office

A right, and correspondent duty, to exercise a public trust. A public charge or employment.

An employment on behalf of the government in any station or public trust, not merely transient, occasional, or incidental.

The most frequent occasions to use the word arise with reference to a duty and power conferred on an individual by the government; and, when this is the connection, "public office" is a usual and more discriminating expression. But a power and duty may exist without immediate grant from government, and may be properly called an "office;" as the office of executor. Here the individual acts towards legatees in performance of a duty, and in exercise of a power not derived from their consent, but devolved on him by an authority which quoad hoc is superior. An "assigned duty" or "function."

Synonyms are "post", "appointment", "situation", "place", "position", and "office" commonly suggests a position of (especially public) trust or authority.

Also right to exercise a public function or employment, and to take the fees and emoluments belonging to it. A public charge or employment, and he who performs the duties of the office is an officer.

Although an office is an employment, it does not follow that every employment is an office. A man may be employed under a contract, express or implied, to do an act, or to perform a service, without becoming an officer. But, if the duty be a continuing one, which is defined by rule prescribed by the government, which an individual is appointed by the government to perform, who enters upon the duties appertain to his status, without any contract defining them, it seems very difficult to distinguish such a charge or employment from an office, or the person who performs the duty from an officer.

In the constitutional sense, the term implies an authority to exercise sorhe portion of the sovereign power, either in makiV, executing, or administering the laws.

A place for the regular transaction of business or performance of a particular service.

As to various particular offices, see home office

- land offices

- public office, etc.

- county office

- judicial office

- lucrative office

- ministerial office

- principal office

- office audit

- office copy

- office grant

- office hours

- office of honor

- office of judge

- public office

@ county office

Public office filled by the electorate of the entire county.

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- judicial office

- lucrative office

@ ministerial office

One which gives the officer little or no discretion as to the matter to be done, and requires him to obey mandates of a superior. It is a general rule that a judicial office cannot be exercised by a deputy, while a ministerial office may.

See ministerial

@ office audit

An audit by the Internal Revenue Service of a taxpayer's return which is conducted in the agent's office. It may be distinguished from a correspondence audit or a field audit.

See also audit

@ office copy

A copy or transcript of a deed or record or any filed document, made by the officer having it in custody or under his sanction, and by him sealed or certified

@ office grant

A designation of a conveyance made by some officer of the law to effect certain purposes, where the owner is either unwilling or unable to execute the requisite deeds to pass the title; such, for example, as a tax-deed

@ office hours

That portion of the day during which offices are usually open for the transaction of business

@ office of honor

See honor

@ office of judge

In old English law, a criminal suit in an ecclesiastical court, not being directed to the reparation of a private injury, was regarded as a proceeding emanating from the office of the judge, and could be instituted by the mere motion of the judge. But, in practice, these suits were instituted by private individuals, with the permission of the judge or his surrogate; and the private prosecutor in any such case was, accordingly, said to "promote the office of the judge."

@ principal office

The principal office of a corporation is its headquarters, or the place where the chief or principal affairs and business of the corporation are transacted. Usually it is the office where the company's books are kept, where its meetings of stockholders are held, and where the directors, trustees, or managers assemble to discuss and transact the important general business of the company; but no one of these circumstances is a controlling test.

Synonymous with "principal place of business," being the place where the principal affairs of a corporation are transacted. The office (in or out of the state of incorporation) so designated in the annual report where the principal executive offices of a domestic or foreign corporation are located. Rev.Model Bus.Corp.Act, No. 1.40.

@ public office

The right, authority, and duty created and conferred by law, by which for a given period, either fixed by law or enduring at the pleasure of the creating power, an individual is invested with some portion of the sovereign functions of government for the benefit of the public. An agency for the state, the duties of which involve in their performance the exercise of some portion of the sovereign power, either great or small.

+ public office

Essential characteristics of "public office" are:

(1) authority conferred by law,

(2) fixed tenure of office, and

(3) power to exercise some portion of sovereign functions of government; key element of such test is that "officer" is carrying out sovereign function. Spring v. Constantino, 168 Conn. 563, 362 A.2d 871, 875.

Essential elements to establish public position as "public office" are: position must be created by constitution, legislature, or through authority conferred by legislature, portion of sovereign power of government must be delegated to position, duties and powers must be defined, directly or impliedly, by legislature or through legislative authority, duties must be performed independently without control of superior power other than law, and position must have some permanency and continuity. State ex rel. Eli Lilly and Co. v. Gaertner, Mo.App., 619 S.W.2d 761, 764

@ state office

Public offices to be filled by the electorate of the entire state

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