Francis v. Iowa Employment Sec. Commission

• Decision Date: 20 October 1959
• Docket Number: No. 49790,49790
• Citation: 98 N.W.2d 733,250 Iowa 1300
• Parties: May E. FRANCIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. IOWA EMPLOYMENT SECURITY COMMISSION et al., Defendant-Appellees.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 733

98 N.W.2d 733

250 Iowa 1300

May E. FRANCIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. IOWA EMPLOYMENT SECURITY COMMISSION et al., Defendant-Appellees.

No. 49790.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Oct. 20, 1959.

Buckmaster & Lindeman, Waterloo, for appellant.

Norman A. Erbe, Atty. Gen., and Leonard C. Abels, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Don G. Allen, Des Moines, for appellees.

THOMPSON, Justice.

This appeal raises the question of a distinction between the terms 'public officer' or 'one acting in an official capacity' on the one hand, and 'employee' on the other. The plaintiff, who was the petitioner for a writ of certiorari in the trial court, alleging that the Iowa Employment Security Commission had acted illegally in denying her benefits under Code Section 294.15, I.C.A., contends that her term of service in or in connection with the schools of Iowa is sufficient to meet the requirements of the statute. We set out the material part of Section 294.15 herewith: '294.15 State teachers pension. Any person having attained the age of sixty-five who shall have been an employee, holding a valid teaching certificate, in the public schools of this state with a record of service of twenty-five years or more, including a maximum of five years out-of-state service followed by at least ten years service in this state prior to retirement and who shall have retired prior to July 4, 1953, shall be entitled to receive retirement allowance payments from the state of Iowa of not less than seventy-five dollars per month. * * *.'

Plaintiff had retired prior to July 4, 1953, the effective date of the Act, and she meets the age and teacher's certificate requirements. The controversy turns upon whether she had been an 'employee' with a record of service of twenty-five years or more. The case was tried upon an agreed stipulation of facts, from which it appears that Miss Francis has actually taught in the public schools of Iowa for fifteen and one-half years, with another two years as superintendent of schools in a small town where her duties may have included teaching. She had been county superintendent of schools in Bremer County for four years, had served two years as Inspector of Rural Schools for the State Department of Public Instruction, and four years as State Superintendent of Public Instruction. The decisive question is whether these latter described years, or sufficient of them to total twenty-five years when added to the fifteen and one-half years of actual teaching, can be counted. Was she an 'employee' in the public schools of the state while she was acting as county superintendent, or inspector of rural schools, or state superintendent of public instruction, or superintendent of schools in Denver, Iowa, within the meaning of the statute above set out? It is evident that the exclusion of as much as four years of the time spent as county or state or town superintendent or state inspector will be fatal to her claim; she cannot reach the total of twenty-five years without adding up the time spent in actual teaching--fifteen and one-half years--and at least ten of the twelve years spent in the service of Bremer County, and the Town of Denver, and of the State of Iowa in the Department of Public Instruction. The trial court held that she could not count sufficient of these years to comply with the statute, and we are constrained to agree.

I. The general rule is that there is a clear distinction between a 'public officer' and an 'employee.' In McKinley v. Clarke County, 228 Iowa 1185, 1189, 1190, 293 N.W. 449, 451, we held that a county engineer is a public officer rather than an employee, citing and discussing the principles laid down in State v. Spaulding, 102 Iowa 639, 72 N.W. 288. We said: '* * * a position created by direct act of the legislature, or by a board of commissions duly authorized so to do, in a proper case, by the legislature, is a public office; that to constitute one a public officer his duties must either be prescribed by the Constitution or the statutes, or necessarily inhere in and pertain to the administration of the office itself; that the duties of the position must embrace the exercise of public powers or trusts; that is there must be a delegation to the individual of some of the sovereign functions of government, to be exercised by him for the benefit of the public; and that among other requirements the following are usually, though not necessarily, attached to a public office: a, an oath of office, b, salary or fees, c. a fixed term of duration or continuance.'

The Spaulding case, supra, is a leading case on the question under examination. In Hutton v. State, 235 Iowa 52, 16 N.W.2d 18, we held that the state conservation director is a public officer rather than an employee so that upon his death from an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment workmen's compensation could not be collected. The elements necessary to make a public employment a public office are discussed, at pages 54, 55 of 235 Iowa, at page 19 of 16 N.W.2d. In Jaeger Manufacturing Company v. Maryland Casualty Company, 231 Iowa 151, 157, 300 N.W. 680, 683, we quoted with approval from State ex rel. Newman v. Skinner, 128 Ohio St. 325, 191 N.W. 127, 93 A.L.R. 331: 'A public officer, as distinguished from an employee, must be invested by law with a portion of the sovereignty of the state and authorized to exercise functions either of an executive, legislative, or judicial character.'

The authorities are numerous, and all...