Harvison v. Greene County Sheriff Dept

Public Officers — County Commissioners — Collection of Illegal Fees — What Does not Constitute — Collecting Excess Mileage — Uncertainty in Accusation — Purpose of Pleading. Public Officers — Removal — Procedure. 1. Public officers who are not subject to impeachment may be removed for misconduct or malfeasance only by proceedings had under an indictment of a grand jury, and for nonfeasance or for the collection of illegal fees under an accusation in writing. (Secs. 11688, 11702, Rev. Codes 1921.) Same — County Commissioners — Collecting Illegal Fees for Services Rendered in Office — What Does not Constitute. 2. Under section 11702, supra, a county officer may summarily be removed for corruptly collecting "illegal fees for services rendered in his office." Held, that under this section a county commissioner may not be removed unless it be alleged and proved that he collected illegal fees for services rendered in his office while acting in his official capacity, and that an accusation charging the collection of his expenses and per diem during his attendance at a state meeting of county commissioners, though under Chapter 48, Laws of 1927, another member of the board had been designated to attend such meeting, was properly demurrable, the fees alleged to have been illegally received not having been received by defendant for services rendered in his office. Same — Removal — Rules of Pleading Applicable. 3. The rules of pleading obtaining in a proceeding brought for the removal of an officer under section 11702, Revised Codes 1921, except as therein otherwise provided are those applicable to ordinary civil actions. Pleading — Object of Pleading. 4. The object of pleading is to notify the opposite party of the facts which the pleader expects to prove; therefore the allegations of such facts must be made with that certainty which will enable the adversary to prepare his evidence to meet the alleged facts. Public Officers — County Commissioners — Collecting Excess Mileage — Uncertainty of Allegations of Accusation — Special Demurrer Properly Sustained. 5. In a proceeding summarily to remove a county commissioner for collection of illegal fees based on alleged excess mileage charged by defendant in the inspection of highways and bridges, allegations in the accusation so phrased as to leave it uncertain whether Page 172 any given item for mileage was illegal in its entirety, or what portion of such items was legal and what illegal, were vulnerable to a special demurrer.