Chestnut v. Lodge
| Decision Date | 13 December 1966 |
| Docket Number | Gen. No. 10632 |
| Citation | 222 N.E.2d 36,77 Ill.App.2d 281 |
| Parties | William J. CHESTNUT, Robert Emmings, Louis Grampp, John J. Jerome, Mike McClatchey and Davis Garner, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. William T. LODGE, Director, Department of Conservation of the State of Illinois, Maude Myers, Director, Department of Personnel of the State of Illinois, Michael J. Howlett, Auditor of the State of Illinois, and Francis Lorenz, Treasurer of the State of Illinois, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
William G. Clark, Atty. Gen., Chicago, Richard A. Michael, John J. O'Toole, A. Zola Groves, Chicago, of counsel, for appellants.
Giffin, Winning, Lindner & Newkirk, James M. Drake, Horsley, Vespa & Lott, Springfield, G. Wm. Horsley, Springfield, of counsel, for appellee.
The circuit court of Sangamon County, by its order in this mandamus and declaratory judgment proceeding, ordered the plaintiffs restored to positions as Park Supervisor I and Park Supervisor II in the Department of Conservation from the date of August 21, 1961. The order further provided for the payment of certain back salaries, and as a declaratory judgment determined that the layoff of the plaintiffs as a result of job abolition was illegal and void and that the plaintiffs were entitled to wages and salaries from the date of discharge to the date of ordered reinstatement.
An appeal was perfected to the Supreme Court on the ground that state revenue was involved. That Court caused the appeal to be transferred here. Our holding (62 Ill.App.2d 27, 210 N.E.2d 336 (1965)), that the Administrative Review Act provided plaintiffs with an exclusive remedy, was reversed by the Supreme Court of Illinois. Chestnut v. Lodge, 34 Ill.2d 567, 216 N.E.2d 799 (1966). On remandment from that Court we now consider the merits of the controversy.
The plaintiffs, employees of the Department of Conservation of the State of Illinois in the job classifications of Park Supervisor I and Park Supervisor II, held positions under and subject to the provisions of the Personnel Code. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1961, ch. 127, paras. 63b101 et seq.)
In July of 1961 the Director of the Department of Conservation, by a letter addressed to the Director of the Department of Personnel, recommended the abolition of the above positions. That letter was as follows:
'In accordance with Rule 24.2 of the Personnel Manual of Rules, I would like to recommend that the following positions in our Division of Parks and Memorials be abolished.
'The position of Park Supervisor II, including any unassigned job allocations, is to be discontinued. Present employees working on those particular job classifications are Mr. Robert Emmings, who was certified September 2, 1958, and Mr. James McMillen, who was certified May 24, 1961.
'This Department also recommends that the position of Park Supervisor I, including any unassigned position allocations, is to be abolished. Those presently employed in this category are:
Louis Grampp Certified 8/8/58
William Chestnut Certified 4/16/59
Davis Garner Certified 8/8/58
Leonard B. Brantley Certified 8/8/58
Mike McClatchey Certified 8/8/58
John Jerome Certified 8/8/58
William A. Watts Not Certified
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'The above recommendations are made as a result of a personnel survey made at the request of Governor Kerner and in accordance with the recommendations of the survey committee, the Department concurs in the recommendation of the survey group and would recommend that the classifications mentioned be permanently abolished. The committee determined that geographic assignment of these various positions and the manner in which the supervisors were functioning did not contribute to an efficient administration of the State Parks system. The job descriptions on these positions are obviously misleading in that at the present time a $150.00 per month increase is recommended for the Supervisor I level and a $210.00 per month increase for the Supervisor II level. It is obvious that the present supervisor structure in the Division of Parks is improperly classified and the assignment by geographic areas is unsound.
'The Survey Committee consisted of Mr. Rhodell E. Owens, Director, Peoria Pleasure Driveway and Park District; Mr. Kenneth R. Cougill, Director of the Division of State Parks, State of Indiana; Mr. David H. Fritz, Superintendent of Parks, Highland Park, Illinois; and Mr. Arthur L. Janura, a Technician from the Cook County Forest Preserve District organization. This Committee made other recommendations other than the abolishment of these positions but they were emphatic in their recommendation pertaining to the unstable supervisory organization within the Division of Parks.
'It is my recommendation, and I request your approval, to abolish the present positions of Park Supervisor I and II, and I am attaching Personnel Forms 103 and request your approval of the layoff of the personnel involved.
Director' This recommended abolition was approved by the Director of Personnel and the plaintiffs were each notified of their layoff because of the abolition of their positions.
The action taken by plaintiffs to contest their layoffs has been described in the previous opinions of both this Court and the Supreme Court. We now consider defendants' contention that the writ of mandamus was improvidently granted because the reorganization of the Department of Conservation resulted in actual abolition of the job categories formerly held by plaintiffs. Their position is that since there are no existing jobs with descriptions similar to those describing the former positions of the plaintiffs, the applicable statutes and rules of the Department of Personnel have been complied with and plaintiffs are without remedy.
The record conclusively demonstrates that the duties formerly assigned to the position of Supervisor I were not transferred to any other position but were eliminated; the duties formerly assigned to the position of Supervisor II were divided between the Park Custodian, certain categories of foremen within the individual parks, and a newly created position at the Department level, Executive II. The job description for Executive II includes some duties described for Supervisor II but supervisory responsibility for the newly created position encompasses the State of Illinois and is not limited to one geographic area as was formerly true with Supervisor II. This reorganization, therefore, resulted in the elimination of one level of supervisory employees between the Director's Office and the Office of the Park Custodian and a vast change in the duties of supervisors at the remaining level. The number of field supervisory personnel responsible to the Director's Office was diminished from ten to three.
Plaintiffs, in their brief, concede that the above-described changes reorganized the Department and resulted in the...
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