Jameson v. Hudson

• Decision Date: 10 July 1886
• Parties: JAMESON v. HUDSON.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

82 Va. 279

JAMESON v. HUDSON.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

July 10, 1886

Upon the petition filed in June, 1886, to this court, by Hon. H A. Jameson, who was elected in 1882 to hold the office of county judge of Pulaski county for the remainder of the term which ended 31st December, 1885, for a writ of peremptory mandamus to compel Hon. Isaac Hudson, who had been elected to fill that office for the term of six years next ensuing, to surrender that office to the petitioner.

I. H Larew and W. S. Poague, for the petitioner.

Walker & Wysor, for the respondent.

OPINION

HINTON, J.

This is a contest between the Hon. H. A. Jameson and the Hon. Isaac Hudson, for the office of county judge of Pulaski county. The facts of the case, as disclosed by the record, are these:

In April, 1882, the county of Pulaski, which then had eight thousand inhabitants, was separated from the county of Wythe and declared to be entitled to a judge of its own. Thereupon the Hon. H. A. Jameson was duly elected and commissioned as county judge of said county, and he thenceforward discharged the duties of the office until the 4th day of January, 1886, when the Hon. Isaac Hudson, who had been elected on the 31st day of December, 1885, to the same position by the legislature, took possession of the office, and proceeded to exercise all the functions thereof.

It will thus be at once seen that the point to be decided in this case depends entirely upon the length of time for which Judge Jameson was elected to hold the office. And this question, we apprehend, is freed of all difficulty by various adjudications of this court, to which we shall now briefly refer.

In the first case which arose under the present Constitution, In re Broadus, 32 Gratt. 782, the then president of this court, the venerated Judge R. C. L. Moncure, held, in an opinion remarkable for its vigor and clearness, that the terms of the county judgeships had definite and fixed beginnings and endings; that the first term of three years commenced on the 1st day of January, 1871, and ended on the 31st day of December, 1873; that the next term of six years commenced on the 1st day of January, 1874, and ended on the 31st day of December, 1879; and that the succeeding term of six years commenced on the 1st day of January, 1880, and ended on the 31st day of December, 1885. He also held in that opinion that the clause in section 22 of Article VI of the Constitution, which provides that the judges " shall discharge the duties of their respective offices from their first appointment and qualification under this Constitution until their terms begin," applied to those county judges only whose judicial terms were to commence on the 1st day of January, 1871; and in this opinion Judge Anderson concurred.

The correctness of this construction, it is true, was denied by a majority of the court in the cases of ex parte Meredith, Bland & Giles Co. Judge Case, and Estes v Edmondson, reported in 33 Grattan; but these cases must be regarded as overruled, and as not containing the correct doctrine upon these points. In Burks v. Hinton, 77 Va. R. 1, these same provisions of the Constitution came again under review, when this court, upon great...