Tucker v. Gurley

170 So. 230, 176 Miss. 708, 1936 Miss. LEXIS 163
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 19, 1936
DocketNo. 32323.
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 170 So. 230 (Tucker v. Gurley) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Tucker v. Gurley, 170 So. 230, 176 Miss. 708, 1936 Miss. LEXIS 163 (Mich. 1936).

Opinion

Cook, J.,

delivered tbe opinion of the court.

This is the second appeal in this cause. On the former appeal a judgment in favor of the defendants was reversed, and in the opinion, which is reported in 170 Miss. 565, 155 So. 189, the facts surrounding the unfortunate tragedy in which the husband of the appellee and his brother were killed, are set out at length, and we will here state only such additional facts as we deem necessary to an understanding of the issues to be decided.

This suit was originally filed in Marshall county against the sheriff of that county, the surety on his official bond, and two of his deputies. Upon remand of the cause, after reversal of the former appeal, the appellees filed a motion for a change of venue on the grounds that, on account of prejudice existing in the public mind, the undue influence of the adverse parties, and the publicity caused by three former trials involving the same facts, they could not obtain a fair and impartial trial in Marshall county. Upon the lengthy testimony offered by the respective parties on this motion, the court granted a change of venue, and entered an order removing the cause to Union county, and appellants assign as error the action of the court in so doing.

Upon this assignment, it is the contention of appellants that by virtue of section 495, Code 1930, the venue of civil actions against public officers is fixed absolutely in the county of the household and residence of such, officers, and that, consequently, the court was without power to remove this cause out of the county of the household and residence of the officers who were parties defendant. At the time of the removal, the term of office of R. F. Dancyj sheriff of Marshall county, had expired and he had died, but the defendant, Butler Overton, eon- *720 tinned as a deputy under the succeeding sheriff, and the contention is based upon the right of this deputy to have the suit continued to a conclusion in the county of his household and residence.

Section 495, Code 1930, provides, among other things, that “If a citizen resident in this state shall be sued in any action, not local, out of the county of his household and residence, or if a public officer be sued in any such action, out of the county of his household and residence, although a surety or sureties, or some of the sureties, on his bond, or other joint defendant, sued with him, be found or be subject to action in such county, the venue shall be changed, on his application, before the jury is impaneled, to the county of his household and residence.” Prior to 1926, this section merely provided that, “If a citizen resident in this state shall be sued in any action, not local, out of the county of his household and residence, . . . the venue shall be changed, on his application, before the jury is impaneled, to the county of his household and residence, ’ ’ and the provision with reference to public officers first appeared in our statutory laws in chapter 155, Laws of 1926. Prior to the enactment of chapter 155, Laws of 1926, the court, in Dean v. Brannon, 139 Miss. 312, 104 So. 173, 175, held that in an action against a sheriff and the surety on his official bond, the cause was properly brought in the county where the surety corporation was "found with a place of business and an agent subject to process, and the amendment of the then existing statute, by the enactment of chapter 155, Laws of 1926, was manifestly intended to meet this decision of the court, and to require that the venue of civil actions against a public officer shall be laid in the county of the officer’s household and residence, and in the event it is not so laid, that such officer shall be entitled to a change of venue to the county of his household and residence.

B'ut the provision of the statute fixing the venue of actions against a public officer in the county of his house *721 hold and residence does not prevent the full operation of the statute providing for a change of venue, section 500, Code 1930, when conditions develop which cause the statutory right to a change of venue to arise. The provisions of section 495, Code 1930, giving to a public officer sued in any action out of the county of his household and residence the right to have the venue changed to the county of his household and residence, does not confer any higher or different right from that granted to any other citizen resident in this state who is sued in any action, not local, out of the county of his household and residence, and the amendment of this statute was merely intended to guarantee to a public official the right to remove a suit to the county of his household and residence, although the surety on his official bond may be found doing business in the county where the suit was originally filed.

Section 500, Code 1930, authorizing a change of venue upon certain stated grounds and conditions, was intended to provide a method by which a fair and impartial trial could be obtained, whenever on account of the undue influence of the adverse party, prejudice in the public mind, or other sufficient cause, a fair and impartial trial cannot be obtained in the county in which the venue was originally fixed, and whenever conditions arise which, by virtue of this statute, authorize a change of venue, the court may, and, in the interest of justice, should, grant a change. The sufficiency of the evidence upon which the court granted the change of venue is not here challenged, and no error was committed in granting the change.

The evidence bearing upon the acts of the deputy sheriffs and the deceased Gurleys immediately before and at the time of the fatal shooting is sharply conflicting. The evidence clearly shows that Glenn Gurley was the first actor in the incidents which almost immediately led to the shooting. According to the testimony for the appellees, the jury would have been warranted in find *722 ing that the deceased Gurley was shot at a time when he was doing nothing to indicate an intention to kill any of the officers, or do them great bodily harm, while, under the evidence for the appellants, the jury would have been warranted in finding that Leslie Tucker was in real or apparent danger of losing his life, or suffering great bodily harm at the hands of Lloyd and Glenn Gurley, and that the shooting was justifiable on the ground of the real or apparent necessity to save said Tucker from death or great bodily harm. In this state of the record, the court granted the appellees three instructions, telling the jury, in effect, that the killing of the Gurleys was not justifiable in law unless it was done in defense of some person who was in actual danger of losing his life, or suffering great bodily harm at the hands of Lloyd Gurley. The parts of the three instructions bearing upon the particular point under consideration read as follows:

“The court instructs the jury for the plaintiffs that even though Butler Overton and Leslie Tucker were deputy sheriffs, and were acting in their official capacity, they would not be justifiable in law in killing Lloyd Gurley unless they did the killing and shooting in defense of himself or of some other person who was in actual danger of losing his life or suffering great bodily harm at the hands of the said Lloyd Gurley.”

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Bluebook (online)
170 So. 230, 176 Miss. 708, 1936 Miss. LEXIS 163, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tucker-v-gurley-miss-1936.