§ 9-6-64.How issues of law determined; time for final determination; appeal; application to issues of fact

This section splits quo warranto cases along a familiar line: questions of law versus questions of fact, and it moves fast on the former. Subsection (a) reaches applications for writs of quo warranto, informations in the nature of quo warranto, and proceedings by such writs alike. When the applicant’s case presents only legal questions, the superior court judge before whom the case began decides it, using equity-style procedure, and must reach a final determination within ten days of when the action, application, or proceeding started.

That speed does not come at the cost of appellate review. Subsection (a) preserves the right of either party to except to the judge’s final decision and file an appeal just as in other cases, with the clerk handling the appeal the same way the clerk would in any other matter.

Subsection (b) then reaches beyond pure law questions. It extends the same framework — the equity-style handling, the compressed timeline, the appeal right — to quo warranto proceedings that involve issues of fact for a jury, wherever that framework can be applied. It stops short of overriding any right or remedy in fact-based cases that the framework does not cover, leaving room for the jury procedure set out in the next section of the article.