Rios v. Foote
Rios v. Foote
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
Attorneys Francis TI. Dexter, Juan Vías Ochoteco and José Hernández Usera, on behalf of Maria Rios, widow of Rubio, filed a petition in this Supreme Court for a writ of prohibition commanding Charles E. Foote, judge of the District Court of Humacao; Enrique Rincón, clerk of the same; and Attorney Rafael López Landrón to cease the prosecution, until further order .of the Supreme Court, of the proceedings instituted in said district court by the said Rafael López Lan-drón, for the recovery by compulsory process under the former law of civil procedure, of an account for fees earned by said attorney, as counsel for the Estate of Bustelo, in the proceedings prosecuted against it and Petronila Patricia Rios de Noya by Maria1 Rios, widow of Rubio, relating to the administration of property, in which proceedings this Supreme Court rendered judgment on December 24, 1904 (7 P. R. Rep., p. 584), affirming that of the lower court, with the costs of the appeal against the plaintiff, Maria Rios, widow of Rubio.
The writ of prohibition prayed for having issued and a day having been set for the hearing upon the application, such hearing was had with the attendance1 of the parties, each alleging, what he deemed proper.
The petitioners allege that the former Law of Civil Procedure having been repealed by the new Code of Civil Procedure which went into effect on July 1, 1904, the procedure established by the old law for the recovery of costs and counsel fees should also be understood as repealed since said date and substituted by the procedure 'established by the new Code, and, consequently, that the judge of the District Court of Humacao was without jurisdiction to order that the fees of
But it appears to us that this reasoning is wrong. The Humacao judge may have erred in adopting the old procedure instead of the modern procedure to enforce payment of the fees of Attorney López Landrón; but it could not be deduced therefrom that he lacked jurisdiction in the matter, which neither by reason of the subject nor of the persons ceases to be under his jurisdiction as was the principal matter from which the incidental question arose. It is a general rule that a judge who is of competent jurisdiction to take cognizance of an action is also competent to take cognizance of the execution of the judgment rendered in such action, and, consequently, to take cognizance of any incidental issue which may arise in connection with the execution of the judgment rendered.
The Act of March 10, 1904, authorizing writs of prohibition, defines such writ to be a writ issued by a superior court directed to the judge and parties to a suit in an inferior court, commanding them to cease from the prosecution of the same, upon a suggestion that the cause originally, or some collateral matter arising therein, does not belong to that jurisdiction, but to the cognizance of some other court; and as this is not under discussion now, but whether the judge of Humacao has erred in the prosecution of the proceedings for the recovery of the fees of Attorney López Landrón, by following the old instead of the modern procedure, we find that from this point of view the writ of prohibition sought by the petitioners does not lie.
Aside from this which appears to us beyond doubt, and passing to the main issue involved in this appeal, we find that this Supreme Court has, already established precedents in the matter.
By decisions of December 24, 1904 (7 P. R. Rep., p. 584), and February 19, 1906, rendered respectively in the cases of María Rios, widow of Rubio, v. Petronila Patricia Rios de
Dismissed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.