Opinion
No. 40867
Decided July 19, 1967.
Prohibition — Not available to prevent anticipated erroneous judgment — Suit to prevent Common Pleas Court from assuming jurisdiction.
IN PROHIBITION.
This is an action in prohibition originating in this court.
Relators, The Detroit and Toledo Shore Line Railroad Company and certain of its officers, seek to prevent respondents, Court of Common Pleas and a judge thereof, from acting on a case pending before it, in which Emory F. Gensler is plaintiff and the relators in the instant action are defendants. It is relators' contention that the National Railroad Adjustment Board has exclusive jurisdiction over that case which was filed in the Court of Common Pleas and arose as the result of a suspension from employment for disciplinary purposes of Gensler by the railroad's superintendent, relator Burt T. Cool.
Gensler appealed from the order of discharge to the general manager. Upon the appeal the discharge was modified to a suspension from March to October of 1963. The brotherhood appealed to the National Railroad Adjustment Board on behalf of the employee, claiming that the discharge was wrongful and seeking to recover lost wages and vacation pay. The case is presently pending before the board.
After various hearings in the case pending in the Court of Common Pleas, The Detroit and Toledo Shore Line was dismissed and the other relators herein are now being sued as individuals. The action in the Court of Common Pleas claims a conspiracy to damage plaintiff and injure his reputation among his fellow employees and with his brotherhood and seeks compensatory and punitive damages for injuries suffered by him for humiliation, physical pain and mental anguish. A motion for summary judgment filed by defendants was overruled.
Messrs. Robison, Curphey O'Connell and Mr. John M. Curphey, for relators.
Messrs. Brady, Whitehead, Simmons, Metzger Hamilton and Mr. Raymond S. Metzger, for respondents.
The instant case in prohibition is before this court on a demurrer to the petition. A ruling on the demurrer is dispositive of the action.
In State, ex rel. Mansfield Telephone Co., v. Mayer et al., Judges, 5 Ohio St.2d 222, 223, it is said:
"The rule is firmly established that the Court of Common Pleas is a court of general jurisdiction and, as such, possesses the authority initially to determine its own jurisdiction over both the person and the subject matter in an action before it, subject to the right of appeal; and generally prohibition, an extraordinary remedy entertained with caution, will not lie to prevent an anticipated erroneous judgment."
The demurrer to the petition is sustained and the writ is denied.
Writ denied.
TAFT, C.J., ZIMMERMAN, MATTHIAS, O'NEILL, HERBERT, SCHNEIDER and BROWN, JJ., concur.