State Ex Rel. Hall v. Gilmer County Court

• Citation: 105 S.E. 693
• Decision Date: 12 January 1921
• Docket Number: (No. 4255.)
• Parties: STATE ex rel. HALL. v. GILMER COUNTY COURT et al.
• Court: Supreme Court of West Virginia

105 S.E. 693

STATE ex rel. HALL.
v.
GILMER COUNTY COURT et al.

(No. 4255.)

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Jan. 12, 1921.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Mandamus by the State, on the relation of J. H. Hall against the County Court of Gilmer County and others. Writ awarded.

M. B. Morris, J. D. Jones, of Glenville, and Linn Brannon, of Weston, for relator.

L. H. Barnett, of Glenville, and W. W. Brannon, of Weston, for respondents.

LYNCH J. Having received a substantial majority of the votes cast by the qualified electors for the office of sheriff of Gilmer county, at the election held and conducted

[105 S.E. 694]

November 2, 1920, and the certificate showing the result of such election as between himself and J. P. Vanhorn, his only opponent or rival candidate, and having taken the formal oath of office and executed the required bonds, J. H. Hall, the relator, moved the county court to accept and approve these essential prerequisites tendered by him for approval, and to permit him to be inducted into the office for the term beginning on the 1st day of January, 1921. This motion the court refused to grant, and in response to the command of the alternative writ heretofore awarded the court and its several members undertake to justify the refusal upon four several grounds: (1) That Hall was not a candidate in the preceding primary for nomination as a candidate for the office of sheriff of the county; (2) was not named or nominated as such candidate within 20 days thereafter by the county executive committee of the political party with which he affiliates; (3) that there was pending, though not docketed, a notice served upon Hall of a contest by Vanhorn of Hall's election to the office; and (4) that Hall failed to file with the clerk of the county court, within not less than 7 and not more than 15 days before the primary and general elections, the itemized and verified detailed statement of the expenses incurred and obligations assumed by him in each election, and of other information required by section 8b(6), chapter 5, Code 1918 (Code Supp. 1918, sec. 188f).

The first and second objections cannot avail by way of justification of the court's refusal of affirmative action upon Hall's motion, or warrant like action by this court by way of favorable consideration of respondents' insistence upon lack of jurisdiction to award its compulsory process to enforce the induction of Hall into the office he was elected to fill. For, as held in Trunick v. Town of North View, 80 W. Va. 9, 91 S. E. 1081, the canvass of election returns, ascertainment and declaration of the result, and issuance of the...