Opinion ID: 1273552
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Ineligibility for Office as Trustee

Text: A final question relates to the fact that usually the application of the common-law rule against incompatibility operates to vacate the first office, or in this case, position, held to be incompatible. Haskins' employment, like that in Visotcky, was under contract and he was not legally free to abandon one public job for another. Secondly, he kept his former position as a teacher and enjoyed the emoluments flowing therefrom. In that case Visotcky had offered to resign, conditioned upon an adverse determination of the action, which was held ineffective as an election. In this case he has consistently asserted his right to retain his office as trustee and employment as teacher. The matter is thus brought within the exception to the rule, as outlined in the annotation in 1917A L.R.A. 216, 227: that where the office first held cannot be resigned by the officer, the second office, and not the first, is the one which he loses. Consistently with our admonition in State ex rel. Pape v. Hockett (1944), 61 Wyo. 145, 168, 156 P.2d 299, 307, that public office may not be vacated by judicial decree unless the disqualification be clear and imperative, we hold that the disqualification is that and that the judgment of the district court must be affirmed.