Court Opinion

ID: 9811088
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:08:05.250439+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:40:26.542751
License: Public Domain

BeogdeN, J.,
dissenting: Is a notary public a judicial officer of the State ? All the courts are in accord upon the proposition that an officer is one who exercises in some degree the sovereignty of the State. Under our system of government this sovereignty is allocated to three units, to wit: legislative, executive, and judicial. No court has ever suggested that a notary public exercises any legislative or executive functions. Consequently, any power he may exercise must fall within the judicial classification. The main question propounded may be conveniently considered under two aspects: First, is a notary public a State officer? Second, if so, is he a judicial officer of the State? A notary public is not mentioned in the Constitution, and, therefore, if he be an officer at all, his official character and quality must rest either upon the common law or upon a statute. It is familiar learning that the common law, like the air, pervades the whole structure except when it has been displaced by a statute. In this State the entire subject rests upon statute, and hence the common-law concept disappears from the discussion. Prior to 1927 a notary had a fixed term of office, but chapter 117 Public Laws of 1927 made a radical change in the status of a notary public. In substance, that chapter provided that a notary public hold office for two years from and after the date of appointment. This was the same provision appearing in prior statutes. The statute of 1927 provided that “any commission so issued by the governor . . . shall be revocable by him in his discretion upon complaint being made against such notary public and when he shall be satisfied that the interest of the public will be best served by the revocation of the said commission.” That is to say that, if complaint be made to the governor, he can remove a notary without cause, without a hearing, and without notice. This radical change of the statute may well be interpreted to mean that a notary now has no fixed term, and in a sense, and by analogy, is merely a tenant at the will of the governor. But conceding that he has a fixed term, the very fact that he is removable without notice, without a hearing, and in the discretion of the appointive authority, takes him out of the status of any other officer known to our law. C. S., 3204, provides in substance that every officer “shall be held, deemed, and taken, . . . to be rightfully in such office until, by judicial sentence, upon a proper proceeding, he shall be ousted therefrom, or his admission thereto be, in due course of law, declared void.” Prior to 1927 a notary was removable by quo warranto, which was the exclusive remedy recognized by law for removing public officers of the State. This remedy was pursued in 8. v. *669Knight, 169 N. C., 333, 85 S. E., 418. Furthermore, this Court has held that an office or place of trust within the meaning of Article XIY, section 7, of the Constitution was such as to be determined by quo warranto. Eliason v. Coleman, 86 N. C., 236; S. v. Smith, 145 N. C., 476, 59 S. E., 649. "Without undertaking to quote or discuss the various statutes applicable, the status of a notary public may be fairly summarized as follows: (a) If he is an officer of the State, then he is removable without hearing, without notice, and without cause, and in this respect his status differs from that of any other State officer known to the law. (b) If he be a State officer, then he is an officer who is not required to perform any public duty whatsoever, and no court can issue a mandamus against him to require the performance of any act. A notary public is authorized to take the acknowledgment of deeds, and to take depositions provided he chooses to do so and the parties are able and willing to pay the fee fixed by the statute. No law makes it the duty of a notary to administer an oath to anybody or to take the acknowledgment to any sort of instrument. His services rest upon his own choice and contract with the parties seeking such services, (c) If he be a State officer, then he is an officer who is not responsible to any person or tribunal in the performance of his official acts. He is required to keep no records and to make no reports, and is subject to no supervisory power in the method of the performance of his official duties.
Notwithstanding, it is conceded that practically all of the courts have declared that a notary public is an officer. In some instances he has been classified as a State officer and in others as a county officer. An array of the cases are assembled in S. v. Knight, 1(39 N. C., 333, 85 S. E., 418. In many of these cases, the question arose upon the qualifications of a woman to act as notary, in view of constitutional provisions limiting office holding to males. The leading cases, which are most frequently cited are: Opinion of the Justices, 62 Atl., 969, from New Hampshire; Opinion of the Justices, 23 N. E., 850, from Massachusetts; S. v. Davidson, 92 Tenn., 531; S. v. Hodges, 107 Ark., 272; Opinion of the Justices, 21 Pac., 473, from Colorado. In all of the foregoing cases, the question for decision was whether a woman was qualified to act as a notary. Hence it is hard to escape the conclusion that the policy of woman suffrage, as in S. v. Knight, supra, was the sub-soil out of which the decisions grew.
