State ex rel. v. Clough

• Citation: 64 Minn. 378
• Decision Date: 11 May 1896
• Docket Number: Nos. 9955 - (61).,s. 9955 - (61).
• Parties: STATE ex rel. GEORGE L. HARDY v. DAVID M. CLOUGH and Others, Commissioners.<SMALL><SUP>1</SUP></SMALL>
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

64 Minn. 378

STATE ex rel. GEORGE L. HARDY v. DAVID M. CLOUGH and Others, Commissioners.¹

Nos. 9955 - (61).

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

May 11, 1896.

Certiorari issued to the governor, state auditor, and secretary of state of the state of Minnesota, for the purpose of reviewing their action as commissioners under the provisions of Laws 1895, c. 298, by which certain territory was detached from Cass county and attached to Crow Wing county. Writ quashed.

M. R. Tyler and M. E. Clapp, for relator. John B. Sanborn also filed a brief in support of the writ.

H. W. Childs, Attorney General, and Wilson & Van Derlip, for respondents.

MITCHELL, J.

It is here sought, on writ of certiorari, to review the proceedings of the governor, secretary of state, and state auditor, under Laws 1895, c. 298, entitled "An act providing for the enlargement of organized counties by attaching thereto, and incorporating therein, territory from an adjoining unorganized county or counties."

The act provides² that whenever there shall be presented to the secretary of state a petition signed by not less than 55 per cent. of the actual residents and legal voters of any organized county as shown by the returns of the last preceding general election, praying that certain territory be detached from an adjoining unorganized county or counties, containing an accurate description of such territory and the boundaries thereof, and also a petition of like import signed by 55 per cent. of the actual residents and legal voters of the territory proposed to be attached to said organized county, as shown by the returns of said last preceding general election from all the voting precincts within said territory, which said petitions shall contain specified facts, verified by the oaths of the legal voters signing the same, then the secretary of state shall at once file the petitions, and notify the governor and state auditor of the receipt of the same; and they shall immediately meet and consider said petitions, and, if they be found to conform to law, they, or a majority of them, shall so certify, and immediately thereupon the governor shall issue his proclamation, attested by the secretary of state, setting forth the facts that such petitions have been so filed and found conformable to law, and declaring the territory described in the petitions detached from the unorganized county or counties of which it was formerly a part, and attached to and incorporated within the organized county, as prayed for in the petitions. Upon the issuance of such proclamation, the said territory shall thereupon become a part of the organized county.

Under the repeated decisions of this court, these proceedings are neither judicial nor quasi judicial in their nature, and cannot be reviewed on certiorari. We have so often stated our views as to the office of the writ of certiorari, and the nature of the proceedings that may be reviewed on it, that it is wholly unnecessary to repeat them at this time. In re Wilson, 32 Minn. 145, 19 N. W. 723; Lemont v. County of Dodge, 39 Minn. 385, 40 N. W. 359; Christlieb v. County of Hennepin, 41 Minn. 142, 42 N. W. 930; Moede v. County of...