Opinion ID: 1956183
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the statute as heretofore applied

Text: The present law in New Jersey dealing with the above statute is generally reflected in three leading cases, McGrath v. Jersey City, 70 N.J. Super. 143 (Law Div. 1961), aff'd 38 N.J. 31 (1962); D'Elia v. Jersey City, 57 N.J. Super. 466 (App. Div. 1959); Morrissey v. Holland, 79 N.J. Super. 279 (Law Div. 1963), in turn based upon long-standing precedent. See, e.g., Ratajczak v. Board of Educ., 118 N.J.L. 311 (Sup. Ct. 1937), aff'd o.b. 119 N.J.L. 433 (E. & A. 1938). The sense of these decisions is this: In Ratajczak the court dealt with a predecessor of the above statute of similar language, and held that the Legislature thereby intended to change the rule of the common law    to confer on an excluded officer or employe adjudged to have been so excluded illegally, the right to his salary, whether he worked for it or not, whether he earned money outside or not, and whether the work he would have done if not so excluded, was or was not done by some de facto substitute. 118 N.J.L. at 312 (emphasis added). The contingency underlined was not in the case factually and therefore the decision, as extended to it, must be regarded as dictum. Nevertheless, although conceded to be such, it was the underpinning of the first case directly confronting the issue, D'Elia v. Jersey City, supra . There the court held that the purpose of the statute was to eliminate from the law the harsh common-law rule that the right of a public officer to receive or recover wages is dependent entirely upon the performance of service, 57 N.J. Super. at 468, and that the corrective statutory rule to recover the salary of his office or employment for the period covered by the illegal dismissal was unconditional in nature and not subject to mitigation by other earnings ad interim. Id. at 468-70. The court thought such right to be conferred by the statute in words of such clarity that they can have but one meaning, and that in such case [a]ttributing to them a meaning other than that which is so plainly expressed would be a gross invasion of the legislative prerogative in this area of the social sphere. Id. at 470. The holdings in Morrissey, supra, and McGrath, supra, followed this concept. In DeMarco v. Board of Chosen Freeholders, 21 N.J. 136 (1956), the harsh common law rule referred to was traced by Justice Jacobs, who identified decisions then spanning almost a century, stating principles which have become firmly imbedded in the common law of our State, (21 N.J. at 140) clearly equating the right to recover salary to a claim for compensation growing out of the rendition of the services. 21 N.J. at 141 (quoting from Hoboken v. Gear, 27 N.J.L. 265, 279 (Sup. Ct. 1859) (emphasis in original)). Such was the rule in New Jersey despite the majority view at common law that a public officer who was illegally prevented from performing the duties of his office could recover his salary without mitigation, whereas a public employee's recovery in the same situation would be subject to the doctrine of mitigation by any outside earnings. The rationale for this distinction between officers and employees was the view that an officer's right to compensation does not arise out of a contract but ex lege and therefore belongs to the officer as incident to the office. And that he is therefore entitled to that compensation regardless of any other income he earned while deprived of the public office. 4 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations, § 12.186 at 54-56 (rev. 3d ed. 1968); Annotation, Earnings or opportunity of earning from other sources as reducing claim of public officer or employee wrongfully excluded from his office or position, 150 A.L.R. 100, 102-03 (1944); 63 Am. Jur. 2d, Public Officers and Employees §§ 401-02 at 874-75 (1972). The clear rejection of this view under New Jersey common law was based upon the distaste of our courts for the notion accepted in many other states that there was a right to salary which was incident to the public office and which belonged to that public officer. But the harsh common law rule in New Jersey, precluding any recovery of salary except that earned by rendition of service, on the part of public officers, was not held applicable to actions by other public employees who were not public officers. Ross v. Board of Chosen Freeholders, 90 N.J.L. 522 (E. & A. 1917). Rather, such employees could recover back salary when wrongfully discharged or suspended, but the recovery was subject to the general common law doctrine of mitigation. Miele v. McGuire, 31 N.J. 339, 348-52 (1960); Miller v. Board of Chosen Freeholders, 10 N.J. 398, 407-09 (1952). Mitigation of damages is defined as [a] reduction of the amount of damages    [based on] facts which show that the plaintiff's conceded cause of action does not entitle him to so large an amount as the showing on his side would otherwise justify   . Black's Law Dictionary 1153 (rev. 4th ed. 1968). Thus, in the context of making whole an injured party, a purely compensatory concept as distinguished from punitive damages, certain acts or failures to act of that party are taken into account in computing the amount of his recovery. By way of example, this Court has recently held that, in the interests of fairness and equity, a landlord seeking to recover rents due from a defaulting tenant has a duty to mitigate his damages by seeking another tenant. Sommer v. Kridel, 74 N.J. 446, 456-57 (1977). It is this same concept of compensating or making whole the wrongfully ousted employee that underpinned the common law mitigation rule affecting his right to recover. To that extent the statute as hitherto construed involves dual compensation, which as pointed out in D'Elia, supra, has not gone unnoticed by our courts. In Bianchi v. City of Newark, 53 N.J. Super. 