Case ID: ad_18/html/0199-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam :", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The People of the State of New York ex rel. William Nutall, Respondent, v. Adolph Simis, Jr., and Others, as Commissioners of Charities and Corrections of the City of Brooklyn, Appellants.
    
      A city employee discharged from motives of economy—not reinstated.
    
    A tinsmith, employed by the commissioners of charities and corrections of a city, who is discharged by them and his position abolished simply from motives of economy, the work which he formerly did being subsequently performed by the prisoners of a county penitentiary, effecting a saving to the city of several hundred dollars, is not entitled to be restored to his position.
    Appeal by the defendants, Adolph Simis, Jr., and others, as commissioners of charities and corrections of the city of Brooklyn, from an order of the Supreme Court, made at the Kings county Trial Term, upon the trial of issues arising on the return of an alternative writ of mandamus, entered in the office of the clerk of the county of Kings on the 30th day of January, 1897, directing that a peremptory writ of mandamus issue to the defendants, commanding them to restore the relator to his position as a tinsmith in the department under their charge, and also from an order entered in said clerk’s office on the 30th day of January, 1897, denying the defendants’, motion for a new trial made upon the minutes. .
    
      John A. Quintará, for the appellants.
    
      Horace Graves, for the respondent.
   Per Curiam :

The only question which arises upon this appeal relates to the good faith of the appellants. Did they act in good faith when, on July 29, .1896, they adopted the resolution abolishing the position of tinsmith in the department and declaring that after the ensuing first of August, all work formerly performed by the discharged tinsmiths should be done by prisoners in the Kings County Penitentiary ? If they thus abolished the relator’s position from motives of economy, he has no grievance which the courts are called upon to redress. (People ex rel. Corrigan v. The Mayor, 149 N. Y. 215, 225; People ex rel. McCanna v. Commissioners, 1 App. Div. 3 ; People ex rel. Reynolds v. Squier, 10 id. 416; People ex rel. Traphagen v. King, 13 id. 400.)

We are of the opinion that the evidence before us in this record -is not sufficient to maintain the finding of the jury to the éffect that ' the commissioners of charities and corrections acted in bad faith in this matter. It.appears that since the relator was discharged, all the tinsmith’s work done in the department has been performed-by inmates of the public institutions, whose labor costs the city no thing,, with tile exception, of a little work, representing an expenditure of between seventeen and eighteen dollars, which was merely incidental to- contracts for roofing arid putting up skylights; At the time of the trial, the saving which had already been effected "amounted to several hundreds-of dollars, so.that the -change was. clearly in the direction of economy. The, suggestion in the relator’s testimony that Commissioner Sirnis on one occasion manifested personal hostility toward him is denied hy Mr. Simisp and so far as the other commissioners are' concerned, who- constituted the majority, there is not a scintilla of. evidence that they entertained" toward him the. slightest ill-will. The presumption is that -these public officers did. , tlieir duty, and' on the" proof before the jury that presumption should have prevailed.

The order ajipealed from must he. reversed and a new trial must be granted upon the issues Under the alternative writ of mandamus;'

: AH" concurred,, except- Goodrich, P. J., not sitting.

■ Order appealed ..from reversed" and "new trial granted upon the issues under alternative writ of mandamus,, costs to abide the event.