C. W. WIECKING, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR,
v.
STATE EX REL. S. S. COACHMAN, L. D. VINSON AND J. T. LOWE, DEFENDANTS IN ERROR
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The Florida Supreme Court reversed a mandamus order requiring the County Clerk to issue a warrant for attorney fees to private counsel retained by county commissioners in a county seat election contest. The court held that the private beneficiaries of the warrant, not the county commissioners, were the proper parties to bring the mandamus action.
The county commissioners are not the proper parties to bring mandamus. The private attorneys or their successors who are named as beneficiaries of the warrant and who have the direct pecuniary interest in its perfecting are the proper parties to bring such an action.
“After the commissioners have ordered the warrant to issue, the direct pecuniary interest in the perfecting of that warrant is in those named as its beneficiaries, and the county should not be put to the expense of employing counsel and incurring a liability for costs for the primary benefit of these private individuals.”
Establishes the principle that private beneficiaries, not commissioners, have standing to enforce payment warrants
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceCounty commissioners of Pinellas County retained three law firms (F. M. Simonton, Sparkman & Carter, and James F. Glen) to provide legal services in a…
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Cockrell, J.
Upon the relation of three of the County Commissioners of Pinellas County, Wiecking as County Clerk and ex officio Clerk of the Board was mandamused to prepare, sign and issue a warrant directed to the County Treasurer in favor of F. M. Simonton, Sparkman & Carter, and James F. Glen for the sum of two thousand dollars, as the fee fdr services rendered and to be ren-dered by them as attorneys for the Board in the matter of a contest pending over the calling of a county seat election.
The objection raised by the respondents, that the commissioners are not the proper parties should have been sustained, upon the direct authority of Pennock v. State ex rel. Hood, 61 Fla. 383, 54 South. Rep. 1004.
After the commissioners have ordered the warrant to issue, the direct pecuniary interest in the perfecting of that warrant is in those named as its beneficiaries, and the county should not be put to the expense of employing counsel and incurring a liability for costs for the primary benefit of these private .individuals.
The case of Holland v. State ex rel. Duval County, 23 Fla. 123, 1 South. Rep. 521, involved the continuing care and management of the county convicts, a peculiarly public duty and not a private right; while Ray v. Wilson, 29 Fla. 342, 10 South. Rep. 613, is authority to the right of the private party to whom the warrant is issued to compel the County Treasurer to pay it. Montgomery v. State ex rel. Thompson, 35 Neb. 655, 53 N. W. Rep. 568, is planted squarely upon a statute of that State, making it the duty of the county superintendent to bring mandamus, if after investigation he find the treasurer contumacious in refusing to pay a school warrant.
Our own decision in the Pennock case is directly in line with Portland Stone Ware Co. v. Taylor, 17 R. I. 33, 19 Atl. Rep. 1086, and State ex rel. Starrett, v. James, 14 Wash. 82, 44 Pac. Rep. 116. The action is one merely to enforce a private demand and the interested parties are the ones who hold the claims and to whom the warrant, if legal, should be issued; and as to whom an unfavorable judgment would be res adjudicata.
Judgment reversed.
Shackleford, C. J., and Taylor, Hocker and Whitfield, J. J., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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State v. Chancey, 129 Fla. 194 (Fla. 1937)…leged to be due to such third parties, in which claim the relators have no sort of interest whatsoever, and the motion to quash the alternative writ should have been granted upon this ground.” This case was followed by Wiecking v. Coachman, et al., 66 Fla. 49, 62 So. 898. In that case the Board of County Commissioners had ordered a warrant to' issue to certain attorneys as their fee for services rendered, and the County Clerk, as ex officio Clerk of the Board refused to issue and sign the warrant. The Bo…
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State of Fla. ex rel. J. George White v. MacGibbon, 79 Fla. 132 (Fla. 1920)…were to acquire for their ootmty a fee simple title to the said lots. The facts of this case are entirely different from those in the cases of Pennock v. State ex rel. Hood, 61 Fla. 383, 54 South. Rep. 1004, and Wiecking v. State ex rel. Coachman, 66 Fla. 49, 62 South. Rep. 898. In these two last [*136] mentioned cases, the warrants sought to be coerced by mandamus were for the payment of claims for attorneys* fees alleged to be due to third parties who were alone interested in the payment thereof, and…1 / 2
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Dick v. State of Fla. ex rel. Guy Harris, 153 So. 2d 844 (Fla. 2d DCA 1963)…. Norris v. Chancey, 1937, 129 Fla. 194, 176 So. 78, 113 A.L.R. 576. These facts clearly distinguish the instant case from the situations in Pennock v. State ex rel. Hood, 1911, 61 Fla. 383, 54 So. 1004, and Wiecking v. State ex rel. Coackman, 1913, 66 Fla. 49, 62 So. 898, because the direct interest sought to be coerced in each of those cases was not in the Board but in others who would receive all of the benefits. This distinction is clearly set forth in State ex rel. White v. MacGibbon, 1920, 79 Fla. 1…
Authorities Cited
- Ray v. Wilson, 29 Fla. 342 (Fla. 1892)
- Holland v. State ex rel. Duval Cnty., 23 Fla. 123 (Fla. 1887)
- Pennock v. State ex rel. H. C. Hood, 61 Fla. 383 (Fla. 1911)