Court Opinion

ID: 9646317
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 12:56:48.752185+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:37.213154
License: Public Domain

Joslin, J.,
whom Kelleher, J., joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part. While I agree that the 59 committee-members elect were without authority on September 22, 1966 to select a 60th member to the town committee, I cannot agree that the petitioner Notte is entitled to be that 60th member or that the decision of the board of elections should be immune from judicial review. That is the effect of the majority decision that neither Ryan nor the local board may appeal because neither is “aggrieved.”
In determining whether the case was properly before the superior court, the majority say that it is difficult to see how the members of the local board, acting in their official capacities, can be aggrieved persons. I have no such difficulty. They equate the local board’s standing as an appellant with that of the probate judge, who, in Bowles v. Dannin, 62 R. I. 36, 2 A.2d 892, appealed because of an admitted deep concern that his decision was in accordance with law and should, therefore, have been sustained. This court properly labelled his opinion that he had a legal interest in having *146his decision upheld on appeal as a “mistaken belief” and found that it was no concern of his whether the appellate court agreed or disagreed with his decision.
Here, however, the members of the local board were not in a position comparable to that of the probate judge in Bowles v. Dannin, supra, inasmuch as their purpose in appealing was different from his. The public interest was at stake and the members of the local board, by appealing, were, acting, if not expressly, then implicitly, as representatives of the people of North Providence, and particularly on behalf of the more than 5,000 among them who had voted in the primary. Certainly these people were concerned in having a properly constituted committee to manage the affairs of the Democratic Party in their town. It is basically wrong, in my judgment, to find that such a concern is insufficient as a basis for the board of canvassers, acting in a representative capacity and on behalf of the people, to seek a judicial review of the’correctness of the state board's ruling.
In a related area, although one where the public interest is less real, it has been held that a local liquor licensing board is deemed to represent the people of a municipality and to be acting on their behalf in seeking judicial review in order to prevent the state liquor control administrator from exercising power in granting liquor licenses beyond the maximum number fixed by the local law. Board of Police Comm’rs v. Reynolds, 86 R. I. 172, 133 A.2d 737; Tedford v. Reynolds, 87 R. I. 335, 141 A.2d 264.
The majority distinguish those cases by saying that there judicial review was invoked by way of discretionary common-law certiorari whereas, here, it was claimed as a matter of right. See f.n.8. What they say about the difference between certiorari and appeal is, of course, true, but the issue in the liquor cases, just as in this case, was not whether the court should exercise its discretion, but whether the applicants were “aggrieved” and, therefore, entitled *147to seek judicial review.1 A careful reading of Board of Police Comm’rs v. Reynolds, supra, makes this clear. The respondent moved to quash the writ on the ground that the petitioner was not a party in interest or “aggrieved.” In denying the motion on that ground, the court held that the board represented the people of the city who had a “real interest” in the question at issue. When that interest was impaired by the decision of the state administrator, members of the board, as representatives of the people, were “aggrieved” and thereby qualified as petitioners for the writ. Tillinghast v. Brown University, 24 R. I. 179, 52 A. 891. So too in this case where the people of North Providence had a “real interest” in seeing that one whom they had not elected should not serve. Because the decision of the state board threatened that interest, the local board members, on behalf of the people, were “aggrieved” and thereby acquired the right to appeal that decision.
Equally to the point is Board of Canvassers & Registration v. Board of Elections, 82 R. I. 358, 107 A.2d 651, where the board of canvassers and registration of Woonsocket brought certiorari to review a decision of the state board of elections changing the district in which a qualified elector had been certified as eligible to vote. In dismissing the argument that the board lacked standing the court said that “* * * the public interest in the merits of the principal question is such that we deem it advisable at this time to pretermit the matter of procedure,” at 360, 107 A.2d at 652. If the district where the elector was to vote was of sufficient importance and significance to allow the judicial process to be invoked, then clearly how a town political committee shall be constituted is similarly deserving.
Having determined that the case was properly before the superior court, I perforce go further than the majority and *148reach the underlying question of whether or not the election of the 60th member of the town committee failed because a plurality of those voting, not knowing that Godin had deceased prior to the primary, cast their votes for him. The majority, by allowing the-decision of the state board to stand, have, in effect, confirmed the title to office of a candidate who received less than the number of votes required for election and who could not have been elected but for the mistake of those who cast their votes for a deceased person. With that result, I cannot agree. It runs counter to an unbroken line of decisions in this state which have consistently followed the rule that votes cast for a deceased, disqualified or ineligible person, although ineffective to elect such a person to office, are nonetheless effective to prevent the election of the person receiving the next highest number of votes. Obviously inapplicable on the facts of this case is the exception to that rule under which such a vote is deemed void if cast in wilfull defiance of the law or with the intention on the part of the voter to waste his vote.
The rule was first applied in this state in an opinion to the Governor. In re Corliss, 11 R. I. 638. There, the justices advised that the disqualification of a person chosen an elector of the President and Vice-President of this country in November 1876 did “not result in the election of the candidate next in vote, but in a failure to elect.” The votes for the disqualified candidate the justices said, were “* * * not to be counted any more than if they were thrown for a dead man, or the man in the moon * * *,” and the advice to the Governor was that the selection of an ineligible candidate, not only rendered his election void, but in addition left one place in the electoral college unfilled. Corliss has since been followed and has never been either overruled or qualified. Sanders v. Rice, 41 R. I. 127, 102 A. 914; Carpenter ex rel. Dexter v. Sprague, 45 R. I. 29, 119 A. 561; Dupre v. St. *149Jacques, 51 R. I. 189, 190, 153 A. 240, 241. See also Gill v. Mayor & Aldermen, 18 R. I. 281, 27 A. 506.
Robert S. Ciresi, Town Solicitor, Michael A. Abatuno, attorney for Thomas Ryan; William G. Gilroy, attorney for members of District Committee, respondents.
Aram A. Arabian, John A. Notte III, for petitioner.
The majority, however, by allowing the candidate ranking 61st at the polls to hold office, in substance, affirm the state board’s decision to throw away the votes cast for the deceased candidate. That decision completely ignores the principle that such votes are no less legal because cast in favor of one who cannot serve. Even though they may have been ineffectual to elect the deceased candidate, they nevertheless entered into the calculations leading to the determination of which of the candidates received the plurality necessary to election. The result of those calculations was that only the decedent and 59 other candidates received the pluralities which G. L. 1956, §17-15-29, as amended, requires for election to membership on the town committee. It follows, therefore, that only the 59 living candidates were elected. As to the 60th position, the election failed, and the petitioner Notte, even though he received the next highest number of votes, is not entitled to hold and should not have been awarded the office by the state board. In my judgment, there still exists a vacancy on the committee which now may be filled according to law.

“Aggrievement,” moreover, is no less a jurisdictional prerequisite to certiorari than it is to an appeal. Champlin v. Probate Court, 37 R. I. 349, 92 A. 982.