Title: Ruonala v. BOARD COUNTY COMM.
Citation: 212 Or. 309, 319 P.2d 898
Docket Number: N/A
State: Oregon
Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court
Date: December 31, 1957

212 Or. 309 (1957)
319 P.2d 898
RUONALA ET AL
v.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF MULTNOMAH COUNTY

Supreme Court of Oregon.
Submitted on briefs November 27, 1957.
Reversed December 31, 1957.
*310 William M. Langley, District Attorney for Multnomah County, Willis A. West, Chief Deputy of Civil Department, and C.W. Pecore, Deputy District Attorney, Portland, for appellants.
Bernard, Bernard &amp; Edwards, Portland, for respondents.
REVERSED.
ROSSMAN, J.
This appeal challenges a judgment which the circuit court for Multnomah county entered in favor of the plaintiffs in a mandamus proceeding. The plaintiffs, ten in number, are deputy constables who are employees of Multnomah county and whose principal duty consists of the service of process issued by the district court for Multnomah county. The defendants are the Board of County Commissioners for Multnomah County, the Multnomah County Civil Service Commission and the members of those two boards. The office of the sheriff of Multnomah county employs six *311 deputy sheriffs whose principal duty is the service of process issued by the circuit court for Multnomah county. The aforementioned ten deputy constables and six deputy sheriffs are subject to chapter 241, ORS, which subjects county employees to civil service regulation. The challenged judgment directed that a peremptory writ of mandamus issue, requiring the defendants
The defendants, as appellants, contend that the duties and responsibilities of deputy constables who serve process do not equal those of deputy sheriffs who serve similar papers.
1, 2. The record contains no bill of exceptions and no transcript of the evidence. No objections were filed to the findings of fact proposed by the plaintiffs, and, so far as the record indicates, the defendants submitted for approval no findings drafted by themselves. Based upon those circumstances, the plaintiffs argue that we must accept as incontrovertible the status and duties of the deputy sheriffs and deputy constables as portrayed in the above-quoted findings of fact. All of the individuals with whom this proceeding is concerned are public officers and, generally, the duties of public officers are established by statute. Findings of fact are unnecessary as to the contents of statutes and the state of the law upon a given subject. City of Alameda *312 v. City of Oakland, 198 Cal 566, 246 P 69. The law, whether statutory or otherwise, so far as pertinent to any set of findings of fact is deemed a part thereof. Since the duties of public officers are frequently ordained by law, a consideration of the law which prescribes the duties of public officers, such as those who are involved in this proceeding, may disclose whether or not a civil service commission properly classified them.
The findings of fact state that since July of 1955 the positions held by the deputy sheriffs above mentioned "have been identified in the classified civil service list as `civil deputy sheriff' and those held by the plaintiffs as `deputy constable.'" Continuing, the findings set forth:
The defendants-appellants contend:
We shall now consider that contention.
*314 ORS 241.210 says:
ORS 241.215 declares:
3. The issues which we are called upon to resolve are whether or not the defendant civil service commission could properly (1) deem the duties performed by the plaintiffs as dissimilar to those performed by deputy sheriffs, and (2) classify differently the positions of deputy constable and deputy sheriff.
ORS 51.500 provides:
*315 ORS 204.685 says:
and, continuing, contains provisions, which, so far as they are pertinent to this case, are in language substantially similar to that of ORS 51.500 just quoted. The office of sheriff is elective. Constitution of Oregon, Art VI, § 6, and ORS 204.005.
ORS 15.060, which concerns sheriffs and their deputies, says:
The section pertains to the circuit court.
ORS 52.120 pertains to summons issued by a justice of the peace, and directs:
ORS 46.120, pertaining to the service of summons issued by the district courts, specifies:
The foregoing shows that, although a deputy sheriff may serve a summons issued by (1) the circuit court, (2) the district court, and (3) a justice of the peace, a deputy constable cannot serve a summons issued by the circuit court except in his role as a layman. This proceeding is not concerned with action that may be taken by a deputy sheriff or a deputy constable in his role as a layman.
The question then occurs, are all summonses alike, regardless of the court from which they emanate, so that for the purpose of this suit they may be likened to fungible goods, or do they differ substantially according to the court from whence they came.
