State ex rel. Clapp v. Minnesota Thresher Manufacturing Co.

3 L.R.A. 510, 41 N.W. 1020, 40 Minn. 213, 1889 Minn. LEXIS 66
Supreme Court of Minnesota·Decided March 7, 1889·Published·Cited by 70 cases

Opinion

Mitchell, J.1

Proceedings upon information in the nature of quo warranto, filed by the attorney general against respondent, to show cause tjhy its franchises should not be declared forfeited and the corporation dissolved. In justice to this court, as well as-to the attorney general, it is proper at the outset to correct an error into which respondent’s counsel have fallen. They have repeatedly asserted, both in their briefs and in their oral arguments, that the attorney general has filed a disclaimer of any interest in these proceedings on his own part or on part of the state. An inspection of the statement filed by him will show that it will bear no such construction.' As such proceedings are in the nature of a public prosecution, having for their object the recovery to the state of a usurped or forfeited franchise, and not to redress private grievances, no one but the attorney general has authority to institute or prosecute them, it being exclusively for him to determine when public interests require them to be instituted. Therefore, had he moved to dismiss, as he had the undoubted right to do, or had he stated that this was not a case which public interests required to be prosecuted, we would undoubtedly have dismissed, notwithstanding objections by private parties. But the attorney general having done neither, and the information being filed by him in his official capacity, this court did the only thing it could do under the circumstances, viz., to entertain the proceedings and determine them according to law.

1. It is objected that this court has no original jurisdiction in proceedings of this nature. In a number of cases since the enactment of chapter 58, Laws 1876, (Gen. St. 1878, c. 63, § 1,) the existence of such jurisdiction has been taken for granted without question. State v. Sharp, 27 Minn. 38, (6 N. W. Rep. 408;) Barnum v. Gilman, 27 Minn. 466, (8 N. W. Rep. 375;) State v. Dowlan, 33 Minn. 536, (24 N. W. Rep. 188;) State v. Harrison, 34 Minn. 526, [215] (26 N. W. Rep. 729.) Twice the point has been considered and decided. State v. St. Paul & Sioux City R. Co., 35 Minn. 222, (28 N. W. Rep. 245;) State v. Minn. Central Ry. Co., 36 Minn. 246, (30 N. W. Rep. 816.) Under such circumstances, we would ordinarily consider a question as foreclosed. But inasmuch as it is an important one, involving constitutional rights, and respondent’s counsel have placed their contention upon grounds not heretofore distinctly presented to this court, to the discussion of which they have brought great learning and exhaustive research, we have thought proper to re-examine the subject.

Respondent’s position is that the act of 1876, assuming to give this court 'original jurisdiction in quo warranto, is unconstitutional. Their line of argument is. — First, that this court has no jurisdiction, for any purpose, in any case in which trial by jury is demandable as of right; second, that trial by jury is demandable as of right in all cases in which such right existed at common law at the time of the adoption of the constitution of the state; third, that at common law a party had a right to trial by jury in proceedings upon information in the nature of quo warranto. Counsel have gone very exhaustively into the discussion of the nature of the ancient and obsolete writ of quo warranto, and of its more modern substitute, an information in the nature of quo toarranto, and of the mode of trial of Buch proceedings at common law. But, for present purposes, all we deem necessary to consider are the provisions of our own constitution in connection with the right of trial by jury as it existed in the territory of Minnesota at the time of its adoption, and the construction which has been put upon these constitutional provisions by this court.

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State ex rel. Clapp v. Minnesota Thresher Manufacturing Co., 3 L.R.A. 510, 41 N.W. 1020, 40 Minn. 213, 1889 Minn. LEXIS 66 (Mich. 1889).

3 L.R.A. 510 (State ex rel. Clapp v. Minnesota Thresher Manufacturing Co.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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