Court Opinion

ID: 9727296
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:29:44.306993+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:36.070626
License: Public Domain

Quirico, J.
(dissenting, with whom Reardon, J., joins) I am unable to agree with the opinion of the Court. Part II, c. 1, § 1, art. 4, of the Massachusetts Constitution gives to the Legislature “full power and authority ... to make, ordain, and establish, all manner of wholesome and reasonable orders, laws, statutes, and ordinances, directions and instructions, either with penalties or without, so as the same be not repugnant or contrary to this constitution, as they shall judge to be for the good and welfare of this Commonwealth, and for the government and ordering *491thereof, and of the subjects of the same, and for the necessary support and defence of the government thereof.” The opinion of the court recognizes that we have heretofore held that this provision permits the legislature to provide by statute that, in determining eligibility for appointment to positions in the civil service of the Commonwealth and its subdivisions, (a) veterans who pass a civil service examination may constitutionally be preferred over applicants who are not veterans (Opinion of the Justices, 166 Mass. 589, and Mayor of Lynn v. Commissioner of Civil Serv. 269 Mass. 410, 414); and (b) disabled veterans who are not otherwise physically disqualified and who pass a civil service examination may constitutionally be preferred over all other persons, including veterans who are not disabled (Smith v. Director of Civil Serv. 324 Mass. 455, 460-461). To that extent I agree.
Having gone that far the court then draws a line beyond which it says the Legislature may not go. It holds that the Legislature may not accord disabled veterans the “absolute preference” which it attempted to accord them by the following provision added to G. L. c. 31, § 23, by St. 1922, c. 463: “A disabled veteran shall be appointed and employed in preference to all other persons, including veterans.” The basic holding of the court appears to be that arts. 6 and 7 of the Declaration of Rights require it to draw this impenetrable line, but before reaching that conclusion the opinion states that it is confined “to the facts before us, which dramatically highlight the adverse impact of the ‘absolute preference’ on the efficient operation of the public service.” To the extent that the court’s opinion is based on concern for the adverse impact of the absolute preference on the efficient operation of the public service, I do not believe that to be a proper matter for judicial review, if the statute is otherwise constitutional. To the extent that the opinion is based on a supposed constitutional barrier, I do not agree.
1. Before discussing the constitutionality of the absolute preference, I feel constrained to say that the facts *492before us do not “dramatically highlight the adverse impact” of this preference on the efficiency of the public service. The disabled veteran in this case is not entitled to appointment solely because of that status. He also passed the prescribed civil service examination. We do not have a disabled veteran who just barely attained the minimum passing grade and who would be preferred over another person who had a much higher passing grade. In this case the plaintiff’s examination score was 97.30 per cent and that of the disabled veteran was 93 per cent, both very good scores. Whether the appointment of the person with the highest examination score is the best way to insure an efficient public service is a policy decision to be made by the Legislature, and it has decided otherwise. It has not in any situation required appointment of the person with the highest score. On the contrary it has expressly authorized the appointment of someone with a lower score. G. L. c. 31, § 15, par. C, as amended. G. L. c. 31, § 15G, inserted by St. 1967, c. 780, § 15, and as amended by St. 1968, c. 652, § 10. On this record it is not open to the court to decide that there was no rational basis for that decision of the Legislature. See Mile Road Corp. v. Boston, 345 Mass. 379, 382-383, app. dism. 373 U. S. 541.
2. I also think it appropriate to comment on several statements in the opinion which appear to have influenced the court’s ultimate decision.
The opinion states that “[t]he record sheds no light on the nature of Dr. Klebanoff’s disability or on its tendency to increase his qualifications for the office.” The burden of presenting to this court a record showing a right to relief is on the plaintiff, and not on Dr. Klebanoff (the disabled veteran) who is not the party appealing in this case. There is no statutory or constitutional requirement that the disability of a veteran be shown to be one which will increase his qualifications for public service. General Laws c. 31, § 23A, as amended through St. 1958, c. 69, § 1, requires only that the veteran present “a certificate of any physician, approved by the director, that his *493disability is not such as to prevent the efficient performance of the duties of the position to which he is eligible.” We must assume that Dr. Klebanoff has met this requirement from the fact that he has been certified as eligible for appointment.
The opinion states that the record does not “disclose why this is not a case of promotion, to which the [absolute] preference would not apply.” MacCarthy v. Director of Civil Serv. 319 Mass. 124, 126. Again, the plaintiff has the burden of presenting a record showing a right to relief. Under the express allegations of his bill in equity, and under the terms of the “Statement of Agreed Facts” on which this case was submitted for decision, this is a case of an appointment and not a promotion.
