Opinion ID: 2365840
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Effect of change of residence

Text: Appellants rely on Salamanca Township v. Wilson, 109 U.S. 627, 3 S.Ct. 344, 27 L.Ed. 1055 (1883), for the proposition that if Miss Dorf is no longer a resident of Baltimore City this does not vacate her membership on the committee. The question there was whether service of a summons upon the last elected and qualified treasurer of a township after his removal to an adjoining township was good and sufficient service of the summons. The Court said it was not denied that the service was good if he were in law the treasurer of the township when served. It held that there was nothing in the Constitution or laws of the State of Kansas which required the treasurer to be a resident or voter in the township when elected and qualified and thus nothing which vacated the office if the officer removed from the township during the term for which he was elected. It pointed out that [j]ustices of the peace are township officers, and as to them it is expressly provided that they `shall reside and hold their office in the township for which they shall have been elected.' The Court then went on to say in holding that removal by the township treasurer did not vacate his office: As no similar provision is made in respect to any other township officer, the implication necessarily is that actual residence in the township is not required of them. Expressio unius est exclusio alterius. That residence, as a qualification for office, was in the minds of the framers of the Constitution and of the legislature is apparent, for art. 3, sec. 11, of the Constitution, provides that all judicial officers `shall reside in their respective townships, counties, and districts during their respective terms of office;' art. 2, sec. 4, that `no person shall be a member of the legislature who is not at the time of his election a qualified voter of, and resident in, the county or district for which he is elected;' and sec. 218 [1643] of the general statutes (Dassler's Comp. Laws, 311), that `ceasing to be an inhabitant of the county for which he was elected or appointed' vacates the office of a county officer. Id. at 628-29. Under the reasoning of the Supreme Court it would seem to follow that since here a person was required to be a resident of the district when elected that subsequent removal from the district would vacate the office. The cases generally hold that when residence is a prerequisite to a given office then a change of residence vacates that office, absent a legislative expression to the contrary. See, e.g., State ex rel. Repay v. Fodeman, 30 Conn. Sup. 82, 300 A.2d 729, 730 (1972); State v. McDermott, 52 Idaho 602, 608, 17 P.2d 343 (1932); Yonkey v. State, 27 Ind. 236, 241 (1866); Independent Sch. Dist. v. Miller, 189 Iowa 123, 132, 178 N.W. 323 (1920); State ex rel. Johnston v. Donworth, 127 Mo. App. 377, 380, 105 S.W. 1055 (1907); Richman v. Blank, 45 N.J. Super. 272, 278, 132 A.2d 331 (1957); Williams v. Commonwealth, 116 Va. 272, 81 S.E. 61 (1914); and State ex rel. Attorney General v. Messmore, 14 Wis. 163, 170 (1861). State ex rel. Fugina v. Pierce, 191 Wis. 1, 3, 209 N.W. 693 (1926), citing Messmore, is authority for the fact that when a statute by its language provides qualifications for an office at the time of election or appointment such qualification is a continuing one; that is, it must subsist during the entire term of office. Likewise, in People v. Leonard, 73 Cal. 230, 234-35, 14 P. 853 (1887), the effect of the holding was that the word eligible in a statute meant a person's capacity to hold office as well as to be elected to office. See also State ex rel. Coe v. Harrison, 217 Ala. 80, 81, 114 So. 905 (1927), and State of Ohio ex rel. v. Orr, 61 Ohio St. 384, 385, 56 N.E. 14 (1899). Also, F. Mechem, The Law of Public Offices and Officers § 438 (1890), states, Where the law thus requires the officer to reside within the district which he represents, and a fortiori so where it expressly declares that his removal from the district shall create a vacancy, a permanent removal from the district represented will be deemed an abandonment of the office and a vacancy will result. Although case law supports a determination that if Miss Dorf is no longer domiciled in the district from which she was elected a vacancy has been created, we regard our determination here to be governed by the 1976 statutory enactment to which we have previously referred and that series of Maryland cases which hold that [w]here the office is of legislative creation, the Legislature can modify, control or abolish it, and within these powers is embraced the right to change the mode of appointment. This quotation is taken from Calvert County v. Monnett, 164 Md. 101, 105, 164 A. 155 (1933), where Chief Judge Bond quoted those words for the Court from Anderson v. Baker, 23 Md. 531, 627 (1865). In Davis v. State, 7 Md. 151, 161 (1854), our predecessors made exactly the same statement. See also the other cases cited by the Court in Calvert County. It follows that if the General Assembly may abolish an office of its creation, then there is no vested right in an office of other than constitutional stature which would prevent changing the qualifications of office during the term. We thus hold that the 1976 enactment is applicable and that if Miss Dorf is no longer a resident of the legislative district from which she was elected, she has vacated the office.