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36 Mo. 70

State ex rel. Jackson v. Thompson

Supreme Court of Missouri

Decided July 15, 1865

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1865-07-15

Petition for Mandamus. The relator applies for a mandamus, now, under circumstances totally different from those in which he made application to this court against a former Auditor. (Jackson v. Auditor, 34 Mo. 375.) There is now, no contest for the office of Judge of the 15th Judicial Circuit, and consequently no question of “ right to an office,” as between contesting claimants, to be determined, that being the ground upon which the application was then refused.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““A mandamus will not be issued to admit a person to an office while another is in, under color of right.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Fitch v. McDiarmid

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1865-07-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently April 1928

11 state decisions

301865187018801890190019101920decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Wagner, Judge,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2This case is the same as the one reported in 34 Mo., between the same parties, except that the petitioner now claims the additional salary that has accrued since the institution of the proceedings thereon. The question involved is the same. A mandamus will not be issued to admit a person to an office while another is in under color of right. The election of Emerson as Judge of the 15th Judicial Circuit is admitted : he was regularly commissioned, and held his office under *73said election as judge. The register in the office of the Secretary of State showed Emerson to be the judge; and the Auditor, in auditing and allowing the salary, is governed by the register. A conflict of title to the office is then presented, and that cannot be determined by mandamusit must be by a direct proceeding in the nature of a quo warranto.

¶3The distinguished counsel for the petitioner has assumed, that, because the office has since been vacated by act of Convention, no question as to title can arise with the incumbent Emerson, and, therefore, mandamus is the only remedy; but this is begging the question. If Emerson was legally in as judge, then the petitioner is not entitled to the compensation he seeks ; and this involves a determination of who was the legal and rightful occupant of the said office, which we hold cannot be passed upon in this action.

Judge Lovelace concurring,

¶4the application for a mandamus is refused;

Judge Holmes not sitting.
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