Case Name: BROOKLYN TEACHERS' ASS'N et al. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF CITY OF NEW YORK et al.
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1903-06-19
Citations: 83 N.Y.S. 1
Docket Number: 
Parties: BROOKLYN TEACHERS’ ASS’N et al. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF CITY OF NEW YORK et al.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 83
Pages: 1–8

Head Matter:
(85 App. Div. 47.)
BROOKLYN TEACHERS’ ASS’N et al. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF CITY OF NEW YORK et al.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department.
June 19, 1903.)
1. Schools — Cheater New York — Teachers—Promotion Lists.
Greater New York Charter, § 1090 (3 Laws 1901, p. 472, c. 466), provides that all teachers shall lie appointed by the board of education on the nomination of the board of superintendents, and that such nominations must be made from the list of properly certified teachers in the regular order of the standing of the candidates on the lists, and that existing eligible lists in the city of New York, and the relative standing of persons thereon, shall not be affected by the passage of the act. Section 1101 requires that all licenses to teach, or certificates of qualification for teaching, granted by the superintendent of public instruction of Brooklyn, or by authority of the board of education of that city, prior to February 1, 1898, shall be recognized by the board of examiners of New York as in full force, and entitle the holders to appointment or promotion to any position to which they were respectively eligible. Eeld, that holders of certificates of a certain grade, granted by the superintendent of instruction of Brooklyn, which entitled the holders to promotion to any grade in the last two years of the elementary school course without examination, were entitled to have their names placed on the promotion list, and recognized by the board of examiners of New York as entitled to promotion, though their percentages had not been preserved, without submitting themselves to a further examination for such promotion, required by the by-laws of the board of education of New York.
8. Mandamus — Ministerial Duty.
Where a city board of school superintendents were required to make out and file a list of holders of teachers’ certificates eligible to promotion, the making of such list was a ministerial duty, enforceable by mandamus.
Goodrich, P. J., dissenting.
Appeal from Special Term, Kings County.
Application by the Brooklyn Teachers’ Association and others for mandamus against the board of education of the city of New York and another. From an order denying the application, petitioners appeal.
Reversed.
Argued before GOODRICH, P. J., and BARTLETT, WOODWARD, HIRSCHBERG, and HOOKER, JJ.
Ira Leo Bamberger (Benjamin N. Cardoza, on the brief), for appellants.
James McKeen (Walter S. Brewster, on the brief), for respondents.

Opinion:
WOODWARD, J.
It is alleged in the petitioners' affidavit, and admitted by the answering affidavit of the city superintendent, that "all holders of the licenses or certificates known as 'Grade A' were eligible, by the possession thereof, to appointment and promotion to any grammar grade in the schools of the said city of Brooklyn." It is also alleged and admitted that under section iioi of the charter, as amended (3 Laws 1901, p. 483, c. 466), license Grade A shall be recognized by the superintendent of schools and by the board of examiners of the city of New York as in full force; that, unmindful of the aforesaid charter provision, the board of education of the city of New York has adopted two by-laws, which, to make an applicant "eligible for license for promotion to any grade in the last two years of the elementary school course," require certain examinations and other qualifications in addition to the holding of license Grade A, or No. 2; that, pursuant to these by-laws, the city superintendent of schools has prepared a list known as the "Eligible List of Persons Holding License for Promotion," and placed thereon only the names of those teachers who have complied with the requirements of the said by-laws; and that "the effect of the said by-law, if the same be enforced, is to render your petitioner, Jeannetta Baum, and many hundred other teachers, ineligible for appointment or to promotion to a position to which they were rendered eligible by the possession of licenses and certificates granted to them by the superintendent of public instruction of the city of Brooklyn, and by authority of the board of education of the said city of Brooklyn."
I agree with the Presiding Justice that "the two by-laws are inoperative so far as they forbid promotion of persons holding the Brooklyn license Grade A," but I think the difficulty which he suggests as to section 1090 is more imaginary than real. In this proceeding the petitioners are not seeking promotion. They ask that their names be placed upon the special list for promotion, as otherwise they are rendered ineligible for promotion, and thus the very result is brought about, which we are agreed cannot be — the forbidding of promotion to holders of license Grade A. The fact that no ratings of the standing of the various holders of license Grade A have been preserved cannot be the fault of the teachers, but rather of the school authorities, who should not be permitted to take advantage of their own neglect or omission. Moreover, the return shows that upon the list of licenses Grade A the names are arranged together in the order in which the said licenses were issued — an order which may well be followed in the absence of percentage ratings that under section 1101 of the charter cannot properly be demanded-of holders of Grade A licenses.
Matter of Stebbins, 41 App. Div. 269, 58 N. Y. Supp. 468, may be easily distinguished from the case at bar, for in that case no eligible list had ever been filed, and the petitioner was seeking to compel the preparation of such a list, though there was no provision for the" list, either by statute or by law, while in our present case a list of persons eligible for promotion to the four upper grammar grades has been filed, and the board of superintendents has been directed not to promote any one to such grades whose name is not upon it. Moreover, in the Stebbins Case the petitioner's certificate made him eligible-for appointment as "principal of a school," and he asked to have his-name placed on a list to be prepared of the names of those eligible for appointment as principal of a high school. We said (page 270, 41. App. Div., page 469, 58 N. Y. Supp.):
"It is a complete answer to the application of the relator that there is in fact no eligible list for high school appointments, nor is any required by law; such a list being expressly excepted from the provisions of the statute."
In the case at bar the petitioners are not seeking to control any discretion now vested in the board of education. The situation here is quite similar to that in the case of People ex rel. Goldy v. Maxwell, 65 App. Div. 265, 73 N. Y. Supp. 527, affirmed in 169 N. Y. 608, 62 N. E. 1099, which seems to me to settle the question now before us. The court there held that the test of eligibility was the fact that the person named has received a license (the license there was received in 1875) and, the relator's name having been omitted from a special list made up of those who had been recently examined, from which list alone appointments were made, directed the issuance of a writ of mandamus. As the court say in that case (page 267, 65 App. Div., page 529, 73 N. Y. Supp.);
"To construe the provisions as contended for by the city superintendent would necessarily make various provisions [of the charter] inconsistent with each other, while the view indicated gives effect to all of the provisions, thereof, and is clearly within the intention of the Legislature."
The Presiding Justice says that Miss Baum's name is already on an eligible list, for promotion, but the list to which he refers is the general list, and not the list of those eligible to promotion. The holders of license Grade A are entitled to have their names placed on the special list for promotion, and it is not within the discretion of the board of superintendents or of the city superintendents to invalidate their licenses by refusing to place their names on that list. The duty is neither judicial nor discretionary, but is ministerial in character, and, there being no other remedy, enforcement may be compelled by mandamus. People v. Commissioners, 149 N. Y. 26, 43 N. E. 418.
For these reasons, I think the writ should issue for the relief sought for in the second paragraph of the petitioners' prayer, and that the order appealed from should therefore be reversed.
Order reversed, without costs, and motion granted to the extent indicated in opinion of WOODWARD, J. All concur, except GOODRICH, P. J., who reads for affirmance.