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98 Ky. 614

Steele v. Meade

Court of Appeals of Kentucky

Decided January 24, 1896

Court of Appeals of Kentucky · decided 1896-01-24

Case 95 — PETITION ORDINARY — APPEAL PROM BOYD CIRCUIT COURT. 1. The petition was defective in failing to allege that plaintiff was elected or received a majority of the votes. 2. The court erred in refusing a jury trial. This action is equivalent to the old one of quo warranto which was triable by a jury. (Civil Code, sec. 480, 312, 483.) 3. It was error to strike out of the answer the defense based upon the mandamus suit and the judgment in it. 4.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1896-01-24

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently December 1925

4 state decisions

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JUDGE HAZELRIGG

¶1delivered tiie opinion of the court.

¶2The appellee was duly elected to the office of clerk of the circuit court of Boyd county a,t the November election, 1892. He obtained his certificate to that effect from the county *615canvassing board, and afterwards took tlie oatbs and executed the bond required of such clerks in the manner prescribed by law. His opponent at that election was the appellant, who was then the incumbent of the office, but whose term expired in January, 1893.

¶3It appears that appellant, claiming to have received che highest number of votes, had sought by mandamus, to compel the canvassing board to. re-canyass the vote and issue the certificate of election to him, and when in January the office was demanded of him he refused to vacate, and this, suit was then brought by the appellee for the office. Judgment resulted for the appellee.

¶4If the canvassing board improperly performed its duty, then the writ of mandamus was the proper remedy; but if it did so properly, according to the returns before it, the remedy of the appellant was by inaugurating a contest before the proper board, as provided by statute in such cases. That the canvassing board fully performed its duty has been determined by this court in Houston v. Steele (ante 596). And that the exclusive remedy provided in such cases for invalidating or’impeaching the certificate, of the canvassers was, by a contest before the proper board is settled in Stine v. Berry, 96 Ky., 63.

¶5The only issues in the case were issues of law, and the court properly determined them without the intervention of a jury.

¶6Judgment affirmed.

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