State Ex Rel P. H. Goshorn v. Johnson

• Decision Date: 23 November 1926
• Docket Number: (No. 5722)
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: State ex rel P. H. Goshorn v. W. S. Johnson, State Treasurer

102 W.Va. 629

State ex rel P. H. Goshorn

v.W. S. Johnson, State Treasurer

(No. 5722)

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Submitted June 8, 1926.

Decided November 23, 1926.

Mandamus

One seeking relief by mandamus must show a clear legal right to the remedy.

Original Jurisdiction in Mandamus.

P. H. Goshorn, relator against W. S. Johnson, Treasurer, State of West Virginia.

Writ refused.

England & Ritchie, for relator. T. C. Townsend, for respondent.

Litz, President:

The relator, P. H. Goshorn, seeks a peremptory writ of mandamus compelling the respondent W. S. Johnson, State Treasurer, to honor a warrant in the sum of $200.00 drawn by John C. Bond, as auditor, on a State fund designated "Salary for clerk hire to Board of Finance", for alleged services rendered by the relator in behalf of the Board of Finance during the month of February, 1925.

Chapter 8, Acts of the Legislature 1925, known as "the new State depository law", was enacted for the purpose (stated in the enacting clause) of "amending and re-enacting sections one, two and three of chapter Seventeen of Barnes' Code of one thousand nine hundred and eighteen, and adding sections one-a, one-b, one-c, two-a, two-b, three-a, and three-b relating to depository banks; requiring the board of public works to designate a sufficient number of banks as inactive depositories and a number as active depositories in each senatorial district; providing a minimum rate of interest on deposits to be charged active and inactive depositories; reducing the minimum amount of depository bonds from fifty thousand dollars to ten thousand dollars; prohibiting depositories from accepting deposits of State funds for an amount greater than their combined capital stock and surplus; providing a prompt and efficient method of stopping deposits being made in an insolvent depository, and for removing funds already on deposit in same without advertising its financial condition; providing that all moneys collected for or on behalf of the State shall be turned over to the State Treasurer and by him promptly paid into the State Treasury; requiring the State Treasurer to keep at all times the inactive funds in the treasury distributed among the fifty-five counties upon a basis of the total assessment of all property in each county; providing a method for making deposits in State depositories of moneys received outside of the State; providing for a board of finance; prohibiting the treasurer from depositing State funds in any depository in which he is financially interested".

Section 2-6 of the act, creating, and prescribing the duties of, the Board of Finance, follows:

"There is hereby created a board of finance, composed of the governor, auditor and treasurer, of which the governor shall be chairman and the auditor shall be secretary; said board shall have the authority to determine the proportion of all State funds that shall be treated as active funds and shall, have the authority to determine the basis upon which. the inactive funds due any county shall be distributed among its inactive depositories and any other rules and regulations that it may deem necessary or expedient to protect the interest of the State, its...