Case Name: Scoville et al. vs. Calhoun, ordinary
Court: Supreme Court of Georgia
Jurisdiction: Georgia
Decision Date: 1886-03-09
Citations: 76 Ga. 263
Docket Number: 
Parties: Scoville et al. vs. Calhoun, ordinary.
Judges: 
Reporter: Georgia Reports
Volume: 76
Pages: 263–269

Head Matter:
Scoville et al. vs. Calhoun, ordinary.
[This case was argued at the last term, and the decision reserved.]
The local option act of 1885 makes it the duty of the ordinary to consolidate the returns and decide all questions and contests arising under elections held by virtue thereof. In case the ordinary fails to do so, or acts unfairly in any respect, the statute provides the remedy to be pursued.
(a.) The election andtho supervision thereof by the ordinary being the exercise of political and police powers incident to legislative and executive government, and not, in their general political and police effect, at all judicial, the courts have no jurisdiction to interfere ex-ceptas conferred by the act itself. Therefore, it was proper to refuse a mandamus, on the application of a few persons, less than one-tenth of the voters, to compel the ordinary of a county, where an election had been held, to receive and hear a contest made and offered to be filed with him touching the election.
(6.) When the law operates upon the private property of an individual, and it is seized, destroyed or confiscated, or the individual is in- dieted for a violation of such law, he may assail the portion thereof affecting his private property or personal liberty as unconstitutional, and the courts will make such an adjudication as will maintain the integrity of the law as a whole, if possible, and, at the same time, protect the citizen against any unconstitutional or illegal portions of the law, if there be such. Laws will never he decided unconstitutional except in case of necessity; and the courts will wait until the law is attempted to be put in operation, and will not, in advance thereof, declare the entire law unconstitutional on the ground that a portion of it is so attacked.
March 9, 1886.
Liquor. Laws. Jurisdiction. Elections. Constitutional Law. Before Judge Marshall J. Clarke. Fulton Superior Court. September Term, 18S5.
On December 24,1885, Levi W. Scoville and Charles Beermann petitioned the superior court of Fulton county for a mandamus against W. L. Calhoun, the ordinary of that county, requiring him to receive, hear and decide a • contest presented to him by the petitioners in respect to an election which had been held on November 25, 1885, ¡Under what is known as the local option act. The petition for mandamus, as amended, alleged, in brief, as follows; On September 18, 1885, an- act for the submission of the question of prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors to the qualified voters of the various, counties of the state, commonly known as the local option law, was approved, by the governor. Under that act an election had been held in Fulton county. John W. Clayton, a liqoor dealer of that county, filed a bill against the ordinary before the returns had been consolidated and the result declared, attacking the constitutionality of the local option law and the legality of an 'election under it, and praying for an injunction to restrain the ordinary from declaring the result of the vote. Under this bill, a temporary restraining order was granted, and on the hearing, the chancellor announced that he would not grant an injunction. Thereupon one of the attorneys for the petitioners in the present case presented to the ordinary, who was present in the court-room, a written contest of said election. - The ordinary took from his pocket a written paper, announcing that he had declared the result, went to a table, puta date in the paper, and refused to receive the proceeding to contest. About the same time, one of the attorneys in the injunction case asked the chancellor for a restraining order, in order that the case might be carried to the Supreme Court. Objection was made and argument had on this question. The ordinary put the written paper back into his pocket, saying that he would not declare the result if the restraining order was continued. While the argument on this question was proceeding, one of counsel for the petitioners again tendered the written contest to the ordinary, but he declined to receive it. The chancellor finally announced that he would decline to continue the restraining orden Before any order refusing the injunction or dissolving the restraining order was signed, counsel again tendered to the ordinary the written contest, and again it was refused. Counsel could not offer to file it. in the office of the ordinary, because that officer remained in the superior courtroom during the delivery of the decision by the chancellor. He did not have before him, nor did h'e have any opportunity to add up and consolidate, the returns between the announcement of the opinion of the 'chancellor arid the tendering of the contest, nor did he do so. The petitioners alleged that they were citizens, tax-payers and voters of Fulton county, and were dealers in liquors of various kinds, having on hand a large and valuable stock thereof; also that the ordinary would proceed to declare the result of the election as being against the sale of liquors, and would at once publish such declaration, without hearing andiAdeciding the questions made by the contest. Mandamus to compel him to receive, hear and decide the contest was prayed for; also that, in the meantime, he be restrained from declaring and publishing the result of the election.
The written contest attached to the petition alleged that the tally sheets of the vote indicated a prima facie majority in favor of prohibiting the sale of liquor in Fulton county, but attacked the local option law as unconstitutional and the election as illegal on various grounds, which need not be stated.
The defendant demurred to this petition on the following grounds:
(1.) Because the court had no power or authority to grant the order prayed for in the petition.
(2.) Because the contest contained no ground sufficient in law to authorize him to receive or hear it.
(3.) Because it appeared from the face of the contest that it was not presented to the respondent until after the expiration of twenty-nine days after the election, and no sufficient reason why j.t was not presented sooner was given.
(4.) Because the petitioners have a complete remedy under the statute, and therefore are not entitled to the writ of mandamus.
The demurrer was sustained, and the petitioners excepted.
