Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County v. Poe

• Citation: 19 McCanless 53,383 S.W.2d 265,215 Tenn. 53
• Parties: , 215 Tenn. 53 The METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT OF NASHVILLE AND DAVIDSON COUNTY, George A. Karsch, Jr., etc., et al., Appellants, v. Robert R. POE, James L. Harrison, etc., et al., Appellees.
• Decision Date: 21 October 1964
• Court: Supreme Court of Tennessee

Page 265

383 S.W.2d 265

19 McCanless 53, 215 Tenn. 53

The METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT OF NASHVILLE AND DAVIDSON COUNTY, George A. Karsch, Jr., etc., et al., Appellants, v. Robert R. POE, James L. Harrison, etc., et al., Appellees.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

Oct. 21, 1964.

Neill S. Brown, Director of Law, Metropolitan Government, Seymour Samuels, Jr., Deputy Metropolitan Attorney, Edwin Hunt, Special Counsel for Metropolitan Government, Robert B. Puryear, III, for Civil Service Commission, Nashville, for Metropolitan Government.

Jack Norman, Sr., Elkin Garfinkle, Nashville, for Robert R. Poe.

Cecil Branstetter, Nashville, for James L. Harrison et al.

WHITE, Justice.

This bill was brought under the Declaratory Judgments Act seeking a decree declaring the rights of the parties upon the matters set out in detail therein.

The proceeding herein was commenced by the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee, herein referred to as 'Metropolitan Government', and its Personnel Director, George A. Karsch, Jr., its Finance Director, Joe E. Torrence, and its Purchasing Agent, E. D. White, against certain employees of the Metropolitan Government in their individual capacity and as representatives of a class, the members of the Metropolitan Civil Service Commission, who are referred to herein as the Civil Service Commission, and Robert R. Poe, the duly elected Sheriff of Davidson County, who took the oath and assumed the duties of his office on September 1, 1964.

The cause was heard by the chancellor on the original and amended bills, the answer and cross-bill of James L. Harrison, et al, the answer of W. C. Greer, et al, comprising the membership of the Civil Service Commission, and the answer of the complainants to the cross-bill of said Harrison, et al, and particularly upon the motion of Robert R. Poe to dispose of the demurrer filed by him and upon the motion of the complainants to hear the cause on bill and answers filed thereto.

The chancellor sustained the demurrer filed by Poe and dismissed the original bill, as amended, and the cross-bill filed by certain defendants, and dissolved the temporary injunction theretofore issued by him in aid of the original bill. From his action there has been a broad appeal to this Court.

The appellants contend that this case involves only questions of law and they are of vital importance to the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County and to the basic concept of citycounty consolidation. The cause is concerned with the relationship of the duly elected Sheriff, Robert R. Poe, to Metropolitan Government in matters of duties, functions, budgeting, purchasing and personnel policies, and with the validity of certain acts of the Civil Service Commission. We are required to re-examine the whole matter of law and fact appearing in this record and from this make a final decision. T.C.A. § 27-301.

The issues raised here are:

(1) May the Civil Service Commission, under Article 12 of the Charter, adopt rules granting civil service status to all employees who on the date of the adoption of the rules (August 18, 1964) had been employed in positions in the classified service for at least six months, or who were so employed on said date and remain in such employment for six months from the original date of employment and who are certified by the original appointing authority as being fully qualified for their position?

(2) Is the Sheriff under the Metropolitan Charter an official of the Metropolitan Government subject to the functional, budgetary, purchasing and personnel provisions of the Charter and ordinances adopted pursuant to the Charter?

(3) Are the criminal law enforcement powers and authority in the area of the Metropolitan Government vested in the Metropolitan Chief of Police exclusively?

In passing upon these questions we state, first, that Section 2 of Chapter 120, Public Acts of 1957 (T.C.A. § 6-3702), declares it to be the legislative intent and purpose to provide for the consolidation of all, or substantially all, of the governmental and corporate functions now or hereafter vested in municipal corporations with the governmental and corporate functions now or hereafter vested in the counties in which such municipal corporations are located, and to provide for the creation of Metropolitan governments which may be used to fulfill the unique and urgent needs of a modern metropolitan area.

The Section further provides that the entire chapter is declared to be remedial legislation to be liberally construed as a utilization of the constitutional power granted by Amendment 8 to Article XI, Section 9 of the Constitution of Tennessee, approved at an election on November 3, 1953.

This same Section recognizes the existence of certain constitutional officers and it is said that the functions of none of the governing bodies of the county and municipal corporation, so consolidated, or of the officers thereof, shall be retained and continued unless the Charter of the Metropolitan Government shall expressly so provