Court Opinion

ID: 9825660
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 13:53:37.348684+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:41:15.732321
License: Public Domain

Mehaeey, J., (on rehearing). Appellee files petition asking that the judgment of the court be modified and the cause remanded to the circuit court, and alleges that he is entitled to offset the judgment sought to be recovered with any amount which appellant has earned during the period in question. The appellee says that he is entitled to raise the question of whether appellant is estopped to claim compensation. In ordinary cases, where a party is employed under a contract and is discharged and sues for damages, the employer is entitled to show what the discharged employee earned during the time, from the discharge to the expiration of the contract. This is true because the suit is for damages, and if the employee has had other employment, or . could have had other employment and earned money, his damages, of course, would be reduced by the amount he had earned or could have earned. But appellant did not liold this office by contract, and be was not entitled to the salary by contract; be was entitled to it by law. ‘ ‘ Ordinarily it is immaterial whether a public officer illegally deprived of bis office was able to earn money in some other employment. When a public officer is wrongfully excluded from bis office and is restored, and meanwhile has received compensation from other sources for services rendered during the period of bis illegal suspension or exclusion from office, be is not required to credit such compensation on his claim for back salary due him. But this view is not accepted universally and sometimes public officers restored to office are awarded their salaries less the amounts which they have meanwhile earned from other sources. For example where a person entitled to preferential employment by the government under a veteran’s preference law brings suit for breach of the contract of employment the measure of damages is the pay which the plaintiff would have earned under his contract less what he has actually earned elsewhere, or which in the exercise of proper diligence he might have earned in some other employment. ” 22 R. C. L. 547. There is some conflict in the authorities where there is no statute. The New York court held that the rule, in cases where there was a suit for damages for a breach of contract, had no application in the suit of an officer who had been wrongfully deprived of his office, and said: “But this rule of damages has no application to the case of an officer suing for his salary, and for the obvious reason that there is no broken contract or damages for its breach where there is no contract. We have often held that there is no contract between the officer and the state or municipality by force of which the salary is payable. That belongs to him as an incident of his office, and so long as- he holds it; and when improperly withheld he may sue for it and recover it. When he does so he is entitled to its amount, not by force of any contract, but because the law attached it to the office; and there is no question of breach of contract or resultant damages out of which the doctrine invoked has grown.” Fitzsimmons v. City of Brooklyn, 102 N. Y. 536, 7 N. E. 787, 55 Amer. Rep. 835. The rule applicable to damage cases has no application to the case of an officer suing for his salary for the reason that, in the latter case, liability is not upon contract. The salary is an incident of the’office and, if he is wrongfully excluded from the office, he may recover the salary without crediting his earnings thereon. Reising v. City of Portland, 57 Ore. 295, 111 Pac. 377, Ann. Cas. 1912D, 895. While there are some courts holding contrary to this rule, still we know of no court where there is a statute like ours, that has held contrary to the New York and Oregon courts. Our statute reads as follows: “Where the usurper has received fees and emoluments arising from the office or franchise, he shall be liable therefor to the person entitled thereto, who may claim the same in the action brought' to deprive him of the office or franchise, or in a separate action. If no one be entitled to the office or franchise, the same may be recovered by the state and paid into the public treasury.” Section 14331, Pope’s Digest. Any person elected or appointed to an office is entitled to the salary fixed by law. Whoever deprives one wrongfully of an office is liable to the party that is deprived for the full salary, and if there is no other person entitled to the salary, then the amount received by the person not entitled may be recovered by the state. The salary is fixed by law and not by contract. Therefore the appellant is entitled to recover from the appellee the amount of salary he would have received from the time he was deprived of his office until 90 days after the adjournment of the General Assembly, when the new law became effective.