Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/322/451
Timestamp: 2014-03-08 11:55:24
Document Index: 626935985

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 225', '§ 9', '§ 50', '§ 50', '§ 21', '§ 22', '§ 26', '§ 36', '§ 39', '§ 39', '§ 21', '§ 863']

DE CASTRO v. BOARD OF COM'RS OF SAN JUAN. | LII / Legal Information Institute
Supreme Court aboutsearch liibulletin subscribe previews DE CASTRO v. BOARD OF COM'RS OF SAN JUAN.
322 U.S. 451 (64 S.Ct. 1121, 88 L.Ed. 1384)
Argued: April 24, 1944.
[HTML] Mr. William Cattron Rigby, of Washington, D.C., for petitioner.
In this case the petition urged as a ground for certiorari, which moved us to grant it, that the decision of the Court of Appeals below, as in a companion case, Mario Mercado e Hijos v. Commins, 322 U.S. 465, 64 S.Ct. 1118, 'practically closes the doors of the appellate court below' to appeals which the statutes of the United States allow to Puerto Rican litigants in the insular courts and 'discriminates in favor of the fortunate persons' who, through diversity of citizenship, can take their cases to the United States District Court for Puerto Rico,
instead of to the insular courts.
Petitioner brought the present proceeding by petition for certiorari in the District Court of San Juan, Puerto Rico, to review the action of respondents, the Board of Commissioners governing the City of San Juan, in removing petitioner from the office of city manager to which the Board had appointed him. The District Court of San Juan sustained the Board. On appeal the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico reversed the insular District Court and directed petitioner's reinstatement. 57 P.R. 149. On appeal to the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit under 28 U.S.C. 225, 28 U.S.C.A. § 225 that court affirmed, 1 Cir., 116 F.2d 806, and this Court denied certiorari, 314 U.S. 614, 62 S.Ct. 61, 86 L.Ed. 495.
Our opinion in the Bonet case was the culmination of efforts by this Court, beginning with Garcia v. Vela, 1910, 216 U.S. 598, 599, 602, 30 S.Ct. 439, 440, 441, 54 L.Ed. 632; Lewers & Cooke v. Atcherly, 1911, 222 U.S. 285, 294, 32 S.Ct. 94, 95, 56 L.Ed. 202; and Ker & Co. v. Couden, 1912, 223 U.S. 268, 279, 32 S.Ct. 284, 286, 56 L.Ed. 432, to insure a review by the federal courts of decisions of the local courts of our insular possessions in matters of peculiarly local concern which should leave appropriate scope for the development by those courts of a system of law which differing from our own in its origins and principles, would nevertheless be suitable to local customs and needs. In thus interpreting the function of the federal appellate courts in reviewing decisions of the insular tribunals we only followed a principle which had long been established for appeals to federal courts from the courts of our territories within the United States.
The guiding principle, which is incapable of statement in a short formula, has been variously phrased in terms which in every case must be interpreted in the light of the particular situation to which they were applied.
But the principle which these phrases were intended to express has not been more accurately and comprehensively stated than by Mr. Justice Holmes in words which are completely applicable to the present case, in Diaz v. Gonzales, supra, 261 U.S. 105, 106, 43 S.Ct. 287, 288, 67 L.Ed. 550: 'This Court has stated many times the deference due to the understanding of the local courts upon matters of purely local concern. It is enough to cite (De) Villanueva v. Villanueva, 239 U.S. 293, 299, 36 S.Ct. 109, (111), 60 L.Ed. 293; Nadal v. May, 233 U.S. 447, 454, 34 S.Ct. 611, (612), 58 L.Ed. 1040. This is especially true in dealing with the decisions of a Court inheriting and brought up in a different system from that which prevails here. When we contemplate such a system from the outside it seems like a wall of stone, every part even with all the others, except so far as our own local education may lead us to see subordinations to which we are accustomed. But to one brought up within it, varying emphasis, tacit assumptions, unwritten practices, a thousand influences gained only from life, may give to the different parts wholly new values that logic and grammer never could have gotten from the books. In this case a slight difference in the caution felt in dealing with the interest of minors (Baerga v. Registrar of Humacao, 29 P.R. 440, 442), and a slight change of emphasis in the reading of statutes, explain the divergence between the Supreme Court and the Circuit Court of Appeals.'
Repeated admonitions that in cases coming from the Puerto Rican insular courts to the federal courts for review, where the Constitution or statutes of the United States were not involved, great deference must be paid to local decisions, having failed of their purpose, see Bonet v. Yabucoa Sugar Co., 306 U.S. 505, 307 U.S. 613, 59 S.Ct. 626, 83 L.Ed. 946,
we restated them in more emphatic form in Bonet v. Texas Company, supra, 308 U.S. 470, 60 S.Ct. 353, 84 L.Ed. 401, in the sentence quoted in the opinion below which we have repeated here. In order that its true purport might not be misunderstood we accompanied the sentence by the statement of Mr. Justice Holmes in Diaz v. Gonzales, supra, 261 U.S. 105, 106, 43 S.Ct. 287, 288, 67 L.Ed. 550, which we have quoted, and in the light of that exposition we added: 'Such judgment of reversal (by the Circuit Court of Appeals) would not be sustained here even though we felt that of several interpretations that of the Circuit Court of Appeals was the most reasonable one'.
