Valle v. Pressman

• Decision Date: 11 September 1962
• Docket Number: No. 201,201
• Citation: 229 Md. 591,185 A.2d 368
• Parties: Francis J. VALLE et al. v. Hyman A. PRESSMAN. Francis J. VALLE et al. v. Jack M. FOX. Casimer J. MIODUSZEWSKI et al. v. Lawrence J. STEVENSON.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 591

229 Md. 591

185 A.2d 368

Francis J. VALLE et al. v. Hyman A. PRESSMAN.

Francis J. VALLE et al. v. Jack M. FOX.

Casimer J. MIODUSZEWSKI et al. v. Lawrence J. STEVENSON.

No. 201.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Sept. 11, 1962.

Opinion Nov. 5, 1962.

W. Lee Harrison, Towson (Michael Paul Smith and Richard C. Murray, Towson, and Norman Polovoy, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant Francis J. Valle.

Patrick A. O'Doherty, Baltimore (William A. Hegarty and Richard T. Moxley, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant State Central Committee of Baltimore City.

Hyman A. Pressman, Baltimore, in pro. per.

Jack M. Fox, Baltimore, in pro. per.

Mark D. Coplin and Robert F. Skutch, Jr., Baltimore (Weinberg & Green, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee Lawrence J. Stevenson.

Thomas B. Finan, Atty. Gen., 'pro bono publico' (Robert F. Sweeney, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore, on the brief), for Bd. of Supervisors of Elections of Baltimore City.

Before BRUNE, C. J., and HENDERSON, HAMMOND, PRESCOTT, HORNEY, MARBURY and SYBERT, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

For reasons hereafter to be stated the decree of the Circuit Court of Baltimore City is hereby affirmed.

HAMMOND, Judge.

On the day after argument we affirmed by per curiam order a degree of the Circuit Court of Baltimore City which held that the purported nomination of Francis J. Valle as Democratic candidate for State's Attorney of Baltimore by the State Central Committee of Baltimore City (the 'City Committee') was invalid and that paper writings submitted to the Board of Supervisors of Elections of Baltimore City, purporting to certify Valle's nomination by the Committee, were null and void. The reasons for the affirmance follow.

Saul A. Harris, who had been nominated as the Democratic candidate for State's Attorney of Baltimore in the May, 1962 primary election, died on August 11. While his funeral was in progress on August 13, a meeting of the City Committee, convened by three of its members who had sent telegrams to the other members just before midnight of the day before, was held at a restaurant in Baltimore. Ten of the eighteen members of the Committee, including Anthony E. Gallagher (who had been convicted of grand larceny in 1953 by the Criminal Court of Baltimore) and Domenick DiPietro (who had been convicted of conspiracy to violate the naturalization laws in 1940 by the United States District Court for the District of Maryland) were present. The ten members in attendance signed a paper certifying that Francis J. Valle was the nominee of the Committee to be Democratic candidate for the office of State's Attorney of Baltimore. The certificate was delivered the same day to the Board of Supervisors of Election of Baltimore.

The Attorney General had written the Supervisors on July 5, 1962, that Gallagher was ineligible to vote because of his conviction. On July 10 the Board of Supervisors of Elections wrote Gallagher that unless he challenged the conviction within two weeks, his registration as a voter would be cancelled. He did not reply, and on July 25 his name was removed from the list of voters. On August 14 the Attorney General, apparently on his own initiative, wrote the Board that Gallagher was not registered as a member of a political party and, therefore, was ineligible to be a member of the Democratic State Central Committee, that a vacancy existed 'nunc pro tunc' on the Committee from the Third District of Baltimore City and that Gallagher's name should be deleted from the list of members of the Committee. The Board immediately deleted his name, and on August 15 wrote the Acting Chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee for the State of Maryland (the 'State Committee') that it had done so and that a vacancy existed on the City Committee 'nunc pro tunc.' A copy was sent to the Secretary of State of Maryland and the Clerk of the Superior Court of Baltimore (with whom the Board had filed Valle's certificate of nomination).

On August 15, again just before midnight, four members of the City Committee sent telegrams to the other members calling a meeting of the Committee for eleven a. m. the next day. Again ten members were present, including Gallagher. DiPietro did not attend; but Franklin L. Waldt, who was not at the first meeting, came to the second. The nomination of Valle was ratified and confirmed, and a certificate that he was the Democratic nominee was signed by each of the ten members and left that day with the Supervisors.

There was testimony the custom and usage of the City Committee was that ten members constituted a quorum and each member had one vote.

