Case Name: METZ et al. v. MADDOX et al.
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1907-07-16
Citations: 105 N.Y.S. 702
Docket Number: 
Parties: METZ et al. v. MADDOX et al.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 105
Pages: 702–724

Head Matter:
(121 App. Div. 147)
METZ et al. v. MADDOX et al.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department.
July 16, 1907.)
1. Elections—Recanvass of Votes—Constitutionality of Statutes.
Laws 1907, c. 53S, providing for a hearing and determination by the Supreme Court of an election contest, confined to such questions of law and fact as arise on an inspection of the ballots themselves, does not violate Const, art. 2, § 6, requiring all laws creating boards or oflicers for counting votes at elections to secure equal representation of the two largest political parties.
[Ed. Note.—-For cases in point, see Cent. Dig. vol. 18, Elections, § 247.]
2. Constitutional Law—Judicial Functions—Ministerial Duty.
Laws 1907, c. 538, providing for a hearing and determination by the Supreme Court of an election contest, confined to such questions of law and fact as arise on an inspection of the ballots themselves, is not void as imposing only ministerial duties on the court.
[Ed. Note.—For cases in point, see Cent. Dig. vol. 10, Constitutional Law, §§ 124, 137.)
3. Jury—Right to Trial by.
• In creating a new action or proceeding, not existing when the Constitution was adopted, for the trial of disputes of contestants of an election at the suit of a contestant, the Legislature is free to make it summary or by jury trial; and hence Laws 1907, c. 538, providing for a hearing and determination by the Supreme Court of an election contest, is not invalid for not providing for a jury trial, under Const, art. 1, § 2, providing that trial by jury in all cases in which it has been heretofore used shall remain inviolate forever.
[Ed. Note.—For cases in point, see Cent. Dig. vol. 31, Jury, § 130.]
Jenks and Miller, JJ., dissenting.
Application of Herman A. Metz arid others for an absolute writ of prohibition to Samuel T. Maddox, a justice of the Supreme Court, at Special Term, William R. Hearst, a candidate-for election as mayor of New York City at' the election of 1905, and his attorney, to desist from further entertaining or carrying on the proceeding for the re-canvass and recount of the ballots of the said election, provided for by chapter 538 of the Laws of 1907, on the ground that the said act is unconstitutional and void.
Denied.
■ Argued before JENKS; HOOKER, RICH, MILLER, and GAY-NOR, JJ.
William B. Ellison and Eugene Lamb Richards, for relators.
Clarence J. Shearn, for respondent.

Opinion:
GAYNOR, J.
It is provided in our state Constitution that all laws creating boards or officers for counting votes at elections shall secure equal representation of the two largest political parties. Article 2, § 6. The Legislature cannot override or fritter away this safeguarding provision by creating boards or officers not composed as it requires to recanvass and recount the votes of an election, and substituting the result to be thus ascertained for that of the constitutional election officers.
But such provision does not apply to a judicial review or trial of an election contest. If, therefore, this statute provides for a judicial hearing and determination by the Supreme Court of an election contest, it is valid. It is contended that it does not; that it imposes only ministerial duties on the Supreme Court, and is void for that reason also.
The canvassing and counting of votes by election officers is a ministerial and not a judicial duty. That is unquestionable; but it does not follow that the canvassing and counting of votes may not become judicial. No one would question that that is the case in a regular action by the people of the state by the Attorney General to oust an incumbent from an office (indeed, that is all there is to be done as a rule in such an action to ascertain the result); and of course it is the same in any other form of action or proceeding which the Legislature prescribes for the hearing and decision of an election dispute.
It is true that a ministerial duty cannot be turned into a judicial one merely by being transferred to the courts by the Legislature. The thing itself is what determines the branch of government to which it belongs. In the constitution of government in this country, state and national, government is divided into the three branches, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial, and the powers of government are divided among these three branches according to their kind. The legislative branch may not exercise powers which are executive or judicial; the executive may not exercise powers which are legislative or judicial; the judicial may not exercise powers which are legislative or executive. The powers which, because of their kind, belong to any one of these branches may not be assigned to or exercised by either of the other two, or by both of them combined; they can be performed by the branch to which they belong only.
All of this is in no wise violated in the present case. If this statute simply provided that the ballots should be turned over to the Supreme Court, and that said court should recount them, and certify the result, without a hearing and determination on notice to the contestants being had, it would require the performance of mere ministerial and not judicial work—work which by the structure of our government belongs to the executive branch and may not be put upon or performed by the judicial.
But its provisions are very different. It provides for a judicial hearing and determination by due process of law, i. e., on due notice, of a contest between candidates for an office for the certificate of election and possession of the office thereunder. Such a dispute certainly belongs to the judicial branch of government and is referable to it by the Legislature. That its trial requires the court to canvass and count the votes makes such canvass and count a part of its - judicial action. The foundation of the court's jurisdiction is the dispute, and everything necessary to be done in the trial of such dispute 4s judicial.
If this- statute provided that either one of the two contestants before us might bring an action in the Supreme Court by the regular form of summons and complaint for the trial of the dispute between them, and that in that action the court should canvass 'and count the vote in the same manner which such statute prescribes, none of us would say that it provided for a mere ministerial performance. That, instead, a proceeding begun by a petition of one of the contestants is provided for presents no different case.
