Drake v. Jordan

73 Iowa 707
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedMarch 7, 1887
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 73 Iowa 707 (Drake v. Jordan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Drake v. Jordan, 73 Iowa 707 (iowa 1887).

Opinion

Robinson, J.

1. INTOXICATING liquors: nuisance: constitutionality of statute : federal question. I. After filing their answer, the defendants presented their petition to the circuit court asking a removal of the case to the federal court. The petition was denied, and objection to that ruling is now made. The grounds of the petitions for removal were substantially the same as those in Dickinson v. Heeb Brewing Co., ante, 705. Following our decision in that case, the action of the circuit court in denying the removal is affirmed.

[708]*708changed after action begun, [707]*707II. The circuit court decreed the closing of the building [708]*708in which the nuisance had been maintained, for the period one year, and taxed the sum of $25 against defendants as an attorney’s fee. It is claimed action was not authorized by law. This proceeding was commenced in April, 1885, and the trial was had on the 16th day of December, 1886. The objection urged by counsel for appellants is that the closing of the building for one year, and the taxing of an attorney’s fee, are only authorized by chapter 66, Acts Twenty first General Assembly; and to construe that statute to apply to acts done and proceedings pending before it took effect would be in conflict with the provisions of the constitution, which forbids ex post faeto laws. But this is a civil, and not a criminal, proceeding, and the provisions of the statute referred to relate to the remedy. The right to a particular mode of procedure is not a vested one which the state cannot change or abolish. (Cooley Const. Lim. (5th Ed.) 319, 113; Tilton v. Swift, 10 Iowa, 78; Wormley v. Hamburg, Id., 22; Equitable Life Ins. Co. v. Gleason, 56 Id., 18; County of Kossuth v. Wallace, 60 Id., 508.) And this is true in criminal as well as in civil cases. (Cooley, Const. Lim., 328; Marion v. State, 20 Neb., 233; S. C., 29 N. W. Rep., 918.) We held in McLane v. Bonn, 70 Iowa, 752, that, so far as the act of 1886 prescribed a mode for the abatement of a nuisance, it related to the remedy only, defining the extent and specifying the method of enforcing one already given by statute, and that it was not open to the objection now made by appellants. The attorney’s fee of which complaint is made was taxed as a part of the costs, and not as a part of the penalty fixed for violating the law. -It is authorized by the act of 1886, as a part of the remedy providing for enforcing the law, and was properly taxed.

III. It is claimed that the evidence does not authorize the decree reudered. The evidence was introduced without objection, and in our judgment is sufficient to authorize the decree of the circuit court. Affirmed.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

State v. Taggart
186 Iowa 247 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1919)
Rish v. Iowa Portland Cement Co.
186 Iowa 443 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1919)
Gano v. Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad
114 Iowa 713 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1901)
Burk v. Putman
84 N.W. 1053 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1901)
Allerton v. Monona County
82 N.W. 922 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1900)
State v. Dorland
75 N.W. 654 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1898)
Farley v. Geisheker
6 L.R.A. 533 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1889)
Farley v. O'Malley
42 N.W. 435 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1889)
Mcclure v. Braniff
39 N.W. 171 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1888)
Campbell v. Manderscheid
39 N.W. 92 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1888)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
73 Iowa 707, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/drake-v-jordan-iowa-1887.