Three bills of complaint seeking to invalidate the Valle nomination soon were filed in the Circuit Court of Baltimore City. One, later supplemented, by Hyman Pressman, suing as a citizen, taxpayer, resident of Baltimore, and member and voter of the Democratic Party, and alleging irreparable harm, impairment of civil rights and waste of taxpayers' funds in printing illegal ballots and holding an illegal election, was against the Supervisors and Valle. It claimed that the City Committee meetings were invalid because Gallagher and DiPietro were disqualified so that a quorum was not present, that unit voting was required, that reasonable notice was not given, and that the power and authority to fill the vacancy was in the State Committee and not in the City Committee.

Another was by Jack M. Fox, suing as a resident, a taxpayer and a registered voter of the Democratic Party, against Valle, the Supervisors and the eighteen members of the City Committee as 'members of and constituting the Democratic State Central Committee of Baltimore City.' He relied for relief on the contention that the State Committee and not the City Committee was empowered under the applicable statutes to fill the vacancy in the nomination for State's Attorney. The third, by Lawrence J. Stevenson, suing as a member of the City Committee (who had not attended either meeting), a resident and a voter affiliated with the Democratic Party, and alleging irreparable harm to him as a citizen, taxpayer, voter and member of the Party and its Committee, was against the other members of the City Committee, as members, and the Board of Supervisors. Its reliance was on improper and inadequate notice, lack of a quorum (because of the disqualification of Gallagher and DiPietro) and the failure to vote by the unit vote.

The cases were consolidated. Each of the defendants demurred on the grounds that a court of equity had no power or right either to determine an election or political contest or to try title to office, lack of necessary parties and lack of standing of the complainants to sue.

We think the demurrers were overruled properly. The general rule that a court of equity may not decide election contests or interfere in political controversies is not inflexible and lately has been considerably relaxed. See Maryland Committee For Fair Representation v. Tawes, 228 Md. 412, 180 A.2d 656, following Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663. Soper v. Jones, 171 Md. 643, 187 A. 833, held that a court of equity had jurisdiction of a taxpayer's suit to enjoin the Secretary of State from certifying the name of a candidate because of his failure to comply with statutory requirements as to signature. Chief Judge Bond referred to the general rule that equity will not decide election cases and said for the Court: 'But a contention that no controversy that affects elections may be heard and decided by the court would be at odds with other decisions,' and cited cases in equity in which jurisdiction had been entertained, such as Carr v. Hyattsville, 115 Md. 545, 81 A. 8 (a bill to invalidate a referendum election on a local act); Graf v. Hiser, 144 Md. 418, 125 A. 151 (a bill to declare a referendum election invalid as improperly held); and Sun Cab Co. v. Cloud, 162 Md. 419, 159 A. 922 (a bill to restrain the holding of a referendum election because the signatures seeking it did not meet constitutional requirements.) Judge Bond went on to point out that in the Sun Cab case a distinction was drawn between 'interferences by the courts with the political conduct of elections, and taking jurisdiction of a question whether persons assuming to avail themselves of the election machinery set up for private initiative are persons entitled under the law to do so.'

In Hammond v. Love, 187 Md. 138, 49 A.2d 75, a mandamus case, this Court said that administrative or official decisions and actions in regard to the elective process which are arbitrary or contrary to law are subject to review by the courts. In Mayor and Town Council of Landover Hills v. Brandt, 199 Md. 105, 107, 85 A.2d 449, Judge Henderson for the Court restated earlier holdings that the statute which says the judges of the circuit courts and of the Superior Court of Baltimore City should decide contested elections in certain cases (now Code (1957), Art. 33, Sec. 145) does not confer jurisdiction in equity, and said: 'Nor would equity have inherent jurisdiction in the absence of fraud, or arbitrary or illegal action.' The Court affirmed the chancellor's action in recounting the ballots because the case could have been removed from equity to law and heard before the same judge. Other cases involving matters pertaining to elections in which equity has acted and in which no question of its right to do so was raised include Wilkinson v. McGill, 192 Md. 387, 64 A.2d 266; Nutwell v. Board of Supervisors of Elections, 205 Md. 338, 108 A.2d 149 (bill to nullify action of a State Central Committee in certifying a nominee); Lexington Park Volunteer Fire Department v. Robidoux, 218 Md. 195, 146 A.2d 184.

The bills in the case before us charged illegal action in the nomination by the City Committee which, they alleged, had no power to nominate since the statutes confided that duty to the State Committee. We think they stated a cause of action of which equity had...