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92 Ala. 596

Ex parte Shear

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided November 15, 1890

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1890-11-15

This is a motion made by Lillie Y. Shear for a mandamus, or other remedial writ, against Hon. Leroy E. Box, Judge of the 7th Judicial Circuit, to require him to vacate an order rendered in the case of Lillie V. Shear v. Woodstock Iron Company.; in the Circuit Court of Calhoun County, requiring plaintiff to pay the costs of former suit in ejectment between the same parties, and relative to the same subject-matter, before proceeding further with this second suit.

Relies on Jackson ex dem. Livingston against Edwards · Colt v. Gregory · Taylor v. Vandervoort

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1890-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently June 1943

8 state decisions

40189019001910192019301940decided

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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STONE, C. J.

¶1In England, the doctrine of former recovery, in its general extent, does not apply to tlie somewhat anomalous action of ejectment. In that country, any number of actions could be brought consecutively, and, in the absence of exceptional circumstances, one recovery was no bar to a second suit. It was only when chancery intervened to prevent oppression, that the prosecution of continued suits could be arrested. With us, this question is partially regulated by statute. — Code of 1886, § 2714.

¶2To prevent an abuse of this power to oppress tenants in possession by irresponsible suitors, it was long ago settled in England, that if plaintiff, having failed in one action of ejectment, instituted a second suit without paying the costs adjudged against him in the first, the second suit, on motion, would be stayed, until the costs of the first were paid. — 2Tidd’s. Practice, 1233 ; Tyler on Ejectment, 596. And this practice has been largely maintained in the United States — Cuyler v. Vanderwerk, 1 John. Ca. 247 ; Perkins v. Hinman, 19 Johns. Rep. 257; Jackson v. Edwards, 1 Cow. 138 ; Jackson v. Carpenter, 3 Cow. 22; Jackson v. Miller, Id. 57; Ex parte Stone, Id.380 ; Barton v. Speis, 73 N. T. 133 ; Taylor v. Vandervoort, 9 Wend. 449; Kerr v. Davis, 7 Paige, 53; Saxton v. Stowell, 11 Paige, 526; Swing's Case, 5 Halst. 58; Den v. Thompson, 14 N. J. Law, 193; Anon., 16 N. J. Law. 415.

¶3It is contended for petitioner that the ruling of the Circuit Court was a denial to her of her right, guaranteed by the Constitution of this State, Art. I, § 14, which ordains ‘‘that every person, for any injury done him in his lands, goods, person, reputation, shall have a remedy by due process of law ;■ and right and justice shall be administered without sale, denial, or delay.”

¶4We think this too broad an interpretation of the Constitutional guaranty. To so hold, would be to deny the right and power of the courts to imqDose terms as a condition of setting-aside a default or nonsuit, or as a condition of allowing an amendment or continuance. Many other categories frequently present themselves before the courts, in which the right to impose terms as a Condition of the relief prayed is essential to the just and fair administration of the law. We*599clo not think such action is in the slightest degree an infringement of the constitutional principle invoked. While awarding justice “without sale, denial, or delay,” courts should see •to it that equal justice is accorded to the adverse party.

¶5Writ of mandamus denied.

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