Lloyd v. Board of Sup'rs of Elections of Baltimore County | Cases | Westlaw

The chronology of the case makes it apparent that nothing this Court could do, by reversal or otherwise, could undo or remedy that which has already occurred. It is beyond our power to make a decision in the case which will bind any of the parties to it or accomplish any of the purposes for which it was brought or defended. The case was moot as to the parties when it reached us. Appellate courts do not sit to give opinions on abstract propositions or moot questions, and appeals which present nothing else for decision are dismissed as a matter of course. Appellant urges that there is an exception to this course of action, which is that a case will not be dismissed as moot if matters of importance and general public interest are involved under conditions such that they are likely soon to recur. He urges that the appeal before us comes within this exception and, therefore, we should decide the true construction of the election laws involved, under the authority of Munsell v. Hennegan, 182 Md. 15, 31 A.2d 640, 146 A.L.R. 660. We have been referred to three instances—and our own investigation has revealed no others—in which this Court has given its views on the questions raised, where the case as to the parties before the Court was moot. The first was Close v. Southern Md. Agr. Ass'n, 134 Md. 629, 108 A. 209, 211, in which the Court held that statutes authorizing the circuit courts to issue licenses for race meetings with betting, were unconstitutional. A motion to dismiss the appeal because the license had expired before the appeal was *40 reached, was denied and the order of the lower court reversed because the appellants had done everything they could to have their case heard in time, the lower court could grant another license immediately, and: ‘* * * continue to grant them from year to year, as long as the present statute remains in force, and it would not be just to it to leave the question undetermined, if there be no other reason why we cannot review the decision of that court.’ It was also pointed out in the opinion that it might well be that each time a license was granted, it would have expired before the appeal reached this Court, so that the determination of the constitutional question might be indefinitely delayed. The second case is Sheehy v. Thomas, 155 Md. 688, 142 A. 506, 507, which dealt with the rights of riparian owners, as against strangers, to maintain duck blinds opposite their shore lines. The license issued was limited to the current hunting season and had expired before the case was heard on appeal. A motion to dismiss on this ground was denied and the case affirmed. The reason given was that: ‘* * * as riparian owners have a continuing right to the first choice annually for positions of blinds in the waters in front of their lands, it seems proper that, when a challenge of the right is of such a nature as to affect its recurring exercise, a decision of the question should not be refused merely because it could not be heard on appeal before the expiration of the current season for which were issued the licenses in operation when the suit was instituted.’ The third case is Munsell v. Hennegan, 182 Md. 15, 31 A.2d 640, 642, 146 A.L.R. 660, supra, the case upon which the appellant relies. It dealt with a statute requiring candidates of any minority political party, as defined, to be nominated only by petition signed by a specified number of voters (who must certify that they intend to vote for the nominee and whose names must be published in a newspaper of general circulation), and which could be filed only if a fee of twenty-five cents for each name is paid. It was urged by the appellant, a member of the Communist party, that the unreasonableness of the requirements deprived him *41 of his constitutional rights to have his name go before the electorate. The appellee moved to dismiss the appeal on the ground that declaratory proceedings were not the proper method of raising the question and that the time for filing a petition of nomination, under any theory, had passed, so that the case was moot. The Court said only this: ‘We prefer to pass these questions **381 without deciding them, and to base our conclusions upon the substantive questions raised, which in the public interest, we think should be decided.’

We find it unnecessary to decide, and we do not decide, whether the practice of this Court in dismissing appeals which are moot as to the parties, is because of a constitutional lack of power or whether it is the application of a rule of decision. If we assume, without deciding, that we agree with the courts which hold that the practice is the application of a rule of decision, and with the principles they use to determine when there is an exception, we find here none of the imperative and manifest requirements necessary if the Court is to give an opinion when the matter is moot as to the parties before the Court. The matter may be said to be of general public interest only in the sense that any statute is, which involves the whole state. Moreover, it does not seem likely that it will recur with any frequency, and if it *44 does again present itself, there need be no difficulty in having it passed upon by this Court as a live issue. The ruling of the Attorney General has not been previously challenged since it was given in 1946. The Legislatures which have met since 1946 have not seen fit to change the result which the opinion reached. There is involved no constitutional question which would tie the hands of the Legislature if it desired to permit candidates for judges of the Orphans' Court to file in the primary of both parties. If the Attorney General's conception of the legislative intent is wrong, any Legislature may so state in statutory form. If this is not done, the question certainly cannot recur for another four years, since there will be no election for the office of judge of the Orphans' Court sooner. If the Legislature does not act, there is no reason why a candidate for that office, who agrees with the appellant in this case, may not bring an action to compel cross-filing in which the decision of the lower court may be passed upon by this Court, before the election is held. Indeed, in the case at bar, the appellant was informed in February, months before the election, that he would not be permitted to cross-file, and there was sufficient time between the order of the lower court of May 13, 1954 and the election on June 28, for the case to have been advanced and heard well in time to translate the results here into effective action, if the decision below had been reversed.