66, 72 (App. Div. 1958) the court, in speaking of this statute, observed: It may well be that a dismissed employee had been gainfully employed during the period of his separation from municipal service, in which case his recovery of back salary would be nothing less than a windfall. Another possibility is that the municipality may have replaced him, paid the substitute, and then found itself faced with the necessity of making a second payment when visited with a judgment for back salary. In his dissent below, Judge Allcorn attributed a significance beyond the concept of windfall. He perceived constitutional fault in statutes which authorize or direct that the wrongfully discharged public employee shall recover his full salary or other compensation for the entire period he was unlawfully deprived of his public employment, without regard to any recoupment by him of part or all of the amount of such salary or other compensation as a result of remuneration earned by him from other employment during that period. To the extent of such recoupment from other sources, the loss of earnings has been restored, his damages have been reduced. To the same extent, the payment in full to him of his salary or other compensation by the public employer for the period cannot be legally justified. It cannot be justified as damages; the earnings from his public employment of which he was deprived have been replaced pro tanto. Neither can it be otherwise justified; he performed no services for and supplied no other consideration to the public employer. In short, the payment of such amount by the public employer in these circumstances is much more than the windfall it was characterized to be by this court in Mullen v. Bd. of Ed. of Jefferson Tp., 81 N.J. Super. 151, 160 (App. Div. 1963). It is plainly and simply a gift, a donation of public monies. As such, payment thereof by the public employer is proscribed and authorization therefor by the Legislature is prohibited by the express terms of Article VIII, section III, paragraph 2 of the New Jersey Constitution. [footnote omitted]. The distinction in New Jersey decisions between an office derived ex lege and a position of employment arising ex contractu was thought by Justice Jacobs, writing for this Court in Miele v. McGuire, supra, 31 N.J. at 347, to be based upon somewhat obscure and rather unfortunate lines. Nevertheless, the distinction was real enough in 1918 when the earliest predecessor of the present statute was enacted. L. 1918, c. 139. On its face it blurred the distinction between officers and employees by its reference to both as beneficiaries of the remedy provided: Whenever any municipal officer or employee shall have been illegally dismissed   . But if the harsh common law rule sought to be unseated by the statute was harsh only as to public officers vis-a-vis public employees, and since the Legislature dealt similarly with both classes, was its intent really so clear as to reach not only a harsh (as to officers) but a beneficent (as to employees) rule of the common law? And to confer the additional boon of awarding full compensation without mitigation to both classes despite the rule ex contractu (as to employees) embracing the existing mitigation concept? Such was adverted to in Ross, supra : The case must be retried upon the unlawful discharge theory    as to the measure and mitigation of damages appropriate to that branch of the law of contracts. [90 N.J.L. at 528]. These questions may gain perspective by stating the opposing contentions of the parties. The employee relies on the three cases cited above, McGrath, D'Elia and Morrissey, which hold that the recovery of back salary by a wrongfully discharged municipal employee, by force of the statute, is not subject to deduction by way of mitigation for income earned during that period. He contends  as strongly  that the question of mitigation is a legislative decision and should not be resolved by judicial action. In support of this he cites cases urging the Legislature to enact compensatory protection, including mitigation, of eventually vindicated public officers and employees, as well as the significance of Governor Meyner's veto in 1956 of proposed revisions in the statute because, inter alia, they failed to address the subject of mitigation. Miele v. McGuire, supra, 31 N.J. at 351; DeMarco v. Board of Chosen Freeholders, supra, 21 N.J. at 147-48. It must be conceded that in the Supreme Court affirmance of McGrath, supra, 38 N.J. at 32, the ensuing legislative inaction was emphasized and was thought significant in limiting the judicial function to flat application of the statute. The Court there pointed out: In reaching its conclusion [in D'Elia ] the court properly stressed the unequivocal language of the statute and its forceful history. It is worthy of note that, in furtherance of the public interest, Congress and many state legislatures have made suitable provision for mitigation and this Court has repeatedly suggested that legislation dealing comprehensively with the subject should be considered by the New Jersey Legislature.    No such legislation has been adopted and the judicial function in the instant matter is but to apply the pertinent terms of N.J.S.A. 40:46-34. [38 N.J. at 32 (citations omitted)]. On the other hand, the municipality argues that the rule, that recovery under the statute does not require mitigation, was not really a legislative enactment but a judicial interpretation of the legislative intent, and that as such, it is open to this Court to overrule that interpretation as having been incorrect. The trial and appellate courts below agreed with this argument. [2] Furthermore, the defendant suggests that the interpretation of this statute, as permitting full recovery without mitigation, is incorrect because the statute is in derogation of the common law that no recovery could be had by a wrongfully discharged public officer and, therefore, it must be construed strictly. And that consequently, since the statute is silent on the subject of mitigation, a strict construction of the statute, the municipality contends, requires an interpretation that the statute did not change the general common law rule requiring mitigation of damages. It is therefore quite clear that in this case the courts below were bound, under the principle of stare decisis, by formidable precedent. It is not so clear that such precedent should stand. As a first step in resolving that question, if vulnerability in the precedent is thought to exist, and setting aside for the moment the possibility of other construction of the statute per se if it does, we consider the general basis and utility of the stare decisis principle.