106 N.Y.S. 983 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1907
The defendant appeals from a determination of the Appellate Term affirming a -judgment in plaintiff’s favor in the Municipal Court. '
The plaintiff had been a teacher in the public schools of the county, now. borough, of Bichmond, for some twenty-nine years prior to the incorporation of that county into the city of New York on January 1,-1898, and. at that date she had been employed continuously for eight years as teacher of the girls’ graduating class in Public School Ho. 18, that being the highest grade or class in the school. Prior to consolidation there was in the county of Bichmond no particular salary attached to any particular grade or position, the matter of salary being one of yearly contract, between each teacher and the local school authorities. Section 1086 of the Greater New York charter of 1897, which went into effect on January 1, 1898 (Laws of 1897, chap. 378), provided that all yearly school contracts, such as that which the plaintiff held, should be continued until the expiration of the yearly term named therein, and section .1091 continued the salaries as fixed and paid at the date of consolidation until new schedules should be adopted by the borough boards. Section 1117 provided that “ all superintendents * * * teachers * * * in the public school system of any part of the city of New York, as constituted by this act, shall continue to
After consolidation had been effected plaintiff continued to teach, as'shé liad done before, a class which was exclusively a girls’ gradtiating class, and the highest class in the school until June 1,:1898. After that date her class was composed in part of girls about to graduate, known as pupils of the eighth grade, arid in part of pupil’s of a lower or seventh grade. This change in the composition of the class appears to have been the result of some rearrangement of classes the nature of which is not explained. It does not apjpear that plaintiff was .ever disciplined or “reassigned.” within the meaning of that word as used in section 1117,
In 1900 the Legislature enacted the so-palled Davis Act (Laws of 1900, chap. 751), which went into effect on May 3, 1900. That act dealt in great detail with the subject of the salaries of teachers and other employees of the board of. education, and by its' 4th section (amending section 1091 of the charter of 1897) provided as follows: “The board of education shall have power to adopt-by-laws fixing the salaries of the borough and associate superintendents and all members., of the supervising and the teaching staff * * * and no female teacher of a girls’ graduating class * ■ '* * shall after ten years of service in said schools receive less than fourteen hundred and forty dollars per annum.” Pursuant, to this act the board of' education adopted a by-law which provided that: “Female teachers-in the elementary schools appointed to .classes in the 8 B Grade shall receive salaries in. accordance .with the following schedule, viz.: *
* * *
Tears.
*** $
7...l..... 1,440.”
It appears to be agreed that “girls’ graduating classes”, are included within the phrase “ classes in the 8 B Grade.”
At the time the so-called Davis Act went into effect plaintiff was
The determination of the Appellate Term must be affirmed, with costs. -
; Patterson,P. J., McLaughlin and Houghton, J J., concurred Ingraham, J., dissented. -
- Determination affirmed, with costs.
Amd. by Laws of 1899, chap. 644.— [Rep.