Opinion ID: 2973556
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The City Manager.

Text: (3) The heads of departments and heads of divisions of departments and members of appointive boards. (4) The deputies and secretaries of the Manager and one assistant or deputy, and one secretary for each department, and the Clerk of the Commission. (B) The classified service shall comprise all positions not specifically included by this Charter in the unclassified service. There shall be in the No. 05-3630 Silberstein v. City of Dayton, et al. Page 5 classified service 3 classes1 to be known as the competitive class, non-competitive class, and labor class . . . . The district court properly determined that Silberstein was a classified employee under the terms of the Charter. The court concluded that Silberstein’s position as Chief Assistant Examiner does not fall under any of the four enumerated positions in § 95(A), a conclusion that is not disputed by any of the parties. Although they concede that the Chief Assistant Examiner position does not fall under any of the § 95(A) categories, the appellants nonetheless argue that Silberstein is an unclassified employee. Their conclusion rests on the premise that the positions enumerated under § 95 are not the sole “unclassified” positions. They argue that when the section states “classified service shall comprise all positions not specifically included by this Charter in the unclassified service,” it includes the entire Charter, and contemplates the enumeration of unclassified positions elsewhere in the Charter. The appellants, however, have not demonstrated that any other section of the Charter specifically includes any other positions within the unclassified service. Rather, they would have us infer from language throughout the Charter that the Chief Examiner and Assistant Chief Examiner positions are not classified positions. The appellants point to § 94, which provides for the appointment of the Chief Examiner and Assistant Chief Examiner: “The Board shall appoint a chief examiner who shall also act as secretary. The Board may appoint such other subordinates as may by appropriation be provided for.” The appellants attempt to draw a contrast between this appointment process and the language of other Charter sections discussing how classified service positions will be filled. Specifically, § 48 provides that the City Manager shall have the power to “appoint . . . all directors of the departments and all subordinate officers and employees in the departments in both the classified and unclassified service . . . .” In addition, § 97 provides that classified employee positions are to be filled by the Chief Examiner “upon requisition from and after consultation with the City Manager.” The appellants argue that § 94 demonstrates that Silberstein’s position is not filled by the Chief Examiner or City Manager, but by the Civil Service Board, and therefore of a unique status. The appellants’ statutory construction is implausible and must fail. Nothing in the Charter states that classified or unclassified status is dictated by the title of the individual responsible for filling the position; on the contrary, under § 95 the status is dictated by the position itself. Furthermore, under § 48, the City Manager has the power to appoint both classified and unclassified service employees. If the positions provided for under § 94, including the Assistant Chief Examiner, enjoy a unique status because they are not appointed by the City Manager, then the consequence of the appellants’ reading is that Silberstein is neither classified nor unclassified. There is nothing in the language of the Charter to support the assumption that a third category of employees exists within the civil service of the city of Dayton. In fact, such a reading contradicts the plain language of § 95 that the “Civil Service of the city is hereby divided into the unclassified and classified service.” It also does not comport with common sense that among all the civil service positions described in the Dayton charter, the Chief Examiner and Assistant Chief Examiner are the only ones that do not fall into one of these two categories. Thus, while the defendants are correct that a city charter’s construction should be informed by its “language and logic,” and construed “in its entirety to achieve its general and complete public purpose, see Sommer, 556 F. Supp. at 431, the language and logic of the Charter in its entirety compel the conclusion that Silberstein was a classified employee. 1 Section 95(B) then proceeds to define these three classes of classified service as including, respectively, positions for which qualifications may be tested by competitive exam, positions requiring peculiar and exceptional qualifications, and positions of “ordinary unskilled labor.” No. 05-3630 Silberstein v. City of Dayton, et al. Page 6 The appellants’ second textual argument is that employees of the Civil Service Board such as Silberstein cannot be classified employees because then the provision under § 101 of the Charter, allowing certain classified employees to appeal a termination to the Civil Service Board, would be vain or useless. This argument also fails. The ability to appeal a termination decision to the Civil Service Board is not inherently vain or useless merely because the termination decision was made by the Board itself. Any body of decision-makers could change its mind upon reconsideration, and an employee may seek the opportunity to present her arguments in a formal setting. Furthermore, as the appellants note in their brief, § 101 is not likely to apply to Silberstein regardless of whether she is classified or unclassified, because the provision applies only to employees “of any department in the city,” and Civil Service is not one of the five “departments” enumerated in the Charter.2 If the provision does not apply to her at all, then it could not be rendered vain or useless by a determination that her position is classified. The appellants also argue that Silberstein’s position must be unclassified because it requires the exercise of discretion and does not lend itself to being filled by a competitive exam. This argument likewise fails because it is contradicted by the plain language of the Charter. Section 95(B) of the Charter explicitly provides for both competitive classified employees and noncompetitive classified employees. The competitive class includes “all positions and employment for which it is practicable to determine the merit and fitness of applicants by competitive examination,” and the noncompetitive class includes “all positions requiring peculiar and exceptional qualifications of a scientific, managerial, professional, or educational character, as may be determined by the rules of the Board.” Since both the competitive and noncompetitive classes are among the classified service (along with a third “unskilled labor” class), an employee clearly cannot be considered an unclassified employee simply because her position is not filled by competitive exam. The district court correctly determined that Silberstein’s position falls within the noncompetitive class of classified civil service. The appellants cite to several decisions from the early twentieth century concluding that noncompetitive positions must be unclassified. The decisions cited by the appellants do not control this case. In State ex rel. Ryan v. Kerr, 181 N.E. 546, 548 (Ohio Ct. App.), aff’d by 183 N.E. 535 (Ohio 1932), the Ohio Court of Appeals concluded that an assistant law director was a member of Cleveland’s unclassified service despite the city charter’s failure to include that position among the list of unclassified positions, and in so holding emphasized the discretionary and noncompetitive nature of the position. However, the Kerr decision attempted to reconcile the language of Cleveland’s city charter with the state statute that expressly placed the position within unclassified service. See 181 N.E. at 547. Concluding that the city charter could not overrule the state statute without expressly doing so, the court was forced to harmonize the two provisions. Id. at 548; 183 N.E. at 536-37. No such contradicting provisions are at issue here: Neither the city charter nor the state statute lists Silberstein’s position as unclassified. See Ohio Rev. Code § 124.11. Citing to Kerr, the Ohio Supreme Court concluded several years later that Akron’s assistant law directors and police prosecutors were unclassified employees, interpreting “unclassified” to mean those positions for which merit could not be practically ascertained through competitive exam and “classified” to mean those positions that could so be tested. See DeWoody v. Underwood, 27 N.E.2d 240 (Ohio 1940). This decision is superceded by the Charter, which explicitly provided for noncompetitive classified employees, whose merits are not determined through competitive examination. The same is true for the 1920s cases cited by the defendants, State ex rel. Bryson v. Smith, 128 N.E. 261 (Ohio 1920), and Hile v. City of Cleveland, 160 N.E. 621 (Ohio 1928). 2 Section 51 of the Charter establishes the following five administrative departments: Law, Public Service, Public Welfare, Public Safety, and Finance. Civil Service is treated separately elsewhere in the Charter, and the division is never referred to as a “department.” No. 05-3630 Silberstein v. City of Dayton, et al. Page 7 Because Silberstein was a classified employee entitled to specific termination procedures under the unambiguous terms of the Charter, Silberstein had a property interest in her employment that triggered due process protection.