Case ID: ny-st-rep_47/html/0367-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Dykman, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The People ex rel. The State Commissioners in Lunacy, Resp’ts, v. The Superintendents of the Poor of Queens Co., App’lts.
    
      (Supreme Court, General Term, Second Department,
    
    
      Filed July 22, 1892.)
    
    Lunacy—Removal op lunatics to state hospitals.
    It is no excuse for a failure to comply with an order of the state commissioners in lunacy for the removal of insane pauper patients to a state hospital that the officials charged with that duty have no funds for that purpose.
    Appeal from order" granting a peremptory mandamus requiring defendants to remove certain insane patients to the state hospital.
    
      B. W. Downing, for app’lts; S. W. Rosendale, att’y-general, for resp’ts.
   Dykman, J.

—This is an appeal by the defendants from an or- " der of the special term directing the issuance of a peremptory writ of mandamus requiring them to remove to the Hudson Biver State Hospital at Poughkeepsie fifty-nine insane male patients then in their custody as superintendents of the poor of Queens county.

In pursuance of the provisions of chapter 126 of the Laws of 1890, under which this proceeding was instituted, the relatorsmade an order for the transfer of these insane patients to the Hudson River State Hospital at Poughkeepsie, which is in a district adjoining that in which the county of Queens is located.

Section 3 of the act, to which reference has been made, directs the state commissioners in lunacy to ascertain from time to time what vacancies exist in the state hospitals, 'and requires them to cause the removal to such hospitals of as many of the pauper insane patients in the several counties of the state as can be accommodated therein, and that section justifies the order made by the commissioners.

The superintendents of the poor refused to obey the order so-made, and thereupon the commissioners made application for the writ of mandamus already mentioned.

The salutary and beneficent purposes of the statute under which the relators have actedj must not be defeated by unreasonable excuses.

The technical objections to the proceedings of the relators which-led up to the order for the transfer of the fifty-nine patients are entirely destitute of foundation. The requirements of the law received full compliance, and the order was justified by its provisions.

In relation to the expenses the statute reads thus: “ The ex penses of the transfer of said pauper patients to said asylums-beyond the limits of the district where the patient is regularly to-be cared for, shall be chargeable to the state, and the bills for the-same when approved by the State Commission in Lunacy shall be paid by the treasurer of the state on the warrant of the comptroller out of any moneys appropriated to carry out the provisions-<of this act.” Section 9.

These defendants were, therefore, under obligation to discharge the duties imposed upon them by the statute, and present their bill for expenses incident to such performance to the proper board for audit and allowance, and then the fund was designated for their payment.

But few public officers are provided in advance with money to-pay the expenses incident to the performance of their official duties, and yet the absence of such funds has never been pleaded or admitted "as an excuse for a failure in the discharge of public functions.

The defendants have failed to furnish any excuse for their disobedience of the requirement of the relators, and the order for the-peremptory writ should be affirmed, with costs.

Barnard, P. J., concurs; Cullen, J., not sitting.