Cutts v. ScandrettCutts v. Scandrett
- Reporters:
- , ,
- Before:
- Lewis
On the 11th day of January, 1899, an election was held in the city of Cordele, Dooty county, for the offices of mayor and three aldermen of said city. There were two candidates for mayor and six candidates for alderman in said election. The candidates for. mayor were William Scandrett and O. O. Cutts, the plaintiff in error. Outts received a majority of the votes, and he was declared duly elected by the managers of the election. The three candidates for alderman receiving the highest number of votes were likewise declared elected by the managers. After this Scandrett and the three *621defeated candidates for alderman instituted their proceedings to cоntest the election before the ordinary of Dooly county, under section 111 of the Political Code. That contest proceeded to the extent of having the testimony taken before a magistrate and returned to the ordinary, and on the hearing before the ordinary he sustained a motion to dismiss the contest for want of proper service or notice on the respondents. The contestants were claiming the offices upon the ground that they received the highest number of legal votes cast in the election, claiming that the respondents received illegal votes sufficient in number to reduce their apparent majority to a minority of the legal bаllots cast. After this proceeding was disposed of by the ordinary, Scandrett presented his petition for leave to file an information in the nature of a quo warranto, to Hon. Z. A. Littlejohn, the judge of the superior courts of the circuit, who thereupon declared himself disqualified to hear the case, on account of the fact that he was related to one of the contestants for the office of alderman, was a taxpayer residing in the city, and was also related to officers who held their appointments under the mayor and aldermen and who were, therefore, interested in the results of the contest. The petition was then brought before Hon. W. H. Feltоn, judge of the superior courts of the Macon circuit, on the 13th day of March, 1899. To this application the respondent C. C. Cutts filed, before answering the case, his demurrer to the petition, which was overruled by Judge Felton; and he also filed his plea to the jurisdiction, on the ground that under the .facts stated by Judge Littlejohn he was not disqualified, and that therefore the judge of the superior courts of the Macon circuit had no jurisdiction of the case; which was likewise overruled. Respondent then filed his answer, and the court passed an order allowing the information to be filed as prayed for, and, there being an issue of fact raised by the pleadings, granted an order setting the issue fоr a hearing before the jury regularly empanelled for the February term of Dooly superior court, on the 23d of March, 1899. To this order respondent excepted. On the 27th of March, at the February adjourned term of Dooly superior court, the case was called for trial, Hon. W. B. Butt, judge of the Ohattahoo*622chee circuit, presiding. Respondent then filed his motion to dismiss the case, which was overruled by the court, and he also filed a demurrer and a plea to the jurisdiction of the court, on the same grounds as taken before Judge Felton. It seems this demurrer and plea were filed to the petition brought by the solicitor-general in the name of the State; the latter petition being based on the samе grounds as were embodied in the original petition filed by Scandrett. Both the demurrer and the plea were overruled by the court. The case then proceeded to trial on its merits, the petition claiming the office, in behalf of Scandrett, on practically the same grounds as were involved in the contest before the ordinary. The jury returned a verdict finding the issues in behalf of the plaintiff, and the judge rendered a judgment ousting respondent from the office. The respondent Cutts then made a motion for a new trial on various grounds, which was overruled by the court. He then brought his bill of exceptions, assigning error both upon the rulings of Judge Felton, overruling his demurrer and plea, and also upon the rulings of Judge Butt, overruling a similar demurrer and plea, and alleging error on the judgment overruling his motion for a new trial,. When the case was called for trial in this court,’ a motion was made to dismiss the writ of error, on the ground that the errors complained of in the bill of exceptions consist of rulings made by two judges, to wit, H. Felton, judge of the superior courts of the Macon circuit, and W. B. Butt, judge of the superior courts of the Chattahoochee circuit. The motion contained the further grounds, that there was nothing in the record to give this court jurisdiction, that the rulings of the court were not certified in a proper manner, and that there were no proper parties to the bill of excеptions.
