State ex rel. Foulhouze v. Judge of the Fifth District Court
State ex rel. Foulhouze v. Judge of the Fifth District Court
Opinion of the Court
The relator, producing his commission and oath of office as Judge of the Second Judicial District Court of Louisiana, seeks a writ of prohibition upon the following allegations: that his predecessor in office, Octane L. Eoussea/u, assuming still to be Judge of the Second Judicial District, on the 16th April, the day of the date of relator’s commission, filed in the Clerk’s office for the parish of Plaquemines a petition contesting the relator’s election to the Síád office; that assuming still to act as Judge as aforesaid, the said
The petition certainly presents a strong case, but it is now the settled jurisprudence of this court that it will issue writs of mandmius and prohibition to District Judges only in aid of its appellate jurisdiction. Were we in this form to decide that the District Judge could not sit to try such a case as is described in the relator’s petition, we would fee taking original jurisdiction of a question which has not yet been mooted before the District Judge; an exception to the jurisdiction or an exception to the mode of procedure should first be presented to the court which assumes to take jurisdiction in an improper case, and then, if overruled, the question may be brought regularly before us by prohibition, as in the case of Route, 11 An. 187; non constat but that the District Judge, on looking into the law and hearing the parties, will be of opinion that there is no legal warrant to be found in the statutes for such proceedings as are sought to be carried on by the complainant Rousseau.
The case of the Succession of Whipple, 2 An. 236, is precisely in point. There the Supreme Court refused an application for a prohibition, because the question of jurisdiction had never been raised before the District Court, nor decided by it. See also the State v. The Judge of the Commercial Court, 4 Rob. 48.
Application refused.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- The State of Louisiana, on the relation of James Foulhouze v. The Judge of the Fifth District Court of New Orleans
- Status
- Published