4. The circuit court is a court of general jurisdiction. Montesano Lumber Co. v. Portland Iron Works, 78 Or 53, 152 P 244. The district court is a court of limited jurisdiction, and, expressed loosely, its civil jurisdiction is limited to $1,000. It does not extend to causes that call for adjudication of the title to real property. ORS 46.070. The civil jurisdiction of a justice of the peace is severely restricted and, expressed generally, is confined to actions which do not involve more than $250. ORS 51.080. His court can neither adjudicate the title to real property (ORS 51.090) nor issue a writ of attachment for real property (ORS 52.250). The amount involved in the action in which the sheriff or constable is undertaking to serve the summons may affect the amount of his liability, in the event that he is negligent in the performance of his duty. Such is seen from Hammons v. Schrunk, 209 Or 127, 305 *317 P2d 405. Accordingly, since most actions and suits which involve matters of greater import are filed in the circuit court, it is generally true that a deputy sheriff assumes a greater responsibility and incurs a greater liability when a summons has been intrusted to him for service than a deputy constable in the handling of the type of process that falls into his hands. We do not believe that for the purposes of this case the mere fact that the paper is entitled Summons, one issued by a district court is identic to one issued by the circuit court.
The above indicates that a dissimilarity of moment exists between the status of a deputy sheriff, who undertakes the service of process issued by the circuit court, and that of a deputy constable, who proceeds to serve a similar paper which emanated from the district court or from a justice of the peace.
5, 6. We cannot affirm the challenged judgment unless it appears from the record before us that the official action which the writ directs the defendants to take is "an act which the law specially enjoins, as a duty resulting from" the office held by them. In making that statement, we depend upon ORS 34.110, which says:
This court has held many times that if a challenged act involves the exercise of discretion, a writ of mandamus *318 cannot direct the manner in which the discretion shall be applied. School District No. 1 v. Shull, 160 Or 225, 84 P2d 479; Riesland v. Bailey, 146 Or 574, 31 P2d 183, 92 ALR 1207; Putnam v. Norblad, 134 Or 433, 293 P 940; State v. Siemens, 68 Or 1, 133 P 1173; and State v. Malheur County Court, 54 Or 255, 101 P 907. The writ will issue, in instances of this kind, only in the event that the record establishes an arbitrary abuse of discretion. Riesland v. Bailey, supra.
Drake v. City of Portland, 172 Or 558, 143 P2d 213, bestowed extensive care upon some phases of the problem presented by this appeal. As summarized in a footnote upon page 296 of 3 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations, 3d Ed, that decision held:
The same treatise in § 12.77, speaking of classification, declares:
*319 State ex rel. Reilly v. Civil Service Commission of City of Spokane, 8 Wash2d 498, 112 P2d 987, presented an issue which was virtually the opposite of that before us. It illustrates the broad range of discretion in making classifications which a civil service commission possesses. In that case, unlike that in the case at bar, the petitioners sought a writ requiring the civil service commission to create an additional classification. The petitioners were members of the police department of the city of Spokane. The civil service commission of that municipality had classified the police force in three grades  patrolman, sergeant, and captain. The petitioners sought a writ which, if granted, would require the commission to create a fourth grade, that of detective or plain-clothes man. They presented evidence which showed that the chief of police assigned patrolmen to plain-clothes duty and that thereupon the appointee received $11 per month more salary. Their evidence also indicated that a detective is required to possess greater skill than a patrolman and that, whereas a patrolman's work is intended to prevent the commission of crime, a detective's duty is the detection of the guilty person after a crime has been committed. We now quote from the decision:
In reaching its decision, the court said:
In a preceding paragraph we took note of the fact that a material dissimilarity exists between the service performed by a deputy sheriff and deputy constable. The commission could properly believe that the former's work involved greater responsibility and entailed greater financial liability. That being true, it cannot be said that the commission acted arbitrarily or without basis for its classification. We realize that the conclusion just expressed is at variance with that of the able circuit court judge whose findings are *321 quoted in a preceding paragraph. The difference in opinion may be due to counsel's failure to have called to the trial court's attention the sections of our laws set forth in previous parts of this opinion.
It follows from the foregoing that the petitioners have not established that the defendants owe a duty to take the course which the writ seeks to exact of them. Accordingly, we are forced to conclude that under ORS 34.110 the circuit court erroneously issued the writ.
Judgment reversed.