Loposser v. State ex rel. Gause

Mississippi Supreme Court
Loposser v. State ex rel. Gause, 110 Miss. 240 (Miss. 1915)
70 So. 345
Smith

Loposser v. State ex rel. Gause

Opinion of the Court

Smith, C. J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

The ground upon which appellee seeks to oust appellant from the office to which he has been declared elected is, not that he is disqualified to hold the office or that the election was illegally held, but that the election commissioners erred in counting the votes cast at the election, so that the cause comes within section 4186 of the Code, which, under section 3439 of the Code, is applicable to code chapter municipalities. The town of Handsboro being a code chapter municipality, and the procedure for contesting an election provided by section 4186 being exclusive (Ex parte Wimberly, 57 Miss. 437), appellant’s demurrer to the petition should have been sustained.

*243It is true that it does not appear from the petition that Handshoro is not governed hy a special charter, but this fact is immaterial, for we judicially know that it was incorporated under the code chapter on municipalities hy proclamation of the Governor on the 13th day of March, 1899, as appears from the records of the secretary of •state. In two of the cases, Kelly v. State ex rel. Kierskey, 79 Miss. 168, 30 So. 49 and Bourgeois v. Laiser, 77 Miss 146, 25 So. 153, called to our attention in this connection, municipal elections were contested by means of a proceeding in the nature of a quo warranto, hut in neither of these cases was the question of jurisdiction raised, no ■doubt for the reason, as the fact is, that both the municipalities there involved were operating under special charters.

Reversed and dismissed.

Reference

Cited By
2 cases
Status
Published
Syllabus
1. Elections. Contests. Remedies. Under Code 1906, section 4186, providing that a person desiring to contest the election of another, returned as elected to an office within any county, may within twenty days file a petition in the office of the clerk of the circuit court of the county setting forth the ground upon which the election is contested and section 2439, providing that all the -provisions of law on the subject of state and county elections shall govern municipal elections; a demurrer should be sustained to a quo warranto proceeding, brought by a contesting candidate for the office of marshall of a town operating under the code municipal chapter, more than twenty days after the election and where the information charged that the election commissioners erred in counting the votes and that he should have been inducted into office, since the procedure for contesting such an election provided by section 4186, Code 1906, is exclusive. 2. Evidence. Judicial notice. The court will take judicial notice that a given municipality was incorporated under the Code municipal chapter, and not under a special charter.