177 N.Y. 499 | NY | 1904
Lead Opinion
By chapter 261 of the Laws of 1885 the management and care of the Albany penitentiary were vested in a board constituted by that act and known as the Albany penitentiary commission. By an amendment in 1895 (Chap. 761) it was enacted that said penitentiary commission (the constitution of which was changed by said amended act) should within fifteen days from June 10, 1895, and each five years thereafter, appoint for a period of five years a superintendent or principal keeper of said penitentiary at an annual salary of three thousand dollars. Under these statutory provisions John E. Corscadden, the relator in the mandamus proceeding, and plaintiff in the equity action, the subjects of these appeals, was, in November, 1900, appointed superintendent of the penitentiary for the term of five years. In 1902 a statute *502 (Chap. 127) was passed entitled "An act to amend chapter two hundred and sixty-one of the laws of eighteen hundred and eighty-five, entitled `An act in relation to the management of the Albany Penitentiary,' relative to the salary of the keeper of said penitentiary." This statute amended section 4 of the original act of 1885 in several particulars. First, it provided that the salary of the superintendent should be fixed by the commission instead of being established at the rate of three thousand dollars a year. It also authorized the commissioners, whenever in their discretion it seemed to be for the best interests of the county of Albany, to dispense with the services of the superintendent and place the penitentiary in the custody and care of the sheriff, and if deemed advisable to close and discontinue the same and sell the lands and buildings. Assuming to act under the authority granted by the statute last mentioned, the commissioners (who with the sheriff are the defendants in the equity action) notified the relator that on March 1, 1903, they would place the penitentiary in the hands of the sheriff of Albany county and would remove the relator from his office as superintendent. Thereupon Mr. Corscadden brought an action to restrain the commissioners from removing him from his office and from transferring the penitentiary to the sheriff and obtained in such action a temporary injunction. The complaint in the action set forth the facts above recited and charged that the statute of 1902 was unconstitutional and void for several reasons stated; that it impaired the obligation of the plaintiff's contract; that it deprived him of property without due process of law and that it abridged his privileges and immunities as a citizen of the United States and a citizen of the state of New York; and that it violated section 16 of article 3 of the Constitution of the state, which prescribes that "no private or local bill which may be passed by the legislature shall embrace more than one subject and that shall be expressed in the title." The complaint also alleged irreparable injury to the plaintiff's rights, and that the plaintiff was without adequate remedy of law. To this complaint the defendants, the penitentiary *503 commissioners, demurred on the grounds that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. Final judgment was awarded the plaintiff on demurrer and the defendants were enjoined from removing the plaintiff from his office or in any way interfering with him in the exercise of his duty. On appeal the Appellate Division modified the judgment by striking therefrom a provision restraining the defendants from fixing the plaintiff's salary, and as modified the judgment was affirmed. During the pendency of the litigation the county treasurer refused to pay the relator his salary as superintendent. After the decision of the Special Term in the injunction action Corscadden applied for a writ of peremptory mandamus to compel the payment of such salary. In his moving affidavit he stated at length the facts already given, the decision of the Special Term awarding him an injunction and that he had remained in possession of the office. In answer to the application the county treasurer disputed none of the facts stated by the relator, but averred that an appeal had been taken from the judgment. The Special Term awarded the writ as prayed for and on appeal the order was affirmed by the Appellate Division. In this court the two appeals, one from the judgment in the action and the other from the final order in the mandamus proceeding, have been argued together.
