Opinion ID: 1117343
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Whether Parker Filed Forthwith His Petition for Judicial Review

Text: ¶ 20. As a predicate to a petition for judicial review the contestant must first present his grievance to the county, or in this case, municipal executive committee. Harris, 187 Miss. at 507, 193 So. at 343. Subsequently, if a contestant seeks judicial review, Mississippi Code Annotated Section 23-15-927 instructs: [w]hen and after any contest has been filed with the county executive committee, or complaint with the State Executive Committee, and the said executive committee having jurisdiction shall fail to promptly meet or having met shall fail or unreasonably delay to fully act upon the contest or complaint, or shall fail to give with reasonable promptness the full relief required by the facts and the law, the contestant shall have the right forthwith to file in the circuit court of the county wherein the irregularities are charged to have occurred. . . . Parker filed his petition for judicial review on June 22, 2005. Moore asserts that the petition was not filed forthwith since June 22 was forty-nine days after the primary. Parker replies that forthwith is not defined by a particular amount of time, but is determined by the specific facts and circumstances surrounding each case. ¶ 21. As Parker notes, this Court recently held in Cook v. Brown, 909 So.2d 1075, 1079 (Miss.2005), [t]here has never been an exact number of days determined as a minimum to meet the forthwith requirement. Instead, this Court has upheld the well-established and long-standing principle . . . `that the term forthwith connotes no specific fixed time limit. Rather, its meaning depends upon consideration of the surrounding facts and circumstances and varies with each particular case.' Smith v. Deere, 195 Miss. 502, 507, 16 So.2d 33, 35 (1943); Turner v. Henry, 187 Miss. 689, 695-96, 193 So. 631, 632 (1940); Harris [ v. Stewart, ] 187 Miss. [489] at 502-04, 193 So. [339] at 342 [(1940)]. (quoting Pearson, 541 So.2d at 450). Moore directs the Court to measure the time from the date of the primary election. However, the reference point for the running of time is the date of the final action or decision by the party executive committee. See, e.g., Cook, 909 So.2d at 1079 (In this instance, Cook's filing of the petition 39 days after the Quitman County Democratic Executive Committee conducted the hearing on September 4, 2003 was not forthwith as required by the statute) (emphasis added). ¶ 22. In Pearson, this Court deemed forthwith a petition filed thirteen days, nine working days, after the committee decision. 541 So.2d at 450. The committee never reached a decision in this case. Parker filed his petition for judicial review on June 22, 2005, fifteen days, eleven working days, after the last committee meeting on June 7, 2005, in which the contest was scheduled to be addressed. Filing within eleven working days is not a significant departure from the nine working days this Court found to be forthwith in Pearson. But see Turner, 193 So. at at 632 (holding that the filing of a petition twenty-six days after the final executive committee action was stretching `forthwith' too far). In this case, the forthwith requirement is satisfied. We find this assignment of error to be without merit.