82 F. 373 | U.S. Circuit Court for the Northern District of Illnois | 1897
(after stating the facts as above). The importance of the question presented, and the far-reaching effect of the conclusion which may ultimately be reached with respect to it, require the careful statement of the provisions of law which hedge about and govern the civil service of the United States, so far as they may have bearing upon the particular question upon which the court is called to pass. In the consideration of the question the court is not at liberty to indulge in speculation concerning what ought to be. Its duty is limited to the determination of the law as it is. If the acts of congress are not sufficient to include such regulation of the public service as is desirable, the remedy must be applied by the legislative, and not by the judicial, department of the government!
The purpose of. this act and its limitations are manifest. Its object was to provide for the civil service, or for such branches of it as should.be included within the provisions of the act, a thoroughly competent body of men, selected for competency and fitness for the positions sought. Any citizen who should, by the necessary examination,
On the 2d day of November, 1896, the president of the United States made and promulgated certain rules, revoking all others, for the regulation of the civil service. This was stated by him to have been done “in the exercise of power vested in him by the constitution, and the authority given to him by the 1753d section of the Revised Statutes, and by an act to regulate and improve the civil service of the
“The office and jurisdiction of a court of equity, unless enlarged by express statute, are limited to the protection of .rights of property. It has no jurisdiction over the prosecution, the punishment, or.the pardon of crimes or misdemeanors, or over the appointment and removal of public officers. To assume such a jurisdiction, or to sustain a hill in equity to restrain or relieve against proceedings for the punishment of offenses, or for the removal of public officers, is to invade the domain of courts of common law, or of the executive and administrative department of the government.”
And so, also, in World’s Columbian Exposition v. U. S., 18 U. S. App. 42, 159, 6 C. C. A. 58, and 56 Fed. 654, the court of- appeals of this circuit, speaking through Mr. Chief Justice Fuller, declared:
“The office and jurisdiction of a court of equity, unless enlarged by express statute, are limited to the protection of rights of property. The court is conversant only with questions of property, and the maintenance of civil rights, and exercises no jurisdiction in matters merely political, illegal, criminal, or immoral.”
At the argument the court was referred to a decision by Judge Jackson in the United States circuit court for the district of West Virginia, in the case of Priddie v. Thompson (rendered July 28, 1897, as yet officially unreported) 82 Fed. 186, in which case it was held that, without respect to the order of the -president of July 27, 1897, the power of removal from office-, except for cause, did not, under the civil service act, now exist, and that a court sitting in equity would restrain such attempted removal. With deference, I cannot concur in the conclusion of that learned judge. I find no language in the act hinting at or suggesting any such intention on the part of the congress of the United States. I think, as I have above explained, that under any proper construction of the act the intention to leave the power of removal where it previously existed, except in the one case specified, is clear and undoubted; and the case In re Sawyer, supra, which is quoted by Judge Jackson to explain the power of a court of equity to enjoin removal from office, is directly oppósed, as I think, to the conclusion of the court in Priddie v. Thompson.
Since the foregoing was penned, I am advised by the public press of the decision of Judge Cox, of the supreme court of the District of Columbia, rendered September 14, 1897, in the case of Wood v. G-ary, Postmaster General, in which that court would seem to have reached the same conclusion to which I am constrained. I have no opportunity of examining the opinion of the court in that case. If reliance may be placed upon the press report of the decision, it would seem to proceed along the same lines of reasoning adopted in this opinion.
It follows that the rule for a writ of injunction must be discharged, and the temporary restraining order dissolved.