Rule 1.1305.Judgment

A quo warranto judgment has to do more than declare a winner — it has to settle the underlying dispute completely. Rule 1.1305(1) requires the judgment to determine all rights and claims of all parties respecting the matters involved, and to include whatever provisions are needed to enforce those determined rights or to accomplish the objects of the decision. Rule 1.1305(2) makes explicit that the judgment must also determine which party, if any, is entitled to hold any office in controversy — a direct answer to the question the action was brought to resolve.

Rule 1.1305(3) covers the harder case: a party unlawfully holding or exercising an office, franchise, or privilege, or a corporation that has violated the law under which it exists, or that has done something amounting to a surrender or forfeiture of its privileges. There, the judgment must remove the party from the office or franchise, or forfeit the privilege, and forbid that party from exercising or using it going forward.

Rule 1.1305(4) addresses a milder situation: a party who merely exercised powers or privileges they weren't entitled to, but whose conduct doesn't rise to the level of forfeiture under the law. For that party, the judgment doesn't need to strip anything away permanently — it merely prohibits further exercise of those powers going forward.