concurred.

¶2In this ease, the Court exceeded its jurisdiction in ordering the party to be imprisoned until he paid into Court certain moneys, paid to him for fees, and disbursements made by him.

¶3The affidavit of the party is uncontradicted, and shows that he has complied, as far as it is possible, with the order of the Court, and th§t it is not in his power to comply further. This is a sufficient expurgation, and the order directing his imprisonment was, under these circumstances, an excess of jurisdiction, and void.

¶4While we admit, that Courts are the exclusive judges of their own contempts, still, by our statute, a party cannot be imprisoned for neglecting or refusing to perform an act, where it appears that it is not in his power to perform the same. See Lucas, Turner & Co. v. Allen, April T., 1855.

¶5Order reversed.