Cooper v. Imbriani
| Decision Date | 23 October 1973 |
| Citation | 63 N.J. 535,310 A.2d 457 |
| Parties | Richard P. COOPER, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Michael R. IMBRIANI, Prosecutor of Somerset County, and the County of Somerset, Defendants-Appellants. Joseph KARKOWSKI, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Michael R. IMBRIANI, Prosecutor of Somerset County, and the County of Somerset, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
Robert Gluck, Deputy Atty. Gen., Div. of Criminal Justice, for defendants (Richard W. Berg, East Orange and William B. Eisert, on the brief, George F. Kugler, Jr., Atty. Gen., attorney).
Richard H. Thiele, Jr., Somerville, for plaintiff Joseph Karkowski (Wharton, Stewart & Davis, Somerville, attorneys).
Richard A. Norris, Somerville, for plaintiff Richard P. Cooper (Richard H. Thiele, Jr., Somerville, on the brief, Norris, McLaughlin & Trucker, Somerville, attorneys).
George F. Kugler, Jr., Atty. Gen., filed a Statement in Lieu of Brief on behalf of N.J. Dept. of Civil Service (John M. Van Dalen, Deputy Atty. Gen., of counsel).
The Appellate Division, in an opinion reported at 122 N.J.Super. 469, 300 A.2d 863 (1973), one judge dissenting, upheld the ruling of the trial court that plaintiffs Richard P. Cooper, a county detective, and Joseph Karkowski, a lieutenant of detectives, both employed in the Somerset County Prosecutor's office, and both veterans with honorable discharges from the military service of the United States, had tenure in their positions under the Veterans Tenure Act, N.J.S.A. 38:16--1 et seq., and could not be removed except for good cause shown after a fair and impartial hearing. We affirm the Appellate Division judgment for the following reasons.
The employment of county detectives is governed by the County Detectives and County Investigators Act, N.J.S.A. 2A:157--1 et seq. The act, Inter alia, provides that persons appointed by the prosecutor as county detectives shall be in the classified service of the Civil Service. Ordinarily, therefore, county detectives would have Civil Service protection by virtue of their being in the classified service. This is the case in twenty of the State's counties which have adopted and are operating under the Civil Service Act, N.J.S.A. 11:19--1 et seq. However, to date Somerset County has not adopted the Civil Service Act, does not operate under its provisions, and plaintiffs may not claim protection thereunder.
Plaintiffs' argument that the County Detectives and County Investigators Act, Supra, automatically places county detectives throughout the State under Civil Service, is at odds with the basic expression in the Civil Service Act that its provisions shall apply only to those counties which adopt Civil Service by referendum vote. Moreover, plaintiffs' argument is self-defeating. If all county detectives are under Civil Service, plaintiffs' appointments, in order to be legal, would have had to be made in accordance with Civil Service procedures. Admittedly, this is not the case. 1
In the situation presented, the Veterans Tenure Act comes into play unless some legislative purpose to exclude plaintiffs' employment from the act's tenure protection is evidenced. The prosecutor argues that county detectives come within the class of...
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...of whether the prosecutor or his detectives can be considered State or county employees for other purposes. See Cooper v. Imbriani, 63 N.J. 535, 310 A.2d 457 (1973). We also leave for another day the question of whether a county may be held vicariously liable for the conduct of a prosecutor......
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