Feder v. Lahanier
| Decision Date | 20 February 1962 |
| Parties | Louis H. FEDER, Petitioner and Appellant, v. William A. LAHANIER, William Kllpatrick and Hubert J. Soher, as members of the Civil Service Commission of the City and County of San Francisco, and George J. Grubb, as Secretary of the Civil Service Commission of the City and County of San Francisco and as General Manager of Personnel of the City and County of San Francisco, Respondents. Civ. 19961. |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
Richard H. Perry, Rodney H. Washburn, San Francisco, for appellant.
Dion R. Holm, City Atty., of the City and County of San Francisco, Bernard J. Ward, Jr., Deputy City Atty. of the City and County of San Francisco, San Francisco, for respondents.
Petitioner is a lieutenant in the San Francisco Police Department who took a civil service examination held to secure a list of eligibles for promotion from lieutenant to captain. The list was to consist of the five participants having the highest total points. Petitioner placed sixth and was therefore not included in the eligible list.
This appeal is from a judgment of the Superior Court denying his petition for a writ of mandate requiring the members of the Civil Service Commission to disallow certain points granted to eligible number four. The points in dispute were for approximately three months served in 1951 under a non-civil service appointment as a lieutenant. A disallowance of these points would have reduced number four's total and resulted in petitioner becoming one of the eligibles.
Under section 145 of the Charter of the City and County of San Francisco, the commission may provide in the scope circular of any examination that the list of eligibles secured thereby shall automatically expire at a date not less than two or more than four years after the adoption of such list. The scope circular in the instant case provided: 'The eligible list resulting from this examination will expire two years following the date of its adoption.'
The eligible list was adopted on November 19, 1959, and expired on November 19, 1961. Petitioner is therefore seeking on this appeal, which was argued and submitted on February 14, 1962, to have this court order that his name be placed on a list that has expired. Petitioner realizes this. He states in his brief: '[P]rior to the date that any decision could be expected on this Appeal, the list will have expired * * * [but] * * * Appellant seeks a determination of his legal civil service rights * * *.'
We think that this case calls for the application of the general rule, as stated by our Supreme Court in Consol. etc. Corp. v. United A. etc. Workers, 27 Cal.2d 859, 863, 167 P.2d 725, quoting from the United States Supreme Court in Mills v. Green, 159 U.S. 651, 653, 16 S.Ct. 132, 133, 40 L.Ed. 293: "The duty of this court, as of every other judicial tribunal, is to decide actual controversies by a judgment which can be carried into effect, and not to give opinions upon moot questions or abstract propositions, or to declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect the matter in issue in the case before it. It necessarily follows that when, pending an appeal from the judgment of a lower court, and without any fault of the defendant, an event occurs which renders it impossible for this court, if it should decide the case in favor...
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