For the local option act above referred to, see acts 1884—5, p. 121, et seq.
Julius L. Brown; Alex. 0. King; John T. Glenn; Cox & Cox ; Henry B. Tompkins, for plaintiffs in error.
Mynatt & Howell; T. P. Westmoreland ; Milledge & Smith ; Haygood & Martin ; Hall & Hammond, for defendant.

Opinion:
Jackson, Chief Justice.
Scoville and Beermann petitioned the superior court for the writ of mandamus against Wm. Lowndes Calhoun, ordinary, commanding him to receive and hear a certain contest made and offered to be filed with him touching the election under the local option act of the last legislature1 in respect to the sale of spirituous and other liquors. The mandamus was refused, and error is assigned thereon.
By section IY of the act in question, it is made the duty of the ordinary to " consolidate the returns and decide all questions and contests arising under elections held by virtue of this act."' In case the ordinary fails to do so, or acts unfairly in any respect, then the statute provides the remedy in the same section as follows: " Within twenty days from the day on which the ordinary declares the result, one-tenth of the number of voters having voted at such election may petition the superior court, setting out plainly and distinctly the cause of contest, when, if the cause set out is such as impeaches the fairness of the election or the' conduct of the ordinary, the judge shall grant an order, directed to three justices of the peace of the county, requiring them to re-count the ballots on a given day, and report the result to the nest term of the superior court of that county or the term of the court to which the petition may be returnable, at which term the case shall be heard; provided, ten days' notice has been given'to the ordinary of the filing of the petition, but such petition shall not act as a supersedeas of the result as declared by the ordinary, nor shall the judge grant a supersedeas, and the contest so instituted shall not be continued by the superior court, but must be tried and determined at the term to which the same is returnable; provided, such term is held, and if the same is not held, then at the next regular term of the court; and in the event that any one or more of the plaintiffs or defendants to such contests shall die pending the contest, it shall not be necessary to make parties in place of such deceased party or parties, plaintiff or defendant. Either party may subpoena witnesses to prove either fraud in the ballots, the counting thereof, or in the conduct of the ordinary, or of the managers of the election, and introduce evidence to establish either proposition or the converse thereof. The judgment of the superior court shall be final, unless the case is carried to the Supreme Court for review. If the election shall appear to have been fraudulently conducted, or the Votes fraudulently counted, the judge shall have power to declare the result and overrule the action of the ordinary in the premises."
This court held, in respect to local option laws concerning fence or no fence, and special local option laws touching spirituous liquors in particular counties, that these were police and political matters with which the courts had no jurisdiction to interfere, unless conferred by those acts; but that the action of the ordinary concluded everybody, and that such was the intention of the general assembly in those enactments. In the face of these adjudications of this court, and in full view of their effect as law in the construction of local option laws touching fences and the sale of spirits, the general assembly passed this general local option law, and provided therein the only mode by which the courts could control the action of the ordinary in respect to these elections. No writ of mandamus^ or injunction, or prohibition js allowed by the act, or hinted at therein. No number of men less than one-tenth of the voters is allowed to institute a contest before the courts, and they cannot do so until after the result is declared and within twenty days thereafter. No supersedeas is to be granted, but the decision of the ordinary on every point is to stand uiitil one-tenth of the voters succeed in showing to the superior court illegality in the election, and that court reverses the ordinary, and, with the sanction of this court, declares a different result. To interfere, at the prayer of one man or a few men, with the ordinary's conduct in counting and declaring the vote, either by mandamus or injunction, is a power that is not given by the statute, and that does not exist, because it is not there given, the election and the supervision thereof by the ordinary being the exercise of political and police powers incidental to legislative and executive government, and not, in its general political and police effect, at all or in any sense judicial, unless where the act itself confers the judicial jurisdiction.
When the law operates upon the private property of an individual, and that is seized or destroyed or confiscated, or the individual is arrested and indicted .thereunder for its violation, then that portion of the law thus affecting his private property and personal liberty may be assailed by him as unconstitutional or illegal; and if any part or all be in such case found to be illegal and unconstitutional, it will be the duty of the courts to protect his rights against such enactments, and make such an adjudication as will maintain the integrity of the law as a whole, if possible, and at the same time protect the citizen in all his constitutional and legal rights against the unconstitutional and' illegal portion of the law, if there be such.
The courts will never blot out of existence a great police and moral enactment on the ground that parts of it are attacked as unconstitutional, in a general onslaught upon it all. On the contrary, they will preserve it all, if possible, giving the benefit of doubts to the co-ordinate branches of government, even when a legitimate case of individual suffering in person or property is brought before them; and will never decide laws unconstitutional, if cases can be otherwise adjudicated. They will always wait until the law is attempted to be put in operation, and then act against the officer who executes or attempts to execute it, and not against the law-making branch of government in the general scope of its power. Cooley's Con. Lim., 5 ed., pp. 196, 197; Armstrong vs. Jones, 34 Ga., 309; Exparte Randolph, 2 Brook. R., 447, and cases cited; Acts of 1885, p. 121; Skrine et al. vs. Jackson et al., 73 Ga., 377; Caldwell et al. vs. Barrett et al., comm'rs., Id., 604; 69 Ga., 283.
Judgment affirmed.