Case ID: njl_89/html/0359-01.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

MARY FEENEY, RELATOR-APPELLANT, v. GEORGE H. BURKE ET AL., COMPRISING THE BOARD OF CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSIONERS, RESPONDENTS.
    Argued March 14, 1916
    Decided June 19, 1916.
    On appeal from the Supreme Court, in which the following per curiam was filed:
    “The facts and the question involved are thus stated in the brief of counsel for the rule.
    “Jersey Oitv has adopted the provisions of the so-called ‘Walsh act,’ chapter 221, laws of 1911. The present members of the board of commissioners of that city were elected on the 10th day of June, 1913, and were organized under said act on the 17th day of June aforesaid. On the day last mentioned George P. Brensinger, one of the members of the said board, was elected or 'appointed by the said hoard of commissioners to be director of revenue and finance, and at the same time was elected or appointed by the said board treasurer of Jersey City, comptroller of Jersey City and city collector of Jersey City. Subsequently, the said George F. Brensinger appointed one Joseph F. S. Fitzpatrick to be his private secretary, and the said Fitzpatrick has ever since and still is such private secretary to the said Brensinger as director of revenue and finance. Subsequently, on the 29th day of October, in the year 1914, the said board, declaring that there was necessity for a ■confidential stenographer to the said Brensinger as city comptroller, appointed the relator such stenographer. The city clerk of Jersey City certified such last-mentioned appointment to the board of civil service commissioners. The civil service commissioners declined to consider the said relator as being in the exempt class under the provisions of the so-called Civil Seivice law. Pamph. L. 1908, p. 235. The said civil service board has also refused to certify the name of the said relator for payment as provided for in the twenty-sixth section of the said Civil Service act, and it is under this twenty-sixth section that she now makes her application for a writ as authorized and directed therein. •
    “The theory of the relator is that her appointment is valid, and that she is entitled to payment as an appointee coming within the fourth subdivision of the thirteenth section of the Civil Service act as a stenographer to a principal executive officer, to wit, the comptroller on Jersey City.
    “The statute provides that one private secretaxjq or clerk, or stenographer of such principal executive officer shall be included in the exempt class. We think the treasurer, comptroller and collector of Jersey City axe not principal executive officers. Section 4 of the Commission Government act expressly enacts that the board of commissioners shall have and possess' all administrative, judicial and legislative powers now had and possessed and exercised by the mayor and city council and all other executive or legislative bodies in the city and have complete control over the affairs of the city. If this office of comptroller can be said to exist still, he is obviously a mere employe of the commissioners and no longer a principal executive officer.
    “The rule must be discharged, with costs.”
    For the appellant, John Bentley.
    
    For the respondent, John W. Wescott, attorney-general.
   Per Curiam.

The judgment under review will be affirmed, for the reasons set forth in the opinion of the Supreme Court,

For affirmance—The Chancellor, Chiee Justice, Garrison, Trenchabd, Bergen, Mjnturn, Black, Terhune, Heppenhetmer, Williams, Taylor, JJ. 11.

For reversal—1Slone.