Jones v. House of Reformation

• Decision Date: 12 January 1939
• Docket Number: 90.
• Citation: 3 A.2d 728,176 Md. 43
• Parties: JONES, State Employment Com'r, v. HOUSE OF REFORMATION.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

3 A.2d 728

176 Md. 43

JONES, State Employment Com'r, v. HOUSE OF REFORMATION.

No. 90.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

January 12, 1939

Appeal from Superior Court of Baltimore City; Eugene O'Dunne Judge.

Mandamus proceeding by the House of Reformation against Harry C Jones, State Employment Commissioner. From an adverse order defendant appeals.

Affirmed.

Charles T. LeViness, III, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Herbert R. O'Conor, Atty. Gen., and Hilary W. Gans, Deputy Atty. Gen., on the brief), for appellant.

Joseph Harlan, of Baltimore, and Charles C. Marbury, of Upper Marlboro (Harlan & Harlan, of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Argued before BOND, C.J., and OFFUTT, PARKE, SLOAN, MITCHELL and JOHNSON, JJ.

MITCHELL Judge.

By Chapter 392 of the Acts of 1870 of the General Assembly of Maryland, the House of Reformation was incorporated, and since that time, as a private corporation, has exercised its functions in behalf of underprivileged colored boys. Its charter has been amended a number of times since the original incorporation; and its rights and powers, except as changed in the manner to which reference is hereinafter made, are now set forth in Art 27, Secs. 591 to 611, inclusive, of the Code of Public General Laws. About the time of its incorporation it established a reform school, located at Cheltenham in Prince George's County, and gradually accumulated property until in 1935 it had acquired 1,200 acres of land, improved by buildings adapted to its purposes, equipped with stock for farming purposes and other personal property, of a total value in excess of $400,000. The inmates of the institution in said year numbered more than 400 colored boys committed to it by courts of criminal jurisdiction throughout the State, at a cost of $200 per year per boy, the same being paid by the county or city unit from which the inmate was comitted. In addition to the sum realized for the above service, the State of Maryland paid to the corporation a lump sum of $20,000 per year. This situation with reference to the institution prevailed until the passage of Chap. 70 of the Acts of 1937, which added eleven new sections, to follow immediately after Sec. 611 of Art. 27, in substance designed to authorize and empower the State of Maryland to accept title to all the property of the corporation and establish a State institution, to be known as the 'Cheltenham School for Boys' and to be a public agency of the State for the care and reformation of colored male minors committed or transferred to its care under the laws of the State.

Sec. 611-B of the 1937 Act provides that the House of Reformation, the appellee in this case, in consideration of the State of Maryland assuming its obligations to the colored male minors then under its custody and care, is authorized and empowered to transfer all of its property, of every kind and description, to the State of Maryland as of October 1, 1937, except, however, the sum of $30,000, which sum the Act provides could be withheld by the corporate body, the House of Reformation, and be disbursed from time to time by the board of managers of said House of Reformation, in its discretion, for the uses and purposes of the Cheltenham School for Boys, or for the benefit of past and present employees of the House of Reformation, or both; the Act providing the manner in which the fund reserved by the corporation should be invested, and that any unexpended balance of principal and interest, after ten years from October 1, 1937, should be paid over by the board to the treasurer of the State of Maryland, and thereupon the board would take steps to effect the dissolution of the House of Reformation corporation. The Act then names the board of managers of Cheltenham School for Boys, provides the manner in which their successors shall from time to time be chosen, defines their duties and fixes their compensation; and Sec. 611-D provides, in part: 'And the Board of Managers of the Cheltenham School for Boys shall appoint all new employees from lists provided by the Commissioner of State Employment and Registration; provided however, that upon the transfer of the property as aforesaid, the present employees of The House of Reformation shall become employees of the Cheltenham School for Boys, and shall continue in the discharge of their present functions and duties as classified service employees of the State of Maryland under Article 64-A of the Annotated Code of Maryland, title 'Merit System', without need of special examination as to fitness, and they shall have all the rights and privileges accorded State employees the same as if they had been State employees from the time of their employment by the House of Reformation, or from the time said Merit System went into effect.'