The opinion also states that “the effect of the statute is to deny to the commissioner [of the Department of Mental Health] any discretion as to who may be appointed.” Any requirement that there be “discretion as to who may be appointed” has been satisfied in this case by the fact that both the plaintiff and Dr. Klebanoff have been examined and found qualified by the civil service authorities. Brown v. Russell, 166 Mass. 14, 25. Opinion of the Justices, 166 Mass. 589, 595-596. The commissioner has no enforceable private right or interest in selecting the plaintiff rather than Dr. Klebanoff, and he represents no public right or interest which is in any different or distinguishable from that of the Commonwealth. He therefore has no standing to complain that the Legislature has itself made the decision that the public interests will be best served by appointing a disabled veteran to the position in question.1 It is worth noting that the appointing authority is not entirely *494stripped of discretion to the extent of being compelled to appoint an incompetent or unsuitable person just because he is a disabled veteran who has passed a civil service examination. In Commissioner of Metropolitan Dist. Commn. v. Director of Civil Serv. 348 Mass. 184, 193, we held that “under § 23 an appointing authority has the power and duty to protect the public interest in having only public officers and employees of good character and integrity and may refrain from appointing a disabled veteran in preference to others where there are reasonable grounds to regard that veteran’s character or past conduct as rendering him unfit and unsuitable to perform the duties of office.” See Starr v. Board of Health of Clinton, 356 Mass. 426, 429-431. There is nothing in the record to indicate anything about Dr. Klebanoff’s character or past conduct rendering him unfit and unsuitable to perform the duties of the office in question.
3. After stating the facts of this case and tracing the history of our statutes on veterans’ and disabled veterans’ preferences, the opinion of the court concludes with the following statement: “We think the operation of the statute in these circumstances is capricious and contrary to arts. 6 and 7 of the Declaration of Rights.” Clearly that statement is intended to apply only to that part of G. L. c. 31, § 23, providing that “[a] disabled veteran shall be appointed and employed in preference to all other persons, including veterans.”
The court’s attempt, by a careful choice of language, to limit the effect of its decision to “the circumstances of this case” was probably influenced by its observation that “[t]he 1971 amendment, . . . however, reduces the likelihood that the broad question of the validity of the ‘absolute preference’ for disabled veterans will arise in the future.” 2 I do not agree with this prediction. De*495spite the attempted limitation of the opinion to the facts of this case, the court is in effect deciding that the Legislature cannot constitutionally give disabled veterans passing civil service examinations a right to be appointed and employed in preference to all other persons. That issue is squarely raised in the case before us, and it does not turn on facts peculiar to this case. It is reasonable to expect that today’s opinion will be followed by similar suits involving other recent situations in which an appointing authority received an eligible list with the instruction that he was required to appoint the sole disabled veteran listed thereon and he complied with the instruction. I am. unable to understand how the court can then say that today’s opinion will not be a binding precedent in such other cases. If the statute under consideration is unconstitutional, litigation seeking the displacement of persons now holding positions and their replacement by others cannot be prevented by any choice of words of limitation in today’s opinion. See Hayes v. Hurley, 292 Mass. 109.
In its conclusion that the operation of the statute in question in the circumstances of this case “is capricious and contrary to arts. 6 and 7 of the Declaration of Rights,” the court does not attempt to specify or discuss in detail the particular part of either article which the statute supposedly violates. I do not believe that it violates either article.
There can be no quarrel with the lofty and idealistic statement of art. 7 to the effect that: “Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men: Therefore the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity and happiness require it.” While art. 7 has been cited frequently in opinions relating to veterans’ preferences, the only opinion which attempted to discuss its application to such a cáse was Brown v. Russell, 166 Mass. 14, 21. There *496the extent of the court’s attention to art. 7 alone was the following: “This article is declarative of the ends of the institution of government. It may be said to be fairly within the intent of this article that public offices, which are the instrumentalities of government, ought not to be created or filled for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men, but only for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people,- and for the common good.” That is little more than a restatement or paraphrase of art. 7 itself without further statement of any reason for holding that it prohibited the absolute veterans’ preference then under consideration. It has ever since been commonplace to couple arts. 6 and 7 in questioning or discussing the constitutionality of veterans’ preferences, citing Brown v. Russell as a judicial precedent for doing so. It is doubtful in my mind whether art. 7 has any bearing on veterans’ preferences, but if it has, it should be taken as applying only to the statute which the court struck down in Brown v. Russell. That was a statute which compelled the appointment of veterans to public office in preference to all other persons, without the necessity of veterans taking any examination and without any other inquiry into their qualifications.
The remaining question is whether that part of § 23 which requires that “[a] disabled veteran shall be appointed and employed in preference to all other persons, including veterans,” violates art. 6 of the Declaration of Rights. Article 6 provides: “No man, nor corporation, or association of men, have any other title to obtain advantages, or particular and exclusive privileges, distinct from those of the community, than what arises from the consideration of services rendered to the public; and this title being in nature neither hereditary, nor transmissible to children, or descendants, or relations by blood, the idea of a man born a magistrate, lawgiver, or judge, is absurd and unnatural.”
