Court Opinion

ID: 9566488
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:40:01.04964+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:37:47.369221
License: Public Domain

Calhoun, Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from the conclusion reached by the majority of the members of the Court, and would affirm the judgment of the Circuit Court of Ohio County.
The fourth point of the syllabus embodies a sound and well-settled proposition of law, but I am unable to discern that it has any proper application to the facts of this case. By the fourth point of the syllabus, the Court holds that lack of jurisdiction appears on the face of the record and, therefore, the Court, on its own motion, takes notice thereof. I take the view that no question of jurisdiction is presented, particularly as it relates to the circuit court; and the question relating to the authority of the city clerk, not having been raised in and passed upon by the lower court, it is not cognizable by this Court.
At the outset, we observe that the case came before the circuit court as a matter of original jurisdiction. If a case comes to the circuit court by appeal from the court of a justice of the peace, for instance, the circuit court is bound by the limits of the inferior court’s jurisdiction, even though the circuit court would have had jurisdiction of the subject-matter in proceedings originating therein. Richmond v. Henderson, 48 W. Va. 389, 37 S. E. 653. The general rule as it relates to appeals from inferior tribunals is stated in the first point of the syllabus of the case of Brotherton v. Robinson, 85 W. Va. 753, 102 S. E. 700, as follows: “If a justice or other inferior court or tribunal has no jurisdiction to hear and determine a cause, an appeal from a judgment rendered therein does not confer upon a court of superior rank a jurisdiction not possessed by the former, though it may have had authority in the first instance to adjudicate the matter in controversy in its entirety.”
*442Here the circuit court was not circumscribed or limited by the jurisdiction of an inferior court or “tribunal”, because the case came before the circuit court, not by appeal, but as a matter of original jurisdiction.
Circuit courts of this State are created by the West Virginia Constitution, Article VIII, Section 1. Such courts “* * * have original and general jurisdiction of all matters at law where the amount in controversy, exclusive of interest, exceeds fifty dollars; of all cases of habeas corpus, mandamus, * * *. They shall also have such other jurisdiction, whether supervisory, original, appellate, or concurrent, as is or may be prescribed by law.” Constitution, Article VIII, Section 12.
Code, 51-2-2, provides for jurisdiction of circuit courts in language similar to that of the Constitution. A portion of the statute is as follows: “The circuit court shall have supervision and control of all proceedings before justices and other inferior tribunals, by mandamus, prohibition and certiorari. * * (Italics supplied). If the City Clerk of the City of Wheeling is an “inferior tribunal”, then the statute specifically gives the circuit court supervision thereof by mandamus. But if (as I believe), he is not a “tribunal” in that sense, I am unable to comprehend the efforts of the majority to attach “jurisdiction” to him. The word “jurisdiction” was carefully defined by this Court in the recent case of In re Adoption and Custody of Underwood, 144 W. Va. 312, 107 S. E. 2d 608. As I comprehend the meaning of the term, it must have some relation to the exercise of a judicial function, 11 M. J., Jurisdiction, 426, Section 2. The word “tribunal” is Latin and derives its original from the elevated seat where the tribunes administered justice. It has a strictly judicial connotation. Bouvier’s Law Dictionary (3d Ed.), Vol. 2, page 3325; Black’s Law Dictionary (4th Ed.). But, as I have indicated, whether or not it may be said that “Jurisdiction” is properly applied to the City Clerk in this connection, the limits thereof or the lack thereof is not binding upon the circuit *443court, a court of original and general jurisdiction, in the exercise of its original jurisdiction.
West Virginia Constitution, Article III, Section 17, provides: “The courts of this state shall be open, * * It is said that the provisions of that section were borrowed from the Magna Charta. McHenry v. Humes, 112 W. Va. 432, 164 S. E. 501. Such constitutional provisions are said to embody a statement of the fundamental principle that it is the policy of the law to furnish a remedy for every wrong. 16A C.J.S., 1208, Constitutional Law, Section 709. Here was presented a genuine, justiciable controversy, of importance not only to the persons immediately concerned, but to the electorate also. The majority opinion correctly states that the city clerk had no authority or jurisdiction to make a judicial adjustment of that controversy. Must we conclude that the courts shall not be “open”, in response to the almost sacred constitutional mandate, merely because the city clerk was without judicial power or authority? I can not accede to such a proposition.
It was the candidate himself who invoked the jurisdiction of the circuit court. While litigants can not confer jurisdiction of the subject-matter by mere consent or agreement, they may thus confer jurisdiction of the person. State v. Worrell, 144 W. Va. 83, 106 S. E. 2d 521. In a similar manner litigants may waive mere procedural errors. The case is before this Court as an appellate matter from the circuit court. I am not aware of any law or decision of this Court, cited in the majority opinion or otherwise, which would authorize us to look beyond the proceedings in the circuit court to determine questions relating to jurisdiction. The circuit court had jurisdiction. The same jurisdiction obtains by appellate procedure in this Court.