The record shows that between the passage of the Act of 1937 and October 1st of said year, the time limited by the Act for the formal transfer of the property to the State, Harry C. Jones, State Employment Commissioner, the appellant in this case, who by virtue of his office is charged with the administration of the Merit System, sought the opinion of the Attorney General as to whether, upon the transfer of the property to the State, he, as such commissioner, would be authorized to conduct classification tests for employees of the Cheltenham School for Boys thereby brought into the Merit System under the provisions of the Act of 1937; and that the Attorney General, in reply to the inquiry, instructed the Commissioner that the language of Sec. 611-D of the Act brought into the Merit System a number of persons who had not theretofore taken any examination or obtained a rating under the system, and that the Commissioner was required by the Act to accept them into the system and was authorized to give them classification tests in order to determine in which of the many Merit System classifications such new employees might respectively fall; the Attorney General adding that such classification would be for the benefit of the employees as well as the uniformity of the State service, because by obtaining a classification they would then be in a position to secure other employment in the State, in event of a possible lay-off at the Cheltenham School for Boys. This correspondence between the Commissioner and the Attorney General led to apprehension on the part of Enoch Harlan, president of the House of Reformation, who thereafter interviewed the Commissioner and obtained from him the information that it was the intention of the Commissioner, promptly after October 1st, if the House of Reformation had been turned over to the State in the mean time, to send to every employee of the school a blank application, to be filled in and sent to the Employment Commissioner, for a position as an employee of the State of Maryland; that he would then hold examinations and determine the proper classification of each person applying, and his fitness for the position applied for; that in case the applicant was not, in his judgment, fitted for the position applied for, the Commissioner would designate the classification to which the applicant would be relegated; that if the applicant failed to qualify, in the judgment of the Commissioner, for the post he was then filling at the school, the applicant would not be permitted to longer fill such position, and it would be necessary for the position to be filled from the classified list of State employees; and finally, that if the board of managers of the school should attempt to retain anyone in his or her old position, after the Commissioner had decided such person was not fitted for such position, then he would not permit the salary to be paid to that person. The result of this interview caused Mr. Harlan, on May 15, 1937, to write to the Attorney General, setting forth the attitude of the Commissioner as to his duties in the premises; in which letter, in part, the writer stated: 'This is so contrary to my understanding of both the letter and spirit of the Act that I am writing you for a clarification of the matter. The Commissioner says that the Cheltenham employees cannot, in his judgment, become State employees, with all the rights and privileges accorded State employees under the Merit System, unless he examines and classifies them. This matter of the present employees becoming entitled to all the rights and privileges of State employees under the Merit System is rather negligible, as I understand it. The principal benefit is that the employee, if laid off at Cheltenham, would be eligible for a position in some other Maryland State institution, and very few, if any, of the Cheltenham employees would be interested in a position elsewhere. I have no objection to their being examined and classified, but I do object to any employee that is satisfactory to the board being removed from his position by the Commissioner's refusing to pay the wages or salary.'

In reply to the above letter, the Attorney General, on May 21 1937, wrote Mr. Harlan as follows: 'I have your letter of May 15th in which you bring to my attention certain matters concerning the induction of employees at Cheltenham into the Merit System. Although I suppose you already have seen our opinion to Employment Commissioner Harry C. Jones, on this subject, I take pleasure in enclosing a copy thereof for your files. I do not think you have any cause for apprehension that any employees will be dropped or discharged as a result of this ruling. By the terms of the Act all of the present employees at Cheltenham are brought into the State service and in doing so it is customary that some rating be given these persons to determine in what classifications they should be placed. This is the same procedure which was followed when the employees of the Board of...