Morrow

The return to the writ of certiorari shows that one Joseph Barron commenced an action in the justices’ court of San Francisco to recover, of petitioner, as stockholder in the “California Mutual Life Insurance Company, ’ ’ corporation, his alleged proportion of the indebtedness of the company upon an overdue policy; that petitioner, de fendant in the action, demurred to and answered the eom *125 plaint therein. The judgment .was in favor of the defendant. The plaintiff: appealed from ■ the judgment to the superior court on questions of law, and on such appeal the superior court reversed the judgment of the justices’ court and ordered a new trial of the action. The action was retried in the superior court and judgment rendered in favor of plaintiff for the sum of forty-four dollars and eighty cents.

It may he assumed that, unless the justice had jurisdiction of the subject matter of the action, the superior court had none to order a new trial, or to render any judgment except to reverse that of the justice.

The fourth article of the constitution of 1849 contained sections which read as follows:

In French v. Teschemaker, 24 Cal. 540 , it was said that section 36, above cited, was…