F. SAWIE WEEKS and PETER B. JALLAH, Assistant Stipendiary Magistrate, City of Monrovia, Appellants-Respondents, v. WILLIAM A. JOHNS, Appellee-Petitioner.

APPEAL FROM RULING IN CHAMBERS ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATE’S COURT, CITY OF MONROVIA. Argued October 14, 1959. Decided January 14, 1960. 1. Certiorari will lie to review and correct the proceedings of a Stipendiary Magistrate’s Court. 2. An inferior court may not properly entertain an action having the same subject matter as an appeal pending before the Supreme Court. Appellant-respondent Weeks instituted an’ action of summary ejectment before the appellant-respondent Stipendiary Magistrate involving rights to real property comprising the subject matter of an appeal pending before the Supreme Court. Appellee-petitioner applied to the Justice presiding in Chambers for a writ of certiorari preventing the appellant-respondent Stipendiary Magistrate from adjudicating the merits of the ejectment action. On appeal from a ruling of the Justice presiding in Chambers granting certiorari, the ruling was affirmed, and counsel for appellants-respondents was fined for contempt. E. N. Wollor for appellants-respondents. 0. Natty B. Davis for appellees-petitioners. MR. JUSTICE WARDSWORTH delivered the opinion of the Court. This is a matter emanating from the Chambers of His Honor, Dessaline T. Harris, Associate Justice presiding in Chambers, on appeal by respondents to the bench, en banc. LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS 499 From a careful perusal of the records in this case it can readily be observed that the respondents have laid strong emphasis on the following three points : I. Since petitioners have an adequate remedy at law by means of appeal, certiorari does not lie. 2. Respondents deny the truthfulness of the homestead exemption notice as still pending on appeal in this Court. 3. Respondents further deny that the grounds alleged in Count “2” of petitioner’s petition, subparagraphs “a,” “b,” “c” and “d,” are meritorious or sustain petitioner’s petition. In considering these three points which we regard as the kernel of the matter, we shall do so in reverse order, in that we shall take the last or fourth subparagraph, under “d” of petitioner’s petition, which reads as follows : ” (d) That the case : ‘John Adolphus Weeks, Appellant, v. W. H. Ketter and P. D. Gurley, Administrators of the Estate of the late Juah Weeks Wolo, in re the Matter of the Homestead Exemption Notice of the Dwelling House of the late Juah Weeks Wolo’ (being the same premises from which petitioner is sought to be ousted) , which matter was heard on motion to dismiss the appeal during the October, 1958, term, and ruled to trial upon its merits at the succeeding term, has not yet been taken up and disposed of, but is still pending before this Honorable Court, still to be decided, as same was not heard during the March, 1959, term of the Honorable Supreme Court, to warrant plaintiff, F. Sawie Weeks, to sue as owner of the premises, when the adopted son of Juah Weeks Wolo, Nyekan Cisco, is living.” The opinion handed down by this Honorable Court at its October, 1958, term, disposing of the motion to dismiss the appeal, as referred to in the above-quoted excerpt from petitioner’s petition as well as the�records of this Court, will support the citation of petitioner in these certiorari 500 LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS proceedings that the matter of the homestead exemption notice of the dwelling house of the late Juah Weeks Wolo is still pending before, and undetermined by this Honorable Court. The certificate issued to respondents by the assistant clerk of this Court, Robert B. Anthony, which certificate is incorporated in the ruling of His Honor, Dessaline T. Harris, Justice presiding in Chambers, from which ruling has come this appeal ; same was improvidently issued by the said assistant clerk, and as such it has no legal bearing on the case at bar. In docketing causes for hearing during March, 1959, term of this Court, the matter of the contested homestead exemption notice of the dwelling house of the late j uah Weeks Wolo is still pending before this Court for final disposition. Therefore, it was inadvertently omitted by the clerk in the preparation of the Court’s docket during the March term of the current year. From the above, it is obvious that respondents’ contention based upon the above-mentioned certificate is without foundation or legal merit; and it is therefore not sustained. The foregoing applies to subparagraphs “b” and “c.” We now come to subparagraph “a.” The rules of this Court provide as follows : “Writ of certiorari–Where an action or proceeding is pending in any court or before a judge thereof, the Supreme Court, or any justice thereof in vacation, may grant a writ of certiorari to any party who by verified petition may complain that the decision or act of any trial judge is illegal, or is materially prejudicial to his rights.” R. Sup. Ct. IV, 4 (2 L.L.R. 664) . We have further, the following statutory definition : “Certiorari is a special proceeding to review and correct the proceedings of any administrative board or agency or of any court of record other than the Supreme Court.” 