Republican Town Comm. of Narragansett v. Knowles

• Decision Date: 08 April 1938
• Docket Number: No. 689.,689.
• Citation: 198 A. 780
• Parties: REPUBLICAN TOWN COMMITTEE OF NARRAGANSETT et al. v. KNOWLES, Town Clerk.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

198 A. 780

REPUBLICAN TOWN COMMITTEE OF NARRAGANSETT et al.

v. KNOWLES, Town Clerk.

No. 689.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

April 8, 1938.

On the Merits April 16, 1938

Appeal from Superior Court, Providence and Bristol Counties; Charles A. Walsh, Judge.

Petition by the Republican Town Committee of the Town of Narragansett and others for a writ of mandamus to compel John F. Knowles, Town Clerk of Narragansett, to exclude the names of forty-seven voters of the town from the list of voters eligible to participate in the Republican Party caucus to be held on April 8. From a judgment granting the petition, respondents appeal.

Appeal sustained, judgment reversed, and cause remanded.

Hinckley, Allen, Tillinghast & Wheeler, Harold A. Andrews, and S. Everett Wilkins, Jr., all of Providence, for appellants. Dennis J. Roberts, Jr., and Theodore Jaffe, both of Providence, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

This case came before us upon the respondent's appeal from a judgment of the superior court granting the petition for a writ of mandamus.

For reasons to be hereafter stated, the respondent's appeal is sustained, and the judgment of the superior court is hereby reversed.

The cause is remanded to the superior court.

On the Merits.

This is an appeal from a decision of the superior court granting a petition for a writ of mandamus to compel the town clerk of Narragansett to exclude the names of forty-seven voters of that town from the list of voters eligible to participate in the Republican Party caucus to be held on April 8 in that town.

The Republican town committee, by resolution passed at a meeting, adopted four regulations for determining the qualifications of voters entitled to vote at such caucus; and immediately then adopted a resolution by which they applied them and declared that, in accordance with such regulations, the abovementioned forty-seven voters were not members of the Republican Party entitled to vote at such caucus. The committee then presented a certified copy of these resolutions to the town clerk, whose duty it was under the statute to prepare the list of voters qualified to vote at such caucus, and demanded that he exclude from the list the names of those voters whom the committee, by its resolution, had declared to be disqualified. Apparently, no evidence in any form was submitted to him that any of these voters were in fact disqualified by reason of a violation of any of the adopted regulations. Moreover, the resolution clearly failed to show that any such evidence was submitted in any form to the town committee before such regulations were applied and the disqualification of these voters, by reason thereof, was declared.

The town clerk refused to exclude from the voting list the names of these voters; and the committee thereupon filed a petition in the superior court for a writ of mandamus to compel him to do so. The matter came on for hearing in that court on the morning of April 8 and the caucus was scheduled to take place at 7:30 o'clock in the evening of that day. The request of these forty-seven voters for permission to intervene was denied, but their counsel was heard as amicus curias. No evidence was submitted at the hearing in the superior court; the petitioners resting upon their petition which was sworn to only by the chairman and secretary as being "true to the best of their information, knowledge and belief."

Thereupon, the court granted the petition on the sole ground that, under Public Laws 1930, c. 1515, § 5, it was within the powers of the town committee not only to adopt...