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69 Ark. 587

Grinstead v. Wilson

Supreme Court of Arkansas

Decided October 26, 1901

Supreme Court of Arkansas · decided 1901-10-26

JaMes W. ButleR, Special Judge. STATEMENT BY THE COURT. On the 21st day of August, 1899, the appellant filed his petition, asking that the record of the county court in the matter of changing the road of road district No. 3 be certified up, and that the order making the change of the road over the land of petitioner be quashed.

Relies on Pettigrew v. Washington County · Baxter v. Brooks · Baskins v. Wylds

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1901-10-26

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently November 2010

10 state decisions

30190119101920193019401950196019701980199020002010decided

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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Hughes, J.,

¶1(after stating the facts). It appears from the copies of the record and proceedings of the county court in the matter of the change of the public road, as therein set out, that the petitioner for certiorari herein had no notice of any of the same; and that the land of the petitioner, W. E. G-rinstead, was ordered to be taken and appropriated for a public road, without any notice to him of the proceedings and order under which the same was to be done. Section 4190 of Sandels & Hill’s Digest provides that all judgments, orders, sentences and decrees made, rendered or pronounced by any of the courts of this state against any one without notice, actual or constructive, and all proceedings bad under such judgments, orders, sentences or decrees shall be absolutely null and void.” What more need be said ? The orders and proceedings in this case were absolutely null for the want of notice. The party whose land was to be taken had no notice of the proceedings whatever, and the whole are absolutely void. Without doubt all these proceedings were void. Should they be quashed on certiorari? Should petitioner have appealed?

¶2The proof on the hearing of the application for certiorari is that petitioner lost his right of appeal without his fault; that he had no notice of the proceedings or orders of the court till after the time had expired when he could have appealed. Besides, it is shown that the proceedings and orders of the court are absolutely null and void. Wherefore certiorari is the proper remedy to quash these void proceedings and orders. Where there is a want of jurisdiction below or an excess of it apparent on the record, certiorari is the appropriate, if not the only, remedy. Baxter v. Brooks, 29 Ark. 173. “Errors in assumption of jurisdiction are properly correctable on certiorari.” Flournoy v. Payne, 28 Ark. 97. The assumption of unauthorized jurisdiction will be corrected by writ of certiorari. Ex parte Pearce, 44 Ark. 509; Baskins v. Wylds, 39 Ark. 347. It cannot be used for the correction of mere errors, as a substitute for an appeal. Id.; Pettigrew v. Washington County, 43 Ark. 33.

¶3Finding that the court below had no jurisdiction of the person of the appellant in this case for the want of notice to him, and that its proceedings and judgment in this cause are void, the judgment is quashed.-

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