There remains for consideration the appropriate application of these principles to the facts of the present case. The Act of the Puerto Rican legislature of May 15, 1931, Act No. 99 of 1931, established a special form of city government for the capital city, San Juan.
Legislative powers are vested in a Board of five Commissioners; the first Commissioners were to be appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of the Senate, for terms of one, two, three, four and five years, respectively (§ 9), but the Commissioners so appointed were to hold office only until the first Monday in January, 1937, (§ 50), and thereafter the 'Board of Commissioners created by this Act' was to be elected at the general election held in 1936 and every fourth year thereafter (§ 50).
The Act provides that the City Manager, who is the chief executive of the city, 'shall be appointed by the Board of Commissioners created by this Act and shall hold office during good conduct' (§ 21). He 'may be removed by the Board of Commissioners, for just cause' after hearing, and causes for removal are enumerated (§ 22). Five other administrative officers are appointed by the City Manager (§ 26), and an Auditor is appointed by the Board of Commissioners (§ 36); the provisions as to their tenure of office and removal by the agency appointing them (ss 27, 36) are identical with those for the City Manager,
save that only as to the City Manager does the Act specify a tenure of office 'during good conduct.' Other employees, appointed by the officers under whom they serve, 'shall be appointed for the term for which each officer is appointed' And are also removable for cause after hearing, the causes not being specified, however (§ 39). No provision is made for bringing such employees within the Puerto Rican Civil Service Act, Act No. 88 of 1931, adopted four days before the adoption of Act No. 99.
The Puerto Rican Supreme Court refused to hold that the provision that the City Manager 'shall hold office during good conduct' so conclusively established that he was to hold office for life as to preclude resort to extrinsic evidence of legislative intention. It held that his term was the same as that of the Board of Commissioners which appointed him, so that petitioner, who was appointed in 1937, by a Board of Commissioners elected for four years, held office for 'four years provided that during the same he observe good behavior.'
We cannot say that these holdings were so clearly wrong as to require a federal appellate court to refuse to pay deference to the insular court's decision.
While a provision that an office be held 'during good behavior' is generally deemed indicative of an intention to create a life tenure unless cause for removal arises, see Matter of Hennen, 13 Pet. 230, 259, 10 L.Ed. 138; Smith v. Bryan, 100 Va. 199, 203, 40 S.E. 652, 653; Chesley v. Council of Lunenberg, 28 Dom.L.R. 571, 572, it has not been regarded, even where traditional notions of Anglo-American law prevail, as a rigid formula precluding any other construction.
And a tenure for a period of years during good behavior has not been regarded as a contradiction in terms by American courts.
In Shurtleff v. United States, 189 U.S. 311, 316, 23 S.Ct. 535, 47 L.Ed. 828, this Court recognized and applied the strong presumption against the creation of a life tenure in a public office under the federal government. To hold that the City Manager was appointed for life would, according to the terms of § 39, give to all employees appointed by him a tenure for his life. An intention to create such an estate pur autre vie in a public office would at least be somewhat unusual. On the other hand, if they are to be deemed appointed for their own lives, the result would be that on the death or resignation of one City Manager, his successor would be unable to select even his most immediate subordinates and a life tenure would be implied for a large group of municipal employees in disregard of the rule of Shurtleff v. United States.
In addition to considering the consequences of such a holding the Puerto Rican Supreme Court looked to the practical construction placed on the Act by the political parties of Puerto Rico, as shown by facts of which it could properly take judicial notice. It said that 'the political parties of the Island have always construed this statute in the sense that the term of office of the City Manager of the capital is that of four years.' It pointed out that at the general election held in 1936 and at that held in 1940 each of the political parties participating proposed a candidate for the office of City Manager, although that office did not appear on the ballot. It said that it was well known that petitioner was the candidate of the winning party at the 1936 election and was appointed City Manager by the newly elected Board of Commissioners to replace the then incumbent, and that another was the candidate of petitioner's party at the 1940 election, and was appointed City Manager by the newly elected Board of Commissioners. This practical construction by the electorate and political parties, of which petitioner was himself the beneficiary,
strongly supports the interpretation of the Act as conferring on the City Manager a tenure no longer than that of the Board of Commissioners which appointed him.
In view of these considerations and of the principles long observed by this Court in reviewing decisions of the insular courts, which we have stated, we cannot say that we should not defer to the view of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico that the meaning of § 21, when examined with the related provisions of Act No. 99, in the light of the prevailing practical construction of it, is not so plain and unambiguous as to preclude resort to extrinsic aids to interpretation. Nor can we say, that the practical construction given the Act, together with the strong presumption against life tenures, and the principle, accepted by the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico on the authority of numerous American decisions, that ambiguities should be resolved in favor of the shorter term of office,
were clearly insufficient to support the construction which it adopted.
See 48 U.S.C. 863, 48 U.S.C.A. § 863.