It is one of the fundamental principles of mandamus that the right sought to be enforced by the writ must be clear. It is obvious that this cannot be true if the amount which it is sought to compel officials to pay depends upon a fact issue to be determined by them. "If, however, the amount of a salary is fixed by law, and for that reason no discretion is left as to the amount, then mandamus is an appropriate remedy, to enforce the payment of a salary to a public official against the officer or officers, whose duty it is to pay such official. In such cases the salary is a fixed amount, if it exists at all, and the sole question is the legal one as to whether or not there is a liability." [State ex rel. Koehler v. Bulger, 289 Mo. 441,233 S.W. 486.] Of course, the legal question does not have to be so clear that there could be no dispute about it for if that were required there would be no right to proceed by mandamus at all unless relator was sure to win. Where the result was so certain as that there would usually be no need for mandamus or any other remedy. The distinction is that, when there is a controversy over compensation for services, the amount of which must be settled by determining a question of fact which might be disputed, then the act of auditing the claim and fixing the amount by the county court is a discretionary act which is not subject to be decided by mandamus; but that when the amount is fixed by law as a salary and there is no fact, which can be disputed, to be determined in order to arrive at the amount, then the act of auditing the same and drawing a warrant is merely ministerial in character, since the only question which could be raised is a legal question and not a fact question, and under the circumstances mandamus will lie to determine the question of whether there is any legal reason why the fixed amount claimed should not be paid to the claimant. It is also true that mandamus is a proper remedy to determine the purely legal question of whether a public officer is entitled to a salary, fixed as to amount by law, in spite of the fact that two other remedies, appeal to the circuit court or suit against the county, exist. Those remedies might not, under the circumstances, be full, complete and adequate. Mandamus is a short cut by which the matter can be speedily determined and it might not even be in the interest of the public for officer's salaries to be held up throughout the necessarily longer period of the ordinary course of an action at law (38 C.J. 562, sec. 32; 18 R.C.L. 132, sec. 45), since for public officers to be engaged in long drawn out litigation over their compensation, with the cities or counties they serve, would likely tend to hinder and detract from the efficiency of their services. That mandamus is a proper remedy to settle such a controversy, of a purely legal question about *Page 255
the payment of salaries fixed in amount by law, is demonstrated by the great weight of authority as well as by the many cases in which this court has issued its own original writ to settle such questions. [18 R.C.L. 224, sec. 149; 38 C.J. 715-16, secs. 307-09; High on Extraordinary Remedies (3 Ed.), secs. 112-13; L.R.A. 1916B, 325, note, l.c. 328; State ex rel. Brunjes v. Bockelman (Mo.), 240 S.W. 209; State ex rel. O'Connor v. Riedel,329 Mo. 616, 46 S.W.2d 131; State ex rel. McCaffrey v. Bailey,308 Mo. 444, 272 S.W. 921; State ex rel. Moss v. Hamilton,303 Mo. 302, 260 S.W. 466; State ex rel. Summers v. Hamilton,312 Mo. 157, 279 S.W. 33; State ex rel. Chaney v. Grinstead, 314 Mo. 55,282 S.W. 715; State ex rel. Lamm v. McCurdy (Mo.), 282 S.W. 722; State ex rel. Hulen v. Johnson (Mo.), 282 S.W. 724; State ex rel. Sperry v. Beaty (Mo.), 282 S.W. 725; State ex rel. Harvey v. Linville, 318 Mo. 698, 300 S.W. 1066; State ex rel. Hart v. Ludden (Mo.), 285 S.W. 421.] Any implications to the contrary in the rather broad general statements in State ex rel. Forgrave v. Hill, 272 Mo. 206, 198 S.W. 844, are out of line with the action and statements of this court en banc in the later cases above cited.