Chapman

This is an application for a writ of mandate to compel the Superior Court of Fresno County to dismiss an appeal from a justice’s court.

It appears from the stipulated facts that on February 6, 1928, an action was brought in the Justice’s Court of the City of Fresno by the Fresno Investment Company, a corporation, against C. S. Chapman, the petitioner herein, to recover $173.85; that a trial was had resulting in a judgment for the defendant; that within the time allowed by law and during the month of December, 1928, the plaintiff in that action duly perfected an appeal to the Superior Court of Fresno County; that on March 1, 1929, on motion of the plaintiff, the appealed cause was set for trial in the Superior Court on April 18, 1929; and that on March 22’, 1929, the court granted a motion made by the defendant to dismiss the appeal, the motion having been made upon the. ground that the appeal was from the judgment of a purported court which had no legal existence, and that at the time the judg ment was rendered the said court had no jurisdiction to render any judgment whatsoever. In this connection it is stipulated that on February 23, 1929, one Earl J. Church, who had been…