59 N.Y.S. 30 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1899
It is not the policy of the law, as a general proposition, to make-it obligatory upon public officials to keep in position men for whom there is no public necessity ; and in the few exceptions which the; Legislature has seen fit to make to this general rule, it is the duty of the court to see that the letter of the law is not transcended. The relator, who is concededly a veteran of the fire department of Long Island City, so as to come within the provisions of chapter
It is provided in section 127 of -the charter that “ All veterans, ' either of the army or navy or the volunteer fife departments, now in the service of either of the municipal and public corporations hereby consolidated, who are novf entitled by law to serve during good behavior, or who cannot under existing law be removed except for cause, shall be retained in like positions and under the same conditions by the corporation constituted by this act;, to serve under such titles and in such way as the head of the appropriate department or the mayor may direct-.” Obviously, this section of the charter gave the relator no new rights; it simply sought to continue in the service of the city such members' of the class to which it refers as would have been entitled to continue in office, had the consolidation of the several municipalities into one great municipality not been brought about by the statute of which this section forms a . part. (People ex rel. Jacobus v. Van Wyck, 157 N. Y. 495, 501.) We must look, then, to the statute of 1892 for the rights of the relator, and we find in that law no provision that the veterans of
There is nothing before the court to indicate that the action of the board of police commissioners was not taken in entire good faith for the purpose of reducing the cost of the- administration of the department, and we are of opinion that the court below has misconceived the law in respect to the rights of the relator, and that the order appealed from should be reversed, with costs.
All concurred.
Order reversed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements, and motion denied, with ten dollars costs.