Jackson v. Cosby

Delaplaine, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal is from an order of the Circuit Court for Dorchester County dismissing a bill of complaint filed by Irving B. Jackson, Mayor of Cambridge, seeking an injunction to restrain John H. Cosby from acting as City Engineer and W. Laird Henry, Jr., from acting as Attorney for the City of Cambridge, and to restrain Carroll L. Dail, Treasurer and Collector, from paying them any salary. For many years the municipal powers of the City of Cambridge were vested in five Commissioners, who were authorized to select one of their own number to serve as Mayor. Code P. L. L., art. 10, secs. 47, 57.

In 1935 the Legislature amended the charter by providing that the Mayor should be elected'by the voters of the city. The Act also conferred upon the Mayor the power to veto any ordinance passed by the Commissioners. Acts of 1935, ch. 256, sec. 57A. The Mayor also has express authority to preside over the meetings of the board, to see that the ordinances are faithfully executed, and to perform such other duties as may be required of him by charter and ordinance.

Code P. L. L,. art. 10, sec. 58; Acts of 1939, ch. 12. Mfhile the Commissioners have never been expressly authorized by the Legislature to appoint a City Engineer or an Attorney, they have often made such appointments. On July 17th, 1940, the Commissioners, after making appointments to several offices, voted over the Mayor’s protest to appoint Cosby as City Engineer and Henry as Attorney to the Board. Mayor Jackson complained that no such office as City Engineer or Attorney to the Board has ever been created by charter or ordinance, and that the action of the ⁶⁷³ Commissioners infringed upon his prerogatives as Mayor and upon the rights and privileges of the citizens of Cambridge.

The defendants filed demurrer and answer and after a hearing thereon the Chancellor sustained the demurrer and dismissed the bill. It is a fundamental principle that courts of equity should not assume jurisdiction in controversies where the questions involved are purely political. While the political rights of a citizen are as sacred as his rights to personal liberty and property, yet the jurisdiction of equity, in the absence of constitutional or statutory authority, is generally limited to the protection of the rights of property, and any effort of a court of equity to consider the political rights of individuals is an invasion of the domain of the courts of common law or of the other departments of the government. For that reason the Supreme Court of the United States in 1888 specifically held that courts of equity have no jurisdiction to determine the validity of the appointment or election of public officers.

In re Sawyer, 124 U. S. 200 , 8 S. Ct. 482, 488 , 31 L. Ed. 402, 407 . Since there is no constitutional or statutory provision conferring equity jurisdiction for that purpose in Maryland, it is now recognized as a general rule that a court of equity in this State is not the proper forum in which to try title to either appointive or elective office, and anyone who disputes the right of a person to public office must pursue the remedy allowed by common law or statute. Price v. Collins, 122 Md. 109 , 89 A. 383 ; 28 Am. Jur., Injunctions, sec. 72.

This doctrine is applicable to public employees as well as to public officers. Of course, this general principle assumes that the acts in question are purely political and do not involve irreparable injury to property rights. But a court of equity will not assume power to grant injunctive relief where the question of property right is merely incidental to a political question. The primary question in the present case is the right of Cosby and Henry to ⁶⁷⁴ serve in the positions to which they were appointed; the payment of their salaries is an incidfental