Ex parte Burton
Ex parte Burton
Opinion of the Court
The Act of March 1, 1881, (Acts 1880-81, p. 268), relating to the transfer of causes from the City Court of Montgomery to the Circuit Court of Montgomery county, and vice versa, makes it competent for the parties by agreement in writing filed with the clerk of either of said courts in which their cause is pending to transfer the same to the other of said courts, &c., &c., and provides further as follows : “That upon such agreement being filed with the clerk, it shall be his duty to make a certified transcript of all orders, minute and docket entries in such cause, and to deliver the same, with all the original papers in the cause, to the clerk of the court to which the cause is transferred, Provided, That the clerk shall not be required to perform any of the duties prescribed by this section, and no cause shall be transferred, until the costs that have accrued, including the costs of transcript, shall first be paid to the clerk of the court in which the cause is pending.”—-Acts 1880-81, pp. 268-9.
In the case of Martha Ann Burton v. A. C. Parker & Co., et al., which had been commenced and was at the time pending in the City Court of Montgomery, the parties, on October 17,..1892, entered into the following agreement of transfer: “It is agreed that this case may be transferred to the next •term of the Circuit Court; and that the defendants pay the costs of witnesses Russell, Burton and Shank Burk in attending court at the present term of the City Court of Montgomery.” . And upon this agreemeht the City Court on the day of its execution made the following entry: “This day came the parties by their attorneys and agree in writing that the case be removed and transferred to the next term of the Circuit Court, and that the defendants pay the costs of witnesses Russell, Burton and. Shank Burk in attending court at present term of this court.” -It is admitted that this agreement of transfer “was made at the instance of the defendants.”
Upon the execution of this agreement and its entry as
On this state of the case .the circuit judge again struck the case from the docket of his court and this application is for a mandamus to compel its reinstatement thereon.
Conceding without deciding that mandamus is plaintiff’s remedy if she had the right she is now attempting to assert, namely, the right to have this case on the docket of the Circuit Court, we are constrained to deny the relief prayed because our conclusion is that the case was never properly on the docket of the Circuit Court, and, being actually there, the judge of that court properly struck it off. It is not contended but that the payment of the costs which had accrued in the City-Court‘would ordinarily have been a condition precedent to any efficacious removal of the case into the Circuit Court, but it is insisted that under the particular facts shown here the duty to pay these costs was on the defendants, because the agreement of transfer had been entered into at their instance and that in consequence they could not be heard to question the validity of the removal on that ground; and it is also insisted that, leaving the duty to pay costs out of view, the defendants are yet estopped to question the removal because the agreement to that end was en
On these. considerations—and there are probably others leading to the same conclusion—we hold that the judge of the Circuit Court properly struck the cause from the docket of that court, and decline to command him to reinstate it.
Petition denied.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.