1956 Code,tit.6,� 1200. LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS 501 Count “I” of respondents’ returns admits the attempt of the Magistrate to dispose of the matter upon its merits ; we quote hereunder relevant portion thereof : Because respondents say that the petition is false and misleading in its entirety, in that His Honor the respondent Magistrate, on the 8th day of May, 1959, ruled upon the issues of law raised by petitioner in the court below, and having so done, ruled the case to trial upon its merits.” It is manifestly illegal, if not arbitrary and contemptuous, for an inferior tribunal to entertain a suit in equity or an action at law when, as in the instant case, the subject matter thereof is involved in an appeal pending before this Court for final determination. The petitioner, being fully aware of the legal blunders made by the respondent Magistrate in his attempt to dispose of the case of summary ejectment instituted by F. Sawie Weeks as plaintiff against petitioner, despite the pendency of the appeal in the matter of the homestead exemption notice of the dwelling house of the late Juah Weeks Wolo, as aforesaid, which fact was duly brought to the attention of the respondent Magistrate by petitioner as alleged in Count “2” under sub-paragraph “a” of his petition to which he, the said respondent Magistrate paid no heed, thought it expedient to flee to the Chambers of His Honor, Dessaline T. Harris, Justice presiding in Chambers, as aforesaid, with an application for the issuance of a writ of certiorari, which writ was correctly ordered issued. More than this, the respondents’ counsel appears to have adopted an arbitrary or hostile attitude in these proceedings. Although His Honor, Justice Harris, in his ruling now under review reaffirmed that the assistant clerk of the court had mistakingly issued the certificate hereinabove referred to, respondents’ counsel still persisted in bringing this fruitless and unmeritorious appeal before the full 502 LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS bench, only to convince us that he is void of reason or the lack of proper understanding of what he is about with reference to this particular case. We cull from the aforesaid ruling of His Honor, Justice Harris, of this appeal, the following: “From the said ruling of the Probate Commissioner, neither party took an appeal. During the October, 1958, term, of this Court, the case of John Adolphus Weeks, Appellant, v. William A. Johns, Appellee, Homestead Exemption, etc., appeared on the trial docket, and William A. Johns filed a motion as appellee to dismiss the said case. F. Sawie Weeks, the son of Adolphus Weeks, who had substituted for his father in the said case, his father having died, informed this Court that there existed no such case by reason of the fact that, in the matter between him and William A. Johns in the lower court neither of the parties took an appeal. Reference to the lower court verified this fact. Thereupon the Court, en banc, reprimanded the clerk and had that case stricken from the docket. The certificate given by the clerk does not refer to the case in which the validity of the homestead exemption certificate is being contested, and which is pending before this Court; and in which John Adolphus Weeks, substituted by F. Sawie Weeks, is appellant, and W. H. Ketter and P. D. Gurley, administrators pendente lite of the estate of the said Juah Weeks Wolo are the appellees. Appellate courts take judicial notice of their own records as well as records certified to them from lower courts ; but, although the circumstances existing in this case, as reiterated above, were explained to counsel for the respondent, yet he strenuously contended that the case, not being on the docket of the Supreme Court for the March, 1959, term of said Court, is not pending in the Court, and hence is not sub judice.” From the foregoing excerpt from the ruling of His LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS 503 Honor, Justice Harris, we can better understand the unyielding and contemptuous attitude of counsel for respondents. In view of the foregoing, it is our considered opinion that the ruling of His Honor, Justice Harris, be and the same is, hereby affirmed ; and that Counsellor Wollor, for his contemptuous and unyielding attitude which has caused this unmeritorious and groundless appeal to occupy the time of the full Bench unnecessarily, be fined in the sum of $25 to be paid within three days from date hereof, or be suspended from the practice of law until said amount is paid and an official receipt therefor obtained by the marshal of this Court. And it is hereby so ordered. Ruling affirmed.