Omitting any discussion of the qualifications of a woman to perform the duties of a notary, an examination of the authorities leads the mind to inquire: Why have the courts held that a notary is an officer ? The answer is as variable as the lights and shadows of a summer dawn. Some courts refer to the fact that a notary was an officer at common law. In others, statutory and constitutional provisions constitute the basis for the *670conclusion. These provisions also, are frequently dissimilar. For instance, the Massachusetts case, Opinion of Justices, 43 N. E., 927, discloses a constitutional provision as follows: “Notaries public shall be appointed by the governor in the same manner as judicial officers are appointed, and shall hold their offices during- seven years, unless sooner removed by the governor, with the consent of the council, upon the address of both houses of the legislature.”
In New York, when the Bathbone case was decided, 40 N. E., 305, notaries were appointed by the governor, with the consent of the senate and their duties are set forth in statutes prescribing the duties of judicial officers.
The New Hampshire law in force at the time of the decision of "Opinion of Justices, 73 N. H., 621” provided that notaries should hold office “subject to be removed by the senate upon impeachment, or by the governor with the consent of the council on the address of both houses of the legislature, etc. At the time of the rendition of the decision of S. v. Hodges, 107 Ark., 272, supra, the Constitution of Arkansas provided that militia officers, officers of public schools and notaries may be elected to fill any executive or judicial office.
The whole aspect of this phase of the subject is tersely stated by the Tennessee Court in S. v. Davidson, supra: “The matter depends in each state upon the provisions of the Constitution and the statutes.”
The term “officer,” employed in many of our statutes and decisions is elastic and variable. For instance, an attorney is frequently referred to as an officer of the court. He takes a public oath, and is authorized to practice by the supreme judicial authority of the State. In time past, his fees, in many instances, were prescribed by law. Manifestly, he discharges a public function, but no court has ever held that he was a State officer. Indeed, he is not an officer at all, because his services rest upon choice and contract.
It would seem to be obvious that the term “officer” has a primary and a secondary signification. In its primary signification, it denotes a person who exercises, in some degree, the sovereign power of the State. In its secondary signification, it denotes merely a public employment or the performance of some act of a public nature, not involving the exercise of the sovereignty of the State.
As I construe the statute now in force, after the amendment of 1927, a notary is not a State officer, and it was not contemplated that he should in any sense exercise the mighty powers of sovereignty.
The Constitution deals with sovereignty. It undertakes to define and parcel out sovereign power. Hence, I am persuaded that the words: “office or place of trust,” used in the Constitution, Art. XIV, sec. 7, em*671ployed tbe terms in their primary signification, and that a notary is not within the purview or contemplation of that provision.
Nevertheless, this Court has held in several decisions, culminating in the Knight case, supra, in which all the cases are assembled, that a notary public is a judicial officer. The judicial function is supposed to reside in the act of taking the private examination of a married woman. The notary is supposed to question her privately as to whether she is afraid of her husband or signs the instrument through fear, but when the married woman answers his questions there is nothing he can do about it. He can fill up the certificate or not as he likes. If the married woman admits that she signed the instrument through fear of her husband, he can certify that fact to the clerk or not. If she says that she did sign without fear or compulsion, he can certify that fact to the clerk or not.
But, at all events, there is nothing for him to pass upon or adjudge. He is the maker of a certificate of facts and no more. Of course, the law adds a certain verity to his certificate when properly attested, but it adds the same verity to the certificate of a commissioner of affidavits and deeds appointed under C. S., 963, and it has never been suggested in this State that a commissioner of deeds, residing in a foreign state, is either an officer or a judicial officer of the State of North Carolina.
No useful purpose will be served by debating the question as to whether a notary is a judicial officer. This is purely a matter of opinion and of individual interpretation of the statutes. The records in the office of the Governor disclose that there are now five thousand five hundred and sixteen qualified notaries in North Carolina, and if all of these be judicial officers of the State, it is obvious that the judiciary is blessed with an overwhelming variety of personnel.
S. v. Knight, supra, was decided by a divided Court. Nevertheless, it stands as the law, although it may be reasonably contended that the amendment of the notary law, contained in Public Laws 1927, chapter 117, changes in an essential degree the entire concept of a notary public. Be that as it may, my mind is unable to follow either the reasoning or the interpretation of precedents as contained in S. v. Knight. I concede that the discussion as to whether a notary public is a judicial officer of the State is like loading a shotgun with buckshot to shoot a sparrow, but in the ease at bar, a man, who has been duly elected by the people to an important office, forfeits his office because he has been authorized by the Governor to make and sign a certificate as to what a married woman says when she signs a deed, when it must be conceded that there is nothing at all he can do about it.
I am authorized to say that Stacy, C. J., concurs in this opinion.