It will be convenient to dispose of the mandamus proceeding first, as the issue presented by that proceeding is very narrow and sharply defined. The relator has continued in possession of the office and the salary has not been paid to any other claimant. The relator being thus an officer de facto the appellant, the county treasurer, would have been protected in paying the salary to him. At the same time the relator could not compel such payment unless he established that he held the officede jure as well as de facto. (Dolan v. Mayor, etc., ofN Y,
Having determined that the attempted removal of Mr. Corscadden from his office of superintendent of the penitentiary was illegal, the only question which remains to be decided in the injunction action is whether such an action can be maintained. We are of opinion that it cannot. As early as the case of Tappan
v. Gray (9 Paige, 507) it was held by the chancellor that the Court of Chancery had no jurisdiction to enjoin at the suit of the incumbent of an office the intrusion of a hostile claimant illegally appointed to the office. This decision was unanimously affirmed by the Court of Errors (7 Hill, 259). In Matter ofSawyer (
Indeed, the principle that a court of equity will not entertain jurisdiction over contests to public office has been so fully recognized in this state that there seems to be no direct authority in this court on the question, though several instructive cases may be found. In People v. Albany Susquehanna Railroad Company (
The authorities on which the learned counsel for the respondent relies for the support of this action are not applicable.Rathbone v. Wirth (
A full review of the decisions in the other states on the right of a court of equity to intervene in the contest for public office is found in Matter of Sawyer (Supra), from which it appears that at least originally there was universal concurrence in the doctrine of the courts of this state. Of late the Pennsylvania courts seem to have departed to some extent from the earlier decisions. This course appears to have been dictated by a consideration of the embarrassment which might occur from a contest over a public office between rival claimants, each asserting that he was in possession thereof. This consideration seems also to have largely influenced the court below in the decision of this case. Whatever force there may be in it, we do not think it justifies an extension of equity jurisdiction on the subject. If ever public convenience would have authorized the intervention of equity in a controversy beyond its cognizance, that controversy was the one passed on by this court in People v. Albany Susquehanna Railroad Company, where "a war of injunctions" had caused in a part of the state no small degree of public disorder. Yet, the court there held that no case of equitable cognizance was presented. We appreciate the inconvenience and confusion that may arise from disputes over public office and we have *510 not been without our fair share of such contests in this state. Yet, they all seem to have been settled reasonably satisfactorily by proceedings at law. We are by no means certain that the intervention of a court of equity in such contest might not create as great evils as those sought to be remedied and might not make "confusion worse confounded." An injunction granted against a public officer towards the close of his official term restraining him from making appointments to office, if decided to have been erroneously granted, would work a wrong that could not be remedied. The very limitation on the modes of procedure in courts of law, that renders it necessary in many cases to appeal to a court of equity, seems to render the law courts best fitted to determine a litigation over a public office. The parties to a suit or proceeding at law are certain, the procedure is certain, the issues to be decided simple and the form of judgment certain. It does not require a very long memory to recall the fact that the greatest usurpation by a court of the right of a state to choose its own officers, a usurpation ultimately condemned by all political parties, was effected by means of an injunction. However this may be, if it is desirable to extend the jurisdiction of equity to contests for public office, that should be done by the action of the legislature.
The judgment appealed from should be reversed and the complaint dismissed, without costs.
Dissenting Opinion
There is one proposition, the basic one in this controversy, about which we are agreed — every member of this court, every member of the Appellate Division, and the judge at Special Term — and that is, that the statute under which the Albany penitentiary commission have undertaken to remove plaintiff is absolutely void. All agree that it offends against the Constitution of this state, and some assert in more than one respect. Hence the legislature had not any power to pass it, and — although they did in form enact it — as the Constitution prohibits it, the result is precisely as if the act was not passed. It accomplishes *511 nothing. While pretending to confer authority it in fact confers none whatever. It neither authorizes action, nor can it protect one who attempts to act under it.
The majority opinion — which sustains the decisions below, in a mandamus proceeding, in compelling the county treasurer to pay plaintiff his salary as superintendent of the Albany penitentiary — concedes that the action of the commission in notifying plaintiff that on March 1, 1903, they would remove him from office, and put the sheriff of the county in possession, as the statute was intended to authorize, does not affect plaintiff's right to the salary so long as he was actually in office after that date. Why? Because the statute purporting to authorize the action of the commission is void, and, therefore, without support, and the situation is precisely the same as if nothing had been done.
Notwithstanding the invalidity of the statute, the Albany penitentiary commission proposed to oust plaintiff. This is demonstrated first, by their attempt to remove plaintiff, and put the sheriff in possession; second, by the fact that after an adjudication by both Special Term and Appellate Division that the statute is wholly void, and confers no authority whatever upon the commission, they have appealed to this court urging that — no matter if they were proceeding under a void statute — equity could not check them; third, by their demurrer to the complaint, by which they necessarily admit the allegations of the complaint that it is their purpose without authority of law, and in violation of law, to deprive Corscadden of the honor of his position, the salary of his office, and a home and support for himself and his family for a fixed term of years.
