State ex rel. Platz v. Mucci
| Decision Date | 05 April 1967 |
| Docket Number | No. 40166,40166 |
| Citation | 225 N.E.2d 238,39 O.O.2d 48,10 Ohio St.2d 60 |
| Parties | , 39 O.O.2d 48 The STATE ex rel. PLATZ, v. MUCCI. |
| Court | Ohio Supreme Court |
Paul H. Torbet, Cleveland, for relator.
E. W. Mastrangelo, Willoughby, for respondent.
Relator in this action attacks the constitutionality of the charter provision. He contends that it is arbitrary unreasonable, discriminatory and oppressive, that it violates Section 2, Article I of the Ohio Constitution, and the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. He argues that it violates the equal protection clause, and that the action of council denied him due process.
Relator has filed a supplemental petition showing that the charter provision was changed on May 3, 1966, prohibiting only a public employee of the city of Wickliffe from being a member of council.
The case is now before the court on a motion for summary judgment filed by relator.
Relator raises three issues. The first is that the provision in the Wickliffe city charter which prohibits a member of the city council from holding other public office or public employment is unconstitutional and void.
Basically, it is relator's contention that this provision creates an unreasonable classification in that it bars him as a teacher in a neighboring school district from being a member of council.
In the instant case, we are not concerned with incompatibility of office but rather a charter qualification for office. Is a qualification that a member have no other public employment reasonable?
There is no basic inherent or constitutional right to hold public office. In other words, legislative bodies may impose certain basic qualifications upon those who seek public office. Annotation, 34 A.L.R.2d 155.
A legislative classification must be clear, rest on some reasonable ground and affect all persons in the class equally. Xenia v. Schmidt, 101 Ohio St. 437, 130 N.E. 24.
There is no lack of clarity in the charter provision in question, and it is patent that it operates equally on the members of the class.
The only remaining basis upon which such provision may be attacked is that it was not reasonable to create such class.
In Allied Stores of Ohio, Inc. v. Bowers, Tax Commr., 358 U.S. 522, at 528, 79 S.Ct. 437, at 441, 3 L.Ed.2d 480, the court says:
'* * * Similarly, it has long been settled that a classification, though discriminatory, is not arbitrary nor violative of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment if any state of facts reasonably can be conceived that would sustain it. * * *'
There, of course, is nothing in the charter which indicates the reasons for excluding public employees from membership on the council.
However, the result of the election of a public employee to the office of councilman would be to place him on two public payrolls; he would be receiving salaries from two officers supported by tax moneys.
A statute prohibiting a city councilman from holding office in or being employed by and paid wages or salary by any other unit of government which raises its operating budget by public taxation has been held to have a valid public purpose. See Doyle v. City of Dearborn, 370 Mich. 236, 121 N.W.2d 473.
It appears that the classification in the instant case has a reasonable basis.
The case of State, ex rel. Shank, v. Gard, 19 Ohio Cir.Dec. 426, 431, 8 Ohio Cir.Ct.R.N.S. 599, 606, affirmed, 75 Ohio St. 606, 80 N.E. 1133, presented the identical facts as this case. The pertinent part of the opinion reads as follows:
'* * * We are of opinion that at no time between his election and the hearing of this case did Fred Shearer have the qualifications of a member of council provided and required by Sec. 120 of the municipal code (Rev.Stat. 1536-613; Lan. 3098). He held the public office of school examiner and the public employment of superintendent of one of the Hamilton public schools before the election and continuously during the entire time of his pretended incumbency as a member of council, in contravention of the provision:
"Every member of council...
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State ex rel. v. Brunner
...have established that there is no basic inherent or constitutional right to hold public office, State ex rel. Platz v. Mucci (1967), 10 Ohio St.2d 60, 61, 39 O.O.2d 48, 225 N.E.2d 238, and that a prospective appointee has "no statutory right to appointment * * * under R.C. 3501.07 prior to ......
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McAlmond v. Myers
...and similar problems are collected in 88 A.L.R. 812, 831 (1934), and 143 A.L.R. 1026, 1031 (1943).21 See State ex rel. Platz v. Mucci, 10 Ohio St.2d 60, 225 N.E.2d 238, 241 (1967).1 '* * * Where the intent is plain, nothing is left to construction. Where the mind labors to discover the desi......
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