The two decisions in the state of New Jersey in State ex rel. Ruh v. Prambach, 47 N. J. Law, 85, and Kearns v. Edwards (N. J. Sup.) 28 Atl. 723, have no application to the question. There it was thought that the Legislature could only confer ministerial duties on the judge in the case, because the contest was of the office of member of the Legislature, and each house of the Legislature was by the Constitution made the sole judge of the election of its members. And even so, the act was not declared void. If the court had been asked to declare it void, and considered that question, it might have been able to see that as a whole the duties imposed were judicial. And such duties were not put on the court, but on a judge. - -
Many of our states have statutes for the summary hearing and determination of election disputes by the courts on the petition of a contestant, instead of leaving such contests unheard unless the Attorney General should consent to bring -an action of quo warranto, or whatever the prescribed form may be, in the name of the people of the state. State ex rel. Andrew v. Lewis, 51 Conn. 113 ; Pedigo v. Grimes, 113 Ind. 148, 13 N. E. 700 ; Brown v. McCollum, 76 Iowa, 479, 41 N. W. 197, 14 Am. St. Rep. 228; Freeman v. State ex rel. McDonald, 72 Ga. 812; Ewing v. Filley, 43 Pa. 384 ; State v. Johnson, 26 Ark. 281; Govan v. Jackson, 32 Ark. 553 ; Ford v. Wright, 13 Minn. 518 (Gil. 480) ; Newton v. Newell, 26 Minn. 529, 6 N. W. 346 ; People ex rel. Budd v. Holden, 28 Cal. 123 ; Williamson v. Lane, 52 Tex. 335 ; State ex rel. Mullen v. Doherty, 16 Wash. 382, 47 Pac. 958, 58 Am. St. Rep. 39 ; Paine on Elect, c. 35 ; McCrary on Elect. § 391 et seq.
By its title this act is "an act for a judicial recount and recanvass" of the votes cast for the office of-mayor in 1905 "in all cities of the first class in which the ballots have been preserved." In passing upon its constitutionality it has to be taken in its large sense ás a whole, without too technical a strictness in respect of its terminology. In sum and substance it provides for a hearing and determination by the Supreme' Court of an election contest. Such hearing and determination is confined, however,, to such questions of law and fact as arise on an inspection of the ballots themselves, and they are to be decided on the evidence furnished by the ballots alone.
On the petition of any candidate it requires the Supreme Court to make a summary canvass of the vote in the election district or districts specified in the petition. The court has to appoint a commissioner or commissioners to count the ballots on notice to all of the candidates and in their presence if they appear, the count in each election district to be by only one commissioner. If counsel for any candidate differ from the commissioner in respect of counting a ballot, it shall be laid aside as a disputed ballot. Each commissioner submits to the court the disputed ballots together with a written statement of his count in each election district. The court rules upon each disputed ballot and determines its validity. The questions that may bfe raised are not limited to those that were raised on the canvass and count of the election officials. The court makes a final order for each election district contested of the result therein. An appeal may be taken to the Appellate Division from any such final order, and its decision shall be made by a final order. The regular board authorized to issue election certificates prepares a statement from the said final orders and from the regular returns in the election districts which have not been contested of the number of votes cast for each candidate and issues a certificate of election to the one having the largest number. If such certificate change the result of the election it shall supersede the certificate held by the incumbent, and no act of his thereafter shall have any official validity or authority. The candidate receiving such new certificate shall take the office.
Such are the provisions of the statute. By the procedure which it prescribes there is a judicial hearing and determination of an election dispute. This cannot be gainsaid without disregarding the substance for the letter. That the statute does not provide for a trial of every question which might be tried in an action by the people of the; state to oust the incumbent, but only of such questions as can arise on and be decided by an inspection of the ballots, does not support the contention that it does not provide for a judicial hearing and determination. The Legislature is free to allow no judicial trial of election disputes at all, either at the suit of a candidate or of the state, from which it follows that it may allow one of a limited scope only.
Much may be said on the opposite side of this question, and I have not only considered but written it in order to test my judgment. In the last analysis, especially when the mind is freed from all verbal nets and entanglements, it seems at the best very difficult to say that there is no doubt on the matter. And that is the test of the right of courts to declare acts' of the Legislature void. To depart from it is to enter, into the mere rage of upsetting what the Legislature has done.
The point that such a statute may not prescribe a summary hearing, but must provide for a jury trial, under that provision of our state Constitution which is common in the state Constitutions generally throughout the country, viz., that the trial by jury in all cases in which it has been heretofore used shall remain inviolate forever (article 1, § 2), seems to be taken under a misconcéption. If trial by jury were used in actions of quo- warranto at the time of the adoption of our Constitution, that secures that form of trial in such action or in any form of action or proceeding substituted for it. People v. Albany, etc., R. Co., 57 N. Y. 161. But under the common law and by statute such an action could only be brought by the sovereign. A contestant for an office could not bring any action or proceeding to oust the incumbent, or try the right to the office; and that has remained the case in this state down to the present time. In creating a new action or proceeding—one that did not exist when the Constitution was adopted—for the trial of disputes of contestants of an election at the suit of a contestant, the Legislature is free to make it summary or by jury trial. That has been generally held throughout the country, as appears by the decisions of other states cited in the foregoing.
The application should be denied.
Application for writ of prohibition denied, with costs.
HOOKER, J., concurs.