Goss v. Justice of Dist. Ct. of Holyoke

• Decision Date: 10 January 1939
• Citation: 302 Mass. 148,18 N.E.2d 546
• Parties: JOSEPH GOSS v. DISTRICT COURT OF HOLYOKE.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

302 Mass. 148

18 N.E.2d 546

JOSEPH GOSS v. DISTRICT COURT OF HOLYOKE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampden.

January 10, 1939

January 6, 1939.

Present: FIELD, C.

J., DONAHUE LUMMUS, QUA, & COX, JJ.

Civil Service.

An order by a city board making a uniform reduction in the weekly working hours of all laborers in its department for the purpose of economy was a partial "suspension" of them within G.L (Ter. Ed.) c. 31, Section 43, and as to the senior laborer was contrary to Civil Service Rule 38, paragraph 3, and so was "made without proper cause" within Section 45 of c. 31, and should have been reversed by the District Court on review.

PETITION for a writ of certiorari, filed in the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Hampden on July 22, 1938.

The case was reported by Dolan, J., and was submitted on briefs to the full court.

J. P. Dowling, for the petitioner. P. J. Garvey, for the respondent.

LUMMUS, J. The petitioner, an employee of the city of Holyoke within the classified civil service, was working forty hours a week as a laborer in the department of public works at an hourly rate of pay. On April 4, 1938, he received from the board of public works a notice that in the interest of economy the board had ordered that "the working schedule for the Labor Division in this department shall not exceed Thirty (30) hours per week," and that his working hours were reduced accordingly. He requested and received a public hearing in accordance with G.L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 31, Section 43 after which the board adhered to its order. Thereupon the petitioner obtained, under G.L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 31, Section 45 a review by a district court, which affirmed the decision of the board. Upon a petition for a writ of certiorari to quash the action of the District Court, a single justice of this court ordered the writ to issue for that purpose, and reported the case.

The judge of the District Court finds that "the board admits that it has sufficient funds to employ the petitioner and his fellows [i.e., the senior employees of the same class] in the order of their seniority on a forty-hour per week basis, but as a matter of policy deems it fairer and more equitable to place the entire working force on a thirty-hour basis."

The order of the board was made in good faith, to solve an economic problem not unusual in these times. The money appropriated for the board was insufficient to pay as before all the laborers of the same class as the petitioner. Civil service laws leave scope for measures of economy taken with due regard to those laws. But those laws cannot be ignored in the pursuit of the commendable end of living within the municipal means. For example, wages may be reduced, but not by the indirect method of failing to appropriate sufficient money to pay civil service employees (Barnard v. Lynn, 295 Mass. 144), nor by a simple vote where the law requires an ordinance. Fortin v. Chicopee, 301 Mass. 447 .

The measure of economy adopted in the present case was technically a suspension of the petitioner and all his fellow workmen for one fourth of their working time. In Bois v. Mayor of Fall River, 257 Mass. 471 , 472, 473, it was said, in speaking of the statutory right to notice, hearing and review under G.L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 31, Sections 43, 45, upon the suspension of a civil service employee, "The word `suspension' in this context means a temporary withdrawal or cessation from public work as distinguished from permanent severance from the service accomplished by removal. The facts show that there was a failure to give employment for three days each week for a considerable time; but that was none the less a suspension because it was of regular recurrence. The statute is unmistakable in its mandate that there must be notice of such suspension. If it was...