In the case of the State of Ohio v. Marlow, 15 Ohio St. 114, it was decided that “A specific mode of contesting elections in this State having been provided by statute, according to the requirement of the constitution, that mode alone can be resorted to, in exclusion of the common-law mode of inquiry by proceedings in quo warranto. The statute which gives this special remedy, and prescribes the mode of its exercise, binds the State as well as individuals.” In Pennsylvania a provision by statute conferred upon a certain municipal council the power of inquiring into and determining whether or not there had been an undue election of certain officers. In the case of Commonwealth v. Henszey, 81 Pa. St. 101, it was held that, in •consequence of such a statutory provision, providing a specific means for contesting an election, the writ of quo warranto would not lie. In the case of Commonwealth v. Garrigeus, 28 Pa. St. 9, 70 Am. Dec. 103, it was decided that the “mode prescribed by statute for inquiring into and determining regularity and legality of municipal election and the returns made thereof must be followed as provided, to the exclusion of the common-law mode of redress.” In Paine on Elections, § 860, it is declared: “When the statute creates a special tribunal and prescribes special proceedings for the trial of contested-election cases, and the tribunal to which jurisdiction is given is vested with full powers to adjudicate all questions involved in such cases, the courts will not take jurisdiction by quo warranto, at common law, even in case of fraud on part of the officers of election or candidates.” Mechem’s Public Officers, §215, declares that where special forms of procedure for the contest of an election have been provided by statute, the machinery so provided must, by individuals, and usually by the people, *628be made use of in preference to the remedies afforded by the ‘ common law, and that the common-law remedy by an information in the nature of a quo warranto must be resorted to where no special remedy is provided. The same view is held in High’s Extraordinary Legal Remedies, § 617. In § 617 (a) the author does recognize a conflict of authority as to the’ extent to which statutory remedies for contesting elections to public offices exclude the jurisdiction of the courts, by proceedings in quo warranto to determine the title to such offices, in cases-of dispute between rival claimants. On this subject he argues that “A proceeding in quo warranto is not an election contest-between rival claimants of an office, but is rather a proceeding by the people in their sovereign capacity, the right to maintain which is not taken away or impaired by a statute granting to-electors the right in their individual capacity to contest an election to a public office.” He concludes, therefore, that an information will 1-ie in behalf of the people in such cases, but clearly indicates it would not lie in behalf of citizens or electors desiring to contest an election to a public office. There is authority, in adjudications on this subject in a few other States of thе-Union, in conflict with the views entertained in the text-books- and decisions above cited, but we do not think that even theso authorities are necessarily in conflict with our views in this-case ; for they all seem to recognize the fact that while the mere existence of a statutory remedy does not necessarily oust the-courts of jurisdiction, by proceedings in quo warranto, in an election contest, yet if by the language of a special statutory provision the legislature clearly indicates its intent to make the remedy prescribed exclusive, and not merely cumulative, the courts will, of course, give effect to such intention. We have already endeavored to show that a fair construction of the act-of 1898 is, that the use of the imperative words, requiring that all such contests of elections relating to municipal and other officers shall be filed before the ordinary, manifested-an intention of the legislature to exclude every other remedy for such a contest; especially when the contest is made by a defeated candidate seeking to go behind the returns of an election and .claiming that he is entitled to the office by virtue of having *629received a majority of the legal votes cast. This conclusion is entirely in accord with the views expressed by this court in Davis v. City Council of Dawson, 90 Ga. 817, in which it was held that a defeated candidate, in his character of citizen and taxpayer, might by quo warranto bring into question the right ef his opponent to hold the office, with the view to have the same declared vacant. The case just cited does not hold that such defeated candidate could by quo warranto contest for the office itself. In this connection, we repeat that in the case now in hand Scandrett was not seeking to have the office declared vacant, nor to have adjudicated the abstract question of the right of Cutts to hold it. Plainly the only purpose of Scandrett was to oust Cutts and get the office for himself, as a contestant for the same. The decision in Crovatt v. Mason, 101 Ga. 246, did not relate to a contested-election case at all. The contention in that case was that the successful candidate was ineligible to the office, and it was simply held there that a defeated candidate for the office, if a citizen of the city, had such an interest in the office as would entitle him to have the application granted in a proper case made.
