Court Opinion

ID: 9757771
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:58:26.003918+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:44.068596
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Judge MacPhail :
I respectfully dissent.
While no one would fault the majority for endeavoring to spare our overloaded judicial system from futile and fruitless litigation, I am of the opinion that we cannot permit a City Clerk to draw the line for us before the citizens have even filed the necessary forms.
I view the issue presented to us as a very narrow 0Iie — ¿oes a City Home Eule Charter provision that clearly states that upon the filing of a proper affidavit, the City Clerk shall issue “appropriate petition Manís” (emphasis added) spell out a mandatory ministerial duty? I think it does and I do not. believe *531any rules of construction are necessary to interpret the charter’s language. The cases cited by the majority as being analogous are concerned with the statutory provisions of the Third Class County Code. I regard the distinction between a city charter and a statutory county code to be legally significant. It seems to me that the risk of having the City Clerk cutoff at the pass efforts by citizens to achieve a referendum by following the dictates of a City Charter voted upon by those citizens, more than offsets the risk of frivolous litigation to determine whether or not the particular issue is a proper subject of a referendum.
I would reverse the trial court.