The question about which we differ is whether a court of equity is powerless to prevent this wrong. No one but the Albany penitentiary commission and their counsel pretends that it ought not be prevented. Certainly no judge who has heard the case has been willing to make any such assertion. But some of them do say that — although this Albany penitentiary commission has not any authority whatever to put *512 Corscadden out of office, and the sheriff in — a survey of the authorities seems to indicate that equity is powerless to prevent the wrong which, if once done, is without adequate remedy at law.
No situation precisely like this has ever before been presented to the courts of this state, and hence it is the first time that equity has had a chance to assert her power. A situation analogous in most respects to the one presented by this record was before the court in Rathbone v. Wirth (
That case is authority for the proposition that if some Albanian, as taxpayer, had brought this action, he could have maintained it. This plaintiff's interest is even greater than that of a taxpayer, and equity should afford relief to him as it would to a taxpayer. And it should be diligent in discovering the way to do it, inasmuch as the ends of justice would be attained by such a result. Indeed, justice to this plaintiff can only be attained by affirming the judgment in this action. We are commanded to assume from the pleadings that plaintiff has no adequate remedy at law, and such is the fact. In such case equity seeks to lend its aid, and will only be deterred from it when the result either violates some established principle of equity or will create a bad precedent.
We now come to the point of division in this court, as to *513 which, I think, the court below took the broader and sounder view. The majority of this court say — and cite a wealth of authority in support of it — that equity will not lend its aid to try the title to office; that election contests and disputes relating to the title to office belong to the courts of law. More authorities might have been cited in the same direction, but none whatever need have been. Such is the law of this state, as all agree.
Those cases, however, and the principle established by them, have no application to this case. It is not pretended that any one of them presents a situation like the case before us. They relate to contests between rival claimants for the same office. This case, however, does not involve the title to office in any such sense. Plaintiff is in office and entitled to draw his salary, as the majority opinion asserts, not only because he is in possession of the office, but also because he has the right to it. There is no claimant contesting the office with him, no man possessed of even a shadow of a claim of right to that office. And so we held in affirming the mandamus proceeding requiring the county treasurer to pay plaintiff's salary. And that being so, how can it be said that the title to office is involved? If there was a claimant to this office, having some sembalance of authority for his claim, then these authorities would apply; but, as we have seen, there is no such claimant. Instead, there are certain commissioners of the Albany penitentiary who — as we must assume from the demurrer to this complaint — attempted to oust plaintiff from his office without authority of law. That which they have undertaken to do, and, as we must assume, will do — notwithstanding the unanimous agreement of all the judges in all the courts in which this case has been, that they have no authority for it — is to oust plaintiff from his residence, deprive his family of support promised him under lawful authority, and take away from him his salary. The situation is precisely as it would be if the board of supervisors should by resolution declare the office vacant, appoint a successor, and then proceed in a body to the penitentiary to eject the *514 incumbent by force and install him whom they had chosen as his successor. The Albany penitentiary commission have no more authority to do it than would the board of supervisors have, for, as we have seen, their so-called authority is void, and, therefore, they have no authority whatever, and hence equity should interfere, inasmuch as plaintiff has no adequate remedy at law, as we must assume under this complaint and the demurrer thereto, and as is the fact.
Assuming, however, for the purpose of the argument only, that equity will treat this void statute with such respect as to refuse to affirm a judgment of a court of equity founded on the invalidity of the statute until a court of law has declared it void — then we should affirm, because, as a court of law, and in the mandamus proceeding, we have declared this statute to be void. We have decided in a common-law proceeding that this statute is null and void, and hence that under it there can never be developed even the shadow of a claim of title to the office held by this plaintiff. Can we justify a decision handed down on the same day, but on the equity side of the court, holding that plaintiff's title to office is involved by reason of such void statute?
The judgments of the courts below, in the rendition of which they have been unanimous, should be affirmed.
In first case, BARTLETT, MARTIN and VANN, JJ., and PARKER, Ch. J., O'BRIEN and WERNER, JJ., in result, concur with CULLEN, J., for affirmance of order, with costs.
In second case, BARTLETT, MARTIN and VANN, JJ., concur with CULLEN, J., for reversal of judgment and dismissal of complaint; dissenting opinion by PARKER, Ch. J., with which O'BRIEN and WERNER, JJ., concur.
Ordered accordingly. *515