Eck v. City of Kenosha
| Decision Date | 07 December 1937 |
| Citation | 276 N.W. 309,226 Wis. 647 |
| Parties | ECK v. CITY OF KENOSHA. |
| Court | Wisconsin Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from a judgment of the Circuit Court for Kenosha County; S. E. Smalley, Judge.
Affirmed.
Action brought by Curt Eck against the City of Kenosha to recover unpaid balances which the plaintiff claims on account of his salary as a city police officer for the years 1932 to 1935. The defendant denied liability, and upon a trial of the resulting issues the court filed findings of fact and conclusions of law upon which judgment was entered dismissing the complaint. Plaintiff appealed.
L. E. Vaudreuil, of Madison, for appellant.
Robert V. Baker, Jr., City Atty., and Chester D. Richardson, Asst. City Atty., both of Kenosha, for respondent.
On this appeal the facts are undisputed, and the issues involved are only questions of law. Since 1924, the plaintiff has been an officer of the police department of the city of Kenosha. Under an ordinance adopted in January, 1931, he was entitled to a salary of $2,097 per year, payable semi-monthly, which could not be legally reduced by the city council except on the recommendation of the police and fire commission. No such action was taken by either of those boards. But in the fall of 1931 (and continuing through the year 1935) it was necessary for the city, because of the business depression and its impaired financial condition, to reduce its expenses. Therefore, in October, 1931, the city manager advised its employees, including the members of the police department, that there would have to be a reduction either in salaries or in personnel. The members of that department proposed to the city council that, instead of having it reduce the salaries or the personnel for the year 1932, all members would sign agreements for the contribution of part of their salary to the city, in order to protect their existing salary schedules and their pension rights, under which they were entitled to a percentage based on those schedules. Accordingly, in January and May of 1932, and in January of 1933, 1934, and 1935, all of the police officers, including the plaintiff, executed separate agreements in which each agreed, in consideration of the mutual agreements of all other members, to contribute a portion of his salary to the city's poor relief fund, under the January, 1932, agreement, and to the city's police department maintenance fund, under the subsequent agreements; and each member designated, authorized, and directed the city's director of finance, as his agent, to deduct semimonthly from his salary the portions contributed, and ratified all acts of such agent in all respects. The city was not required to sign those agreements as a party thereto, or to enact, and it did not enact, any ordinance reducing those salaries, or otherwise authorize its employees or officers to deduct any part thereof. But commencing on January 15, 1932, the director of finance, in making up each semimonthly departmental pay roll, entered therein the full amount that represented the semimonthly salary of each member, and in adjacent columns entered the amounts allocated out of each member's salary to the pension fund, group insurance, the community chest, and his agreed contribution to the city,...
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Coughlin v. City of Milwaukee
...because the fixed salaries of the firemen were not reduced. There was no impairment of their pension rights. In Eck v. City of Kenosha, Wis., 276 N. W. 309, 310, plaintiff did not claim that his contributions, or the agreement under which they were made, were obtained by duress or coercion,......
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Maxwell v. City of Madison
...case should not be made to turn upon the mere mechanics of the operation.” Schuh Case, supra [220 Wis. 600, 265 N.W. 701];Eck v. Kenosha, 226 Wis. 647, 276 N.W. 309; Coughlin v. Milwaukee, supra. Nor can it be made to depend on the system of bookkeeping used in effecting the gift. Had the p......
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Altenberg v. City of Superior
...did not like to have their salaries reduced, there is no evidence that approximates a showing of coercion or duress. Eck v. City of Kenosha, Wis., 276 N.W. 309. Several of the plaintiffs who testified realized the necessity of retrenchment and appreciated that, in the situation which confro......
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Connor v. City of Chippewa Falls
...court denied recovery of a portion of Schuh's salary which he had voluntarily contributed. The same doctrine was followed in Eck v. Kenosha, Wis.1937, 276 N.W. 309. The facts in Van Gilder v. Madison, 1936, 222 Wis. 58, 267 N.W. 25, 268 N.W. 108, 105 A.L.R. 244, which is urged here as a pre......