In the circuit court the case was tried on the basis of the question of relator’s residence. It is reasonable to conclude that the relator is as eager as any other person to have the question of his eligibility determined at the *444outset in order to avoid the possibility of a futile candidacy and an abortive election. In earlier decisions of this Court it is pointed out that it is important to determine the time at which a candidate for public office must be possessed of the requisite qualifications. If the qualification relates to the time of assuming the duties of the office, it may be said plausibly that the disqualification may be removed between the date of the nomination and the date for taking office; and, therefore, that an inquiry into that question prior to the date of taking office is premature. State ex rel. Morrison v. Freeland, 139 W. Va. 327, 81 S. E. 2d 685; Adams v. Londeree, 139 W. Va. 748, 83 S. E. 2d 127. But in this instance the city charter provides: “No one shall be eligible to a seat in council who shall not be, when nominated, a qualified voter, in the City of Wheeling.” (Italics supplied). The question here is immediate, not merely conjectural or anticipatory. A competent court should be “open” for a determination of that question.
In the case of State ex rel. Morrison v. Freeland, 139 W. Va. 327, 81 S. E. 2d 685, it was held that a duly qualified member of a city council has such an interest that he may, by proper judicial proceedings, question the qualifications of another person claiming the right to be seated as a member of the same body. In the present case, both the city clerk and the city solicitor have raised the question, but it was relator himself who asked a court of original and general jurisdiction to make a judicial determination of his qualification in order that he might know whether or not he is a qualified candidate. This Court turns the litigants away empty-handed by an assertion of the wholly untenable proposition that, somewhere in some rather indefinite place in the proceeding, there is lack of “jurisdiction”. Then, as if doubting the soundness of that proposition, the majority opinion, in the third point of the syllabus, adds that: “Mandamus will not lie to compel the performance of an illegal or unlawful act, * * *.” It is not made clear that the city clerk has violated any positive law. Rather the alleged *445“illegal or unlawful act” is a conclusion from the major premise that the city clerk lacks authority to perform a judicial function. That, I apprehend, is the very reason the litigants, apparently by common consent, invoked the jurisdiction of a competent judicial tribunal.
That there is no jurisdictional question presented to this Court on writ of error to the judgment of the circuit court, to me seems inescapable. Assuming for the moment that I am correct in this respect, what is the effect of the decision of the majority? It means that this Court has, sua sponte, searched out and passed upon a non jurisdictional question which was not raised in nor passed upon by the lower court. That, in my judgment, means that this Court has taken a liberty wholly unwarranted by any precedent of which I am cognizant.
In the case of State v. Bragg, 140 W. Va. 585, 87 S. E. 2d 689, this Court, by overruling approximately thirty prior decisions, held that it had the right to consider alleged errors of the trial court in the admission or rejection of evidence, over objection and exception, where assigned as a ground for a new trial, even though not incorporated in the bill of exceptions, assigned as a basis of error in a petition for writ of error, set forth in briefs of counsel or otherwise brought to the attention of this Court. But here, forsooth, assuming that the question is not jurisdictional, the majority goes completely beyond the rule laid down in the Bragg case and, on its own motion, considers a question which was not raised in the lower court and, of course, not considered or passed upon by the trial court.
Furthermore, I feel that the recent case of Adams v. Londeree, 139 W. Va. 748, 83 S. E. 2d 127, has settled the question here involved in a manner contrary to the majority opinion. In that case, in an original proceeding in mandamus in this Court, it was sought to compel the municipal ballot commissioners to strike the name of Joseph W. Londeree, Democratic candidate for Mayor of the City of South Charleston, from the ballot for a *446general election. The relators charged that Londeree was not a resident of the city by reason of the fact that he lived within the bounds of the United States Naval Reservation, situated within the bounds of the municipality. The writ of mandamus was denied, but only after this Court had considered at length the residential qualification of the candidate and determined that he was, in fact, a resident. This Court did not, as in the first point of the syllabus of the instant case, base its holding on the ground that the duty of the ballot commissioners was merely ministerial; and then decline to pass upon the qualification of Londeree at that time, but stated, “* * * to hold that mandamus can not be invoiced in such cases as to a nominee for office would have the effect of denying any remedy prior to the election and, where the candidate elected could not qualify as to the office sought, would have the effect of rendering the election as to that office a nullity. Surely no such result could have been contemplated. It would not tend to induce orderly elections.” The second point of the syllabus of the Londeree case is as follows: “Where a person nominated to office is required by law to possess certain qualification at the time of his election, mandamus will lie to determine the qualification.” With reference to the lack of authority of the ballot commissioners to institute an inquiry as stated in the first point of the syllabus of the instant case, the Court stated: “But lack of jurisdiction of such a board cannot be determinative of jurisdiction of a court having original jurisdiction in mandamus.” The majority opinion in the instant case cites the Londeree case to the same effect, but undertakes a labored distinction which I am unable to comprehend. The net result seems to be that this Court will assume jurisdiction to determine that a candidate is qualified, but that it will disavow jurisdiction to determine that he is not qualified. See also State ex rel. Morrison v. Freeland, 139 W. Va. 327, 81 S. E. 2d 685.
For the reasons stated I would hold that the circuit court had jurisdiction to determine the question at issue; *447that this Court has like jurisdiction; that the findings of the lower court relative to residence were abundantly justified; and, therefore, I would affirm the judgment of the Circuit Court of Ohio County.
I am authorized to say that Judge Browning concurs in this dissent.