Minnesota Supreme Court, 1875

Everett v. Smith

Minnesota Supreme Court · Decided July 10, 1875 · Berry

22 Minn. 53; 1875 Minn. LEXIS 23 (Minnesota Reports)

Counsel

M. J. Severance, L. M. Brown, and Horace Austin, for appellant., Gilman, Olough & Lane, for respondent.

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Citation treatment has not been reviewed for this case. The notes below come from the citation graph and the Minnesota Revisor's amendment records, not from a review of how later courts treated this decision.

(as of 9/30/2026)

Last cited by a Minnesota appellate court in 1948, among the opinions in this site’s citation index.

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Cases that cite this one

23 later published cases cite this decision.

Democratic-Farmer-Labor State Central Committee v. Holm (Minn. 1948)
State Ex Rel. Maffett v. Turnbull (Minn. 1942)
Hevelone v. City of Beatrice (Neb. 1931)
State Ex Rel. Thomas v. Williams (Fla. 1930)
In re East Bay Etc. Water Bonds of 1925 (Cal. 1925)
East Bay Municipal Utility District v. Hadsell (Cal. 1925)
Lawrence County v. Lawrence Fiscal Court (Ky. Ct. App. 1921)
State ex rel. Hundley v. Goodwyn (W. Va. 1919)
Eikmeier v. Steffen (Minn. 1915)
Bell v. City of Ocala (Fla. 1911)
Ray v. Armstrong (Ky. Ct. App. 1910)
Green v. Felton (Ind. Ct. App. 1908)
Knight v. Shelton (U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Eastern Arkansas 1905)
State ex rel. Granvold v. Porter (N.D. 1903)
In re Denny (Ind. 1901)
State ex rel. Greene v. Hugo (Minn. 1901)
Davis v. Brown (W. Va. 1899)
Tecumseh National Bank v. Saunders (Neb. 1897)
State ex rel. Hocknell v. Roper (Neb. 1896)
State ex rel. Little v. Langlie (N.D. 1896)
Belknap v. City of Louisville (Ky. Ct. App. 1896)
State ex rel. Childs v. Pioneer Press Co. (Minn. 1896)
Rushville Gas Co. v. City of Rushville (Ind. 1889)

This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

Opinion of the Court

Berry, J.

Section 1, art. 11, of the constitution of this state declares that “all laws * * * for removing county seats shall, before taking effect, be submitted to the electors of the county or counties to be affected thereby, at the next general election after the passage thereof, and be adopted by a majority of such electors.” The only question in this case is, what is meant by the words, “ a majority of such electors ? ”

In Taylor v. Taylor, 10 Minn. 107, the same question was presented, and deliberately considered by this court, by which it was distinctly determined that the words, “a. majority of such electors,” as used in the provision of the constitution, mean a majority of the electors voting at the election. This was a construction of the language of the constitution, irrespective of the particular facts appearing in the *55case as to registry lists. The case of Taylor v. Taylor was followed, and the same construction given to this constitutional provision, in Bayard v. Klinge, 16 Minn. 249. So far as the question under consideration is concerned, the case at bar cannot be distinguished from the cases cited. The question must be regarded as settled in this court. If there are constitutional provisions as to which a court would refuse to be bound by previous constructions, conflicting with its own views of correct construction, the provision involved in this case is not one of them.

Order reversed.

Case-law data current through September 30, 2026. Source: CourtListener bulk data.