Case ID: ny-super-ct_44/html/0559-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Freedman, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

SAMUEL ROWLAND, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN, &c., OF NEW YORK, Defendants and Respondents.
    Salaries of court officers, &c.
    The resolution of the board of supervisors of New York city, of May 26, 1870, increasing the salary of certain officials, held void under chap. 382, section 3, Laws of 1870.
    The claim of plaintiff, a court officer, for said increase, &c.,—Held, invalid.
    Before Speib, Sanford and Freedman, JJ„
    
      Decided November 4, 1878.
    Appeal from judgment.
    Plaintiff was appointed, in the year 1852, an attendant or officer upon the supreme court in this county, by the board of supervisors, and continued to hold that position until March 1, 1874. On December 20, 1866, his salary was fixed at the rate of $1,200 per annum, and he was paid at that rate from June 1, 1870, up to the time of his discharge.
    It was claimed on behalf of the plaintiff that, by virtue of a resolution passed by the board of supervisors on May 26, 1870, his salary was fixed, from and after June 1 of that year, at the rate of $1,500 per annum.
    This suit is brought to recover $639.55, being the difference between the two rates of salary ($1,200 and $1,500 per annum) from June 1, 1870, to July 19, 1872.
    On the trial the court held, as a conclusion of law, that the board of supervisors were, by section 3 of chapter 382 of the Laws of 1870, prohibited from increasing the salaries of court attendants, and that the resolution of May 26, 1870, was void.
    
      From the testimony of the plaintiff it appeared that he waited and attended on two judges at their houses and at the court-house, carrying papers and letters, and went out on business of different kinds for the judges, fixed their benches, locked up the court stationery, attended the door, and other work of a similar character; that he never took an oath of office nor administered an oath to a witness, but assisted particular officers in their care of a jury, brought up the rear, and closed the door.
   Freedman, J.,

wrote as follows :—The main question involved has been decided by the court of appeals in Sweeny v. Mayor, &c. (58 N. Y. 625 ; affi’g 5 Daly, 274), and that decision is fatal to plaintiff’s claim. It is an express decision of the question before us, and as such it has never been modified or questioned. The mere fact, therefore, that the reasoning of a few later cases, involving somewhat similar, but really different questions, seems to indicate a change of views, affords no justification for this court for a departure from it.

The judgment should be affirmed, with costs.

Speir, J., concurred.