Article 6 has been cited in many opinions and decisions of this court dealing with the subject of veterans’ prefer*497enees in public employment. However, the only case cited by the court in its present opinion, or by the briefs of the parties to this case, in which any statute giving such a preference has been held unconstitutional is that of Brown v. Russell, 166 Mass. 14. Although the court in that case seemed to rely heavily on art. 6, it did not hold that art. 6 precluded the granting of such preferences. On the contrary, it recognized that the Legislature could, grant such preferences under certain circumstances. While the court expressed some reservations about granting them solely as a reward for past military service and indicated the necessity of basing the grant on the existence of some benefit or advantage to the public (pp. 24-25), that does not seem to have been the principal ground on which it struck down the statute then before it. It seems clear that the constitutional defect which the court found in that statute was its requirement (p. 25) “that certain public offices and employments . . . shall be filled by veterans in preferment to all other persons, whether the veterans are or are not found or thought to be actually qualified to perform the duties of the offices and employments by some impartial and competent officer or board charged with some public duty in making the appointments.”
Only five months after deciding the case of Brown v. Russell, supra, the same court, by a majority of its Justices, approved, as to constitutionality, several statutes which gave a preference in public employment to veterans found qualified to fill the positions to which they were appointed. Opinion of the Justices, 166 Mass. 589. That opinion, given in 1896, was the first in a progressive series of opinions and decisions upholding against constitutional attack every veterans’ preference statute considered by the court. See Opinion of the Justices, 324 Mass. 736, 740-742, and cases cited. All of the statutes thus upheld included the basic requirement that the veteran being preferred be otherwise qualified to perform the duties of the office or position to which he was ap*498pointed.3 The portion of G. L. c. 31, § 23, which the court is striking down as applied in this case likewise grants a preference only to veterans who pass the required civil service examination for the position involved.
The same factors which led this court, in Opinion of the Justices, 166 Mass. 589, and Mayor of Lynn v. Commissioner of Civil Serv. 269 Mass. 410, to decide that the Legislature could constitutionally grant veterans a preference over nonveterans were held in Smith v. Director of Civil Serv. 324 Mass. 455, to permit a preference for disabled veterans over all other persons, including veterans. It may well be argued that in deciding the latter case this court knew that as a consequence of its decision the appointing power receiving an eligible list including the name of one disabled veteran willing to accept appointment would be required to appoint that veteran, absent unusual facts such as those involved in Commissioner of Metropolitan Dish Commn. v. Director of Civil Serv. 348 Mass. 184, and Starr v. Board of Health of Clinton, 356 Mass. 426, hereinbefore cited. That may not constitute a holding that the absolute disabled veterans’ preference with which we now deal was constitutional, but it came very close to being such a holding. Assuming the Smith case did not decide the question now before this court, in my opinion the same reasoning which the court applied in that case requires us now to hold that the statute requiring Dr. Klebanoff to be appointed because he is a disabled veteran is constitutional.
We are no longer concerned with the question whether the Legislature may, in connection with public employment, grant preference to veterans over nonveterans, or grant preference to disabled veterans over all other per*499sons, including veterans. That power has been recognized in a number of decisions by this court, and it is recognized in the present opinion of the court. Inherent in that power is the power to determine the nature and extent of such preferences. The Legislature has decided that disabled veterans “sháll be appointed and employed in preference to all other persons, including veterans.” G. L. c. 31, § 23, as amended. That legislation is entitled to a presumption of constitutionality. “The presumption of constitutionality must prevail in the absence of some factual foundation specifically set forth in the record for overthrowing the statute.” Commonwealth v. Leis, 355 Mass. 189, concurring opinion, p. 200, and cases cited. Mile Road Corp. v. Boston, 345 Mass. 379, 382-383, app. dism. 373 U. S. 541. There is no such foundation in this record. We must be ever mindful that “[j judicial inquiry does not extend to the expediency, wisdom or necessity of the legislative judgment for that is a function that rests entirely with the law-making department.” Slome v. Chief of Police of Fitchburg, 304 Mass. 187, 189, and cases cited. We must be even more mindful of the admonition in Of inion of the Justices, 166 Mass. 589, 595, that “[o]f the wisdom of such legislation [granting veterans’ preferences in public employment] we are not made the judges.” Without attempting to judge the wisdom of that part of G. L. c. 31, § 23, which provides that “[a] disabled veteran shall be appointed and employed in preference to all other persons, including veterans,” it is my opinion that the Legislature was constitutionally authorized and empowered to enact it.

 The result is not unlike that authorized by the provision of G. L. c. 31, § 15, as amended, that when a position is first placed under civil service, the civil service commission may vote “to include under civil service any present incumbent of the position, subject to passing a qualifying examination, prescribed by the director.” See G. L. c. 31, § 42, as appearing in St. 1970, c. 720, § 1, authorizing appointment to specified positions without examination. See also Nichols v. Commissioner of Pub. Welfare, 311 Mass. 125, upholding the constitutionality of this type of statute.

 Statute 1971, c. 1051, § 1, amended G. L. c. 31, § 23, by making the so called “absolute preference” of disabled veterans inapplicable to original appointment or employment, but continuing it in effect as to retention in employment. The amendment does not apply to civil service eligibility lists existing on November 15, 1971. See fn. 4 to the court’s opinion.

 As early as 1887 in Opinion of the Justices, 145 Mass. 587, 591-592, the court said that under a statute then being considered, veterans “cannot be preferred for appointment to office or employment in the service of the Commonwealth, or the cities thereof, without having made application for appointment to office or employment to the civil service commissioners.” That result was reached as matter of statutory construction, and involved no constitutional question.