State v. Joughin

• Decision Date: 05 January 1933
• Citation: 107 Fla. 850,145 So. 174
• Parties: STATE ex rel. HATTON v. JOUGHIN.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

145 So. 174

107 Fla. 850

STATE ex rel. HATTON v. JOUGHIN.

Florida Supreme Court

January 5, 1933

En Banc.

On petition for a rehearing.

Petition denied.

For former opinion, see 103 Fla. 877, 138 So. 392.

BROWN J., dissenting.

COUNSEL Dickenson & Lake, of Tampa, and Waller &amp Pepper, of Tallahassee, for relator.

Charles F. Blake, Peter O. Knight, Sutton, Tillman & Reeves, and Pat Whitaker, all of Tampa, for respondent.

OPINION

PER CURIAM.

A petition for rehearing suggests that in our previous decision of this case there is an irreconcilable conflict between that opinion and what was said in State ex rel. Attorney General v. Johnson, 30 Fla. 433, 11 So. 845, 18 L. R. A 410, as well as what was said in Advisory Opinion to the Governor, 69 Fla. 508, 68 So. 450.

No purpose was expressed in our opinion filed December 12, 1931 (reported in 103 Fla. 877, 138 So. 392) to overrule or modify what was said in either of the two previous decisions cited nor are we able to comprehend where there is any conflict such as the petition for a rehearing asserts exists.

Assuming that it is true that the Governor's communication to the Senate, when liberally construed, does not contain a sufficient recommendation for removal from office to comply with the requirements of section 15 of article 4 of the Constitution, as it was construed by this court in Advisory Opinion to the Governor, 69 Fla. 508, 68 So. 450, it cannot be said that the Senate's action, based on the communication that was actually sent to the Senate by the Governor in this case, was so nugatory that after the Senate had accepted it as being sufficient, and had had a hearing and acted on it without any protest or objection at the time, on the part of the affected officer, whose conduct is consistent with the idea that he himself accepted and regarded it as sufficient to authorize the Senate to proceed, that the Senate's action can be collaterally attacked and avoided after the Senate has acted and adjourned, as was the case here.

The power conferred upon the Governor and the Senate by section 15 of article 4 of the Constitution, to bring about the removal of certain officers for specific causes, implies authority to judge of the existence of the cause, and orders made in the exercise of that power are presumptively valid and based upon sufficient procedural steps to warrant the same, unless the contrary is clearly made to appear. Courts...