Court Opinion

ID: 9868537
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 18:40:03.667246+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:50.543208
License: Public Domain

ON Petition to Rehear.
A petition to rehear complains (1) that the bill was dismissed upon grounds not assigned by the defendants, and not considered on the hearing, and (2) that our holding is contrary to pronouncements of Courts of other jurisdictions, cited by petitioner.
*242 Responding to the first proposition, the question of the right of complainant below to the relief sought was raised on the argument of the case by the suggestion from the bench that complainant was a beneficiary of the Act. Furthermore, the brief of appellants called attention to and relied on the. provision in Section ten of the Act creating complainant’s office, and under which he claims title thereto, which expressly requires that he shall give all his ‘‘working time to the duties of their office,” which his bill concedes he is not doing. And, too, while it is true that the rules of this Court provide that all questions presented to this Court shall have been raised in the trial Court and relied on in the assignments of error, this limitation is not binding upon this Court', acting on its own motion, when the constitutionality of statutes are involved, or when this Court conceives that equitable considerations, apparent on the face of the record, forbid a complainant from maintaining a suit. In every such case the Court will assert, on its own motion, its obligation to deny the use of the Court.. These principles are fundamental. Appellate Courts have broad discretionary powers in such matters of practice. For the general rule and cases, including Tennessee, see 4 C. J. S., Appeal and Error, secs. 1220, 1238, pp. 1721 and 1734.
We have given careful consideration to the authorities relied on by petitioner to sustain the insistence that by acceptance of an official place of trust and profit in the Military Service, a Judge, of a State Court does not vacate his office, or subject himself to removal therefrom; that the two offices are not incompatible, within the meaning of our Constitution.
We discussed in our opinion whether or not one shown only to have accepted a place or position in the Military *243Service of tire United States, -without a showing that he was in fact technically an “officer,” was an “officer” within our constitutional provisions. We concluded that, even if a private, he was within the prohibition. We assumed, without deeming it necessary to cite authority, that a commissioned officer in the United States Military ¡Service would assuredly be holding an “office of trust and profit under . . . the United States” and that such a holding would be within the prohibition and incompatible. Petitioner challenges the correctness of this assumption and says that we cite no authority. We do so now.
The annotation in 26 A. L. R., 142 reviews the decisions on this question. In Chisholm v. Coleman, 43 Ala., 204, 94 Am. Dec., 677, a circuit judge was held to have forfeited and vacated his office when he accepted a commission in the Confederate Army. In Lowe v. State, 83 Tex. Cr. R., 134, 201 S. W., 986, a state judge, who was an officer of the National Guard, was held to have vacated his judgeship when he was placed on the Federal payroll as an officer in the Military Service. (Although this same Court holds that a judge does not vacate his office by acceptance of a commission as Captain in the National Guard, so long as he is not in active service. Ex parte Dailey, 93 Tex. Cr. R., 68, 246 S. W., 91, 26 A. L. R., 138.) In State ex rel. v. Sadler, 26 Nev., 131, 132, 58 P., 284, 59 P., 546, 63 P., 128, 83 Am. St. Rep., 573, this rule was applied to a State Senator who became a paymaster, with rank of Major, in the United States Army. To the same effect was the holding in Kerr v. Jones, 19 Ind., 351, where the Court held that a State Supreme Court Reporter, who became a Colonel of Volunteers in the United States Army, vacated his State office. And see Oliver v. Jersey *244City, 63 N. J. L., 96, 42 A., 782, where a ¡Street and Water Commissioner became a Colonel in the United States Army; and People ex rel. v. Drake, 43 App. Div., 325, 60 N. Y. S., 309 (affirmed without opinion in 161 N. Y., 642, 57 N. E., 1122). (The last two cases involved municipal officers, the principle being the same.) To like effect is the holding of, the Illinois Supreme Court, in Fekete v. City of East St. Louis, 315 Ill., 58, 145 N. E., 692, reported in 40 A. L. R., 650. Also, see Commonwealth v. Smith, 343 Pa., 446, 23 A. (2d), 440, and Perkins v. Manning (Ariz.), 122 P. (2d), 857.
Petitioner cites and relies chiefly on State ex rel. v. Grayston, 349 Mo., 700, 163 S. W. (2d), 335, 338. That opinion contains certain broad statements, quoted by diligent counsel for petitioner, which would seem to support petitioner’s contention, but when the facts of the case, and the reasoning of the Court on the whole, and the manner of the presentation of the question are considered, we do not find this case to be applicable. The Court emphasizes that State Judge Watson, whose status was involved, was not, like petitioner here, seeking to collect his salary as Judge, while drawing compensation as an officer in the Military Service, There was no such claim being asserted. That case arose in this manner: In the absence of Judge Watson, on Military Service, the authority of a substitute, or special judge, elected by the bar, was challenged by a defendant in an action pending in Judge Watson’s Court, on the theory that Judge Watson had vacated the office, and that the provision for supplying a temporary Judge in the absence of the regular Judge did not apply. The Court held, first, that Watson was in Military Service temporarily as a member of the State Militia, of which he had been a member when *245called into service. The opinion reviewed at length the history of the State Militia “as distinguished from the professional soldier who makes np the Regular Army,” and ■ construed the constitutional provision, similar to ours, as having “no application to a militiaman even though he is employed in the service of the United States during times of emergency.” No such situation is presented in the instant case — even though we should approve this reasoning* and construction, which appears to us to be strained to meet a hard condition — when to have held the sitting Judge not even a de facto Judge would have invalidated numerous other decisions under like conditions. The Court noted the lack of legislation to care for the situation by providing for the filling of the vacancy in such cases, such as we have by the Act of 1943.
The Missouri Court cites as in accord, in principle, with its holding, Kennedy v. Cook, 285 Ky., 9, 146 S. W. (2d), 56, 132 A. L. R., 251, McCoy v. Board of Supervisors, 18 Cal. (2d), 193, 114 P. (2d), 569; State v. Joseph, 143 La., 428, 78 So., 663, L. R. A., 1918E, 1062, and the Virginia case of City of Lynchburg v. Suttenfield, 177 Va., 212, 13 S. E. (2d), 323, holding that “a member of the Virginia National Guard retains his status as such when in the Federal service and is entitled under the Virginia code to retain his office as councilman.” [349 Mo., 700, 163 S. W. (2d), 339.] Tennessee has no such Code provision (unless it be Chap. 4, Acts of 1943) and petitioner is not a member of the State National Guard.
In the Kentucky case, the Circuit Court Clerk involved was only in training in the National Guard of that State for a. limited period. In the California case, McCoy had a leave of absence without pay, and California had a statute similar in effect to ours providing for such tempo*246rary absence and preserving' to him his office. Nor is the Louisiana case in point. Here a clerk of a State Court and ex officio Jury Commissioner was held not to have forfeited his office as Commissioner by acceptance of appointment as a member of a local draft board. It does not appear that either position carried compensation. The Court held that this involved merely the performance of an additional duty, not interfering with performance of his duties as Jury Commissioner.
We are cited to no case in which, as contended for by petitioner, one holding a state salaried office has been held entitled to continue to collect the salary attached thereto after having wholly ceased to perform the services of the office and accepted an office in the United States Military Service from which he is receiving compensation.
Finally, whether or not the office of petitioner would have been vacated by his acceptance of the office he now holds with the United States, but for the saving terms of Chapter 4, Acts of 1943, he certainly cannot recover the compensation attached to the office of Judge in the face of the express provision of the statute on which his title rests that he shall give all of his working time to the duties of the office, when it appears that he is giving none of his time thereto.
The petition is dismissed.