Case Name: In re O'HARA
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1901-07-23
Citations: 71 N.Y.S. 613
Docket Number: 
Parties: In re O’HARA.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 71
Pages: 613–616

Head Matter:
(63 App. Div. 512.)
In re O’HARA.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department.
July 23, 1901.)
1. Local Option—Rejection op Ballots—Mandamus.
Mandamus will not lie to compel the inspectors of a local option election under Laws 1900, c. 367, § 16, to reconvene to reject all the ballots received by them for and against local option, because of the clerk’s neglect to give notice that local option would be voted on, since the remedy for failure to properly submit the question was a resubmission at a specially called town meeting.
3. Same—Notice op Election.
Under Laws 1900, c. 367, § 16, providing for a local option election, and requiring the town clerk to give notice on the filing of a petition that local option would be voted on at a town meeting, failure to give such notice will invalidate the election.
Appeal from special term, Cayuga county.
Mandamus by John B. O’Hara against the board of inspectors of election of the town of Fleming. From an order granting the writ requiring them to reconvene and reject all ballots received by them for or against the four propositions provided for by the liquor tax law, and to certify such rejection, and file it with the town clerk, and requiring the latter to file such certificate in his office, to cancel the former certificate, to file certified copies of the new certificate in the office of the state commissioner of excise and of the county treasurer of Cayuga county, and also a statement showing the cancellation of the former certificate, the defendants appeal. Reversed.
Argued before ADAMS, P. J., and McLENNAN, SPRING, WILLIAMS, and RUMSEY, JJ.
Prank E. Cady, for appellants. ,
Frank M. Leary, for respondent.

Opinion:
WILLIAMS, J.
The order appealed from must be reversed, with costs. The ground of the application for the writ was that the town clerk did not comply with the statute by posting and publishing notice that the four questions were to be voted upon at the town election. There was no dispute as to the fact that there was a failure to give such notice, but it is claimed (1) that the statutory direction to give such notice was directory, and not mandatory, and did not render the election upon this subject void; (2) that no injury resulted from such failure, because all the electors were present and voted, and the majority was large, and therefore the result should not be disturbed; (3) that mandamus is not the proper remedy.
As to the remedy, we are of the opinion that the relief afforded by this order was improper. Mandamus issues to compel the performance of duties which should have been performed, but which were neglected. When the several ballots on local option were presented to the inspectors on election day, they were bound to receive them. They were regular, legal ballots upon their faces, and the inspectors had no legal right to reject them because of the neglect of the town clerk to give the proper notice that local option would be voted upon at that election. The remedy for a failure to' properly submit the question at the town election was the resubmission thereof at a special town meeting duly called (Laws 1900, c. 367, § 16), and, if the inspectors had no power to reject the ballots on election day, the court had no power thereafter to compel them to reconvene and reject them. This remedy was employed in the Eggleston Case, cited below, but this question was not considered.
Upon the merits we think we are controlled by a case recently decided in this court. In re Eggleston, 51 App. Div. 38, 64 IT. Y. Supp. 471. We determined in that case that the notice must be given as required by the liquor tax law, in order to render the election valid, and we must adhere to that rule here. That case was decided under the law as it stood prior to the amendment of 1900, while this case arose since such amendment. The changes, however, are immaterial upon the question here involved. The law as it stood in 1899 provided for a resubmission if the first submission was for any reason improper, while the amendment of 1900 provides for a resubmission if the first submission was for any reason, except failure to file the petition, improper; and the amendment of 1900 also' cured an apparent defect in the old law by providing that the petition should be filed with the town clerk, and he should give the notice. We held in the Eggleston Case that under the law as it existed in 1899 the petition should be so filed, and notice given.
We conclude, therefore, that the question of local option was not properly submitted at the town election, but that the mandamus in question was not the proper remedy, and therefore the order granting the same should be reversed, with costs. All concur; KUMSEY, J., in a separate opinion.