State v. Jones

• Citation: 79 Fla. 56,84 So. 84
• Parties: STATE ex rel. SWEARINGEN, Atty. En. v. JONES et al.
• Decision Date: 26 January 1920
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

84 So. 84

79 Fla. 56

STATE ex rel. SWEARINGEN, Atty. En. v. JONES et al.

Florida Supreme Court

January 26, 1920

Information in the nature of a quo warranto, by the State, on the relation of Van C. Swearingen, Attorney General, against John B. Jones and others. Demurrers to answer sustained.

Syllabus by the Court

SYLLABUS

The term 'office' implies a delegation of a portion of the sovereign power to, and possession of it by, the person filling the office; a 'public office' being an agency for the state, and the person whose duty it is to perform the agency being a 'public officer.' The term embraces the idea of tenure, duration, and duties, and has respect to a public trust to be exercised in behalf of government, and not to a merely transient, occasional, or incidental employment. A person in the service of the government who derives his position from a duly and legally authorized election or appointment, whose duties are continuous in their nature and defined by rules prescribed by government, and not by contract, consisting of the exercise of important public powers, trusts, or duties, as a part of the regular administration of the government, the place and the duties remaining, though the incumbent dies or is changed; every 'office,' in the constitutional meaning of the term implying an authority to exercise some portion of the sovereign power, either in making, executing, or administering the laws. A 'state officer' is one who falls within this definition and whose field for the exercise of his jurisdiction, duties, and powers is coextensive with the limits of the state and extends to every part of it.

Chapter 7921, Acts of Legislature approved June 9, 1919, creating a commssion to be known as the Florida Purchase Centennial Commission, held to be unconstitutional and void because it creates state officers, and fails to provide for their election by the people or appointment by the Governor, as required by the Constitution, and fixes their terms of office for a period longer than four years.

All persons by authority of law intrusted with the receipt of public money, or through whose hands such money may pass to the treasury, are 'public officers,' whether the service be general or special, transient, or permanent.

COUNSEL Van C. Swearingen, Atty. Gen., and John S. Beard of Pensacola, for relator.

OPINION

BROWNE C.J.

This is a case of original jurisdiction.

An information in the nature of a quo warranto was filed in this court by the Attorney General against W. G. Brorein, John B Jones, J. J. Logan, W. A. MacWilliams, and J. M. Burguieres, charging them with enjoying, exercising, and performing the powers, duties, and functions of officers of the state of Florida, without legal authority or warrant, and in violation of the Constitution of the state of Florida.

The information in part alleges that chapter 7921, Acts of the Legislature of the State of Florida approved June 9, 1919, created a commission to be known as the Florida Purchase Centennial Commission, to consist of five members, who are designated in the act, viz., W. G. Brorein, W. A. Blount, C. M. Cooper, W. A. MacWilliams, and George W. Allen, and that, by authority of section 3 of the act, the commission elected John B. Jones, vice W. A. Blount, resigned; J. J. Logan, vice C. M. Cooper resigned; and J. M. Burguieres, vice George W. Allen, resigned. Answers were filed by all the respondents, but that of J. M. Burguieres was not filed until after the return day, and after the Attorney General had filed a demurrer to the answers of John B. Jones, W. G. Brorein, J. J. Logan, and W. A. MacWilliams. As all the answers are substantially to the same effect, the demurrer will be treated as reaching them all. Each respondent admits the allegations of the information, and says that he exercises, enjoys, and performs the functions, duties, powers, and franchises of a member of the Florida Purchase Centennial Committee, by virtue of chapter 7921 of the Acts of the Legislature, approved June 9, 1919.

The demurrer attacks the sufficiency of these answers as failing to set up any valid title to the rights, privileges, powers, and franchises now enjoyed and exercised by them, because such rights, privileges, powers, and franchises are those of officers of the state of Florida, and that the act under which the respondents claim to exercise their powers is unconstitutional and void.

The issue presented by the pleadings makes it necessary for us to determine if the members of the Florida Purchase Centennial Commission are state officers, and if so are the respondents holding their respective offices under a legal and constitutional appointment and authority?

It is unnecessary to go into an extended discussion of the question of what is the test of a 'public office,' as this has been fully discussed and decided by this court in State ex rel. Clyatt v. Hocker, 39 Fla. 477, 22 So. 721, 63 Am. St. Rep. 174; Advisory Opinion to Governor (In re Members of the Legislature) 49 Fla. 269, 39 So. 63; State ex rel. Holloway v. Sheats, 83 So. 508, decided at the last term of this court.

Applying these tests to chapter 7921, we are satisfied that the Florida Purchase Centennial Commissioners are state officers. It is true that they lack some of the characteristics that usually distinguish officers from agents or employés, but it is not necessary for the office to have all of these characteristics. Some of the minor or less important ones may be missing and yet the essential one--that some part of the sovereign power of the state has been delegated to them or that they exercise distinctly governmental functions--be present. Such is the condition here.

The statute in question confers large, and within the scope of the purpose of their creation almost unlimited, powers of a distinctly governmental character upon the commissioners.

They are given authority to provide and determine their own method of procedure and rules of order; they are authorized 'to employ such chiefs, heads of departments, officers, foremen, engineers, superintendents, clerks, secretaries, employés and laborers, as it may deem necessary for the performance of its duties, and fix their compensation, and remove them from office or employment or reinstate them in office or employment at its sole will and pleasure.' Section 3.

They are 'vested with full and complete power to undertake, inaugurate, create, perfect, complete, supervise, manage, control, regulate and direct an international exposition, which is hereby authorized to be held in the state of Florida dedicated on July 16, 1921, and inaugurated on Victory Day, November 11, 1922, in commemoration of the Florida Purchase Centennial, at such point in the state of Florida as said commission may select.' Section 5.

They are 'fully authorized to represent and act for the state of Florida in asking for, receiving and handling such appropriations by the United States Congress as said Congress of the United States may make, appropriate, grant or allow toward or in aid of the international fair heretofore mentioned in this act, and said commission is fully authorized to ask for, receive and accept such appropriations, upon such terms and conditions as it may deem necessary or proper; and the said commission is hereby authorized to go in person or by their duly appointed representative before the United States Congress for the purpose of seeking and requesting appropriations for said International Fair.' Section 6.

They are 'authorized to delegate any corporation that may hereafter be created in this state and under its laws for financing and administering or carrying on such international exposition any and all of the powers granted to said commission by this act; and in the event that a corporation is created under the general incorporation law of this state for the purpose of financing, administering and carrying on of the said...