Case ID: ny_234/html/0548-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

In the Matter of the Application of David Wright, Respondent, for an Order of Mandamus against Charles L. Craig, as Comptroller of the City of New York, Appellant.
    
      Veterans — civil service — pensions—peremptory mandamus properly granted to compel payment of pension granted to Civil War veteran, an employee of Bronx parkway commission.
    
    
      Matter of Wright v. Craig, 202 App. Div. 684, affirmed.
    (Argued October 4, 1922;
    decided October 24, 1922.)
    Appeal from an order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department, entered July 24, 1922, which modified an alternative order of mandamus granted at Special Term, by striking therefrom its alternative clause and granted thereby a peremptory order of mandamus directing the comptroller of the city of New York to pay a pension to the petitioner. The petitioner, as an honorably discharged veteran of the Civil War, claims to have been granted a pension of $888 per annum, payable in equal monthly installments of $74, by the Bronx parkway commission, under the provisions of section 21-a of the Civil Service Law, which was added to such law by chapter 438 of the Laws of 1916, and successively amended by chapter 768 of the Laws of 1917, chapter 751 of the Laws of 1920, and chapter 54 of the Laws of 1921. The petitioner served for about three and a half years as a clerk in the office of the state fire marshal, and the balance of his time (about six years) as entry clerk in the office of the Bronx parkway commission. The comptroller contended that neither were city offices and that the city of New York could not, under the provision of section 10 of article 8 of the State Constitution, legally pay a pension to one who had never been in the city service.
    
      John P. O’Brien, Corporation Counsel (John F. O’Brien and William E. C. Mayer of counsel), for appellant.
    
      Moses Ely for respondent.
   Order affirmed, with costs; no opinion.

Concur: Hiscock, Ch. J., Hogan, Cardozo, Pound, McLaughlin, Crane and Andrews, JJ.