The case of Hardin v. Colquitt, 63 Ga. 588, cited by counsel for defendant in error, contains nothing in conflict with this view. The office contested for in that case, by petition for quo warranto, might have been contested for, under the statute, before the Governor. It was not decided that the contest before the executive was merely cumulative, but it was. simply decided that even if such remedy was exclusive, where full opportunity had been afforded to have the contest heard and determined, yet where a commission had issued inadvertently pending the contest and after due notice to the Governor, the remedy by quo warranto was available. There is no pretense in this case that the petitioner for the writ of quo warranto did not have full opportunity afforded him to have his contest heard and determined by the ordinary of his county. In fact, it appears that he actually commenced his proceeding for a contest and failed to successfully prosecute it. In the case of Corbett v. McDaniel, 77 Ga. 544, it was practically dеcided that where the constitution and laws of the State empower the Governor to examine *630the returns of all elections made to his department and to issue commissions, and he has accordingly done so, a proceeding in the nature of a quo warranto, alleging that th.e returns of the-election for the particular office in question showed that the-relator was elected to that office, and by mistake when they were consolidated they gave a plurality of votes to the respondent, who had been commissioned by the Governor, should have-been dismissed on demurrer. It was further ruled in that case that under a proper proceeding for quo wаrranto, as to matters-not passed on by the Governor and which he is not required to pass upon, the court would not undertake to say that a quowarranto might not issue. In the case of Ginn v. Linn, 83 Ga. 180, it was directly decided by this court, that in so far as-an election to a county office is evidenced by the returns merely, a commission issued by the Governor is made final by the statute, where no hearing has been sought before the Governor prior to the commission being issued, and this is so whether the returns sent up be complete or incomplete. “We think the principle decided in that case controls the question now under consideration. There the law provided for a contest before the Governor, and it provided that the party desiring to make the contest should take certain steps before the Governor acted upon the returns and issued the commission. No such steps were taken. On page 187, Chief Justice Bleckley, delivering’ the opinion, stated that while the returns were alleged to have been incomplete, an important omission having been made in sending them up to the capital, yet if the parties interested in the election neglected to see that all of the precincts were included and failed to discover the omission, if any, before the commission issued, the courts could not aid them as the law then stood. That really seems to have been a stronger case for the plaintiff than the one presented by this record, and the-decision must have been based upon the idea that the remedy of a contest before the Governor, prescribed by the statute, was-exclusive, and that the petition for quo warranto would not lie upon any ground which could have been made a subject-matter of contest before the Governor. It can make no difference in principle what particular officer or person the statute-*631designates as a proper tribunal to hear a contested-election case, whether it be a governor, ordinary, or other officer, individual, оr court of the State. The law authorizing the Governor to hear and determine contested elections of certain officers, existing at the time the above decisions were made (see section 1329 of the Code of 1882), it will be noted, did not contain the same imperative words as are employed in the act of 1893. If that law, under which the Governor was empowered to act, excluded the jurisdiction of the courts by quo warranto, or any other common-law proceeding, we think it necessarily follows that the act of 1893 must receive the same construction. This is really the first time that the question as to whether the above-cited act of 1893 provides an exclusive remedy for the contest of elections of the officers therein named has ever been made before this court. Speaking for myself, I am inclined to the opinion that by the terms of that act the remedy is not only exclusive so far as concerns the contest by a defeated candidate claiming the office, but it is also exclusive when such contest is made in behalf of the State or the public. If we are right in our view of the construction of that statute, I can see no reason for not applying it to any party who may see fit to contest an election. It is not, however, necessary to determine this question in this case, and we have endeavored abоve to show that our decision in this particular case, touching the rights of a defeated candidate, is not in conflict with any deci-’ sions of this court, even construing such as were made before the act of 1893 as being applicable to the issue before us.
There are several other questions made in the record, relating to various rulings of the judge on other matters during the progress of the trial, which, in the view we take of this case, it is, of course, unnecessary to consider. The court being without jurisdiction, the result of the trial, terminating in a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff, is necessarily a nullity; and direction is accordingly given that the same be set aside and the case be dismissed.
Judgment reversed, with direction.
All the Justices concurring.