Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1905 — KENTLAND WINS [ARTICLE]

KENTLAND WINS

Appellate Court Deciding In Her Favor IN CELEBRATED COURTHOUSE FIGHT iBonds Mast Be Paid, and Injunctions To Prevent Completion of Building Is Denied. The appeal in the Newton conn* ty court house bond case, wherein certain parties sought to defeat the payment of the first set of bonds issued to build the new court house at Kentland, on the grounds that the whole proceedings were void, was dismissed by the Appellate court Tuesday. In dismissing the appeal the court held: (i) A party in whose name an appeal from a judgment againt him is taken ordinarily has control over the appeal and may dismiss it. (2) Where certain taxpayers of a county procured an order of court in a suit against the county appointing a certain attorney ‘‘to appear on behalf of the defendant herein and the taxpayers mentioned in said petition,** and judgment for a sum of money was afterward rendered .against the county alone, without the taxpayers being made parties either to the judgment or to the suit, said taxpayers cannot, by sheer force of being such taxpayers and having obtained said order, maintain an appeal in the name of the Board of Commissioners when the board itself asks that the appeal be dismissed. The court the same day denied the injunction prayed for to prevent the building or completion, rather, of the partly completed structure at Kentland, holding: (I) Where a structure was partially erected on the public grounds belonging to a county by the authority of the county officers, who believed they were acting according to law, and was paid for, so far as completed, with county funds, it belongs to the county. (2) Where such a structure so partially built was designed to become a county courthouse and is capable of completion in such a way as to serve as a courthouse, and the county officers have power, by taking proper steps, to build a courthonse at that place, a temporary injunction forbidding the sale of county bonds and the expenditure of county money to complete said unfinished building will not issue out of this court on appeal from a refusal by the court below at the suit of the State to order the unfinished building pulled down and removed from the public square, and to enjoin its completion as a courthouse. This is a complete victory for Kentland and apparently knocks the last support from under the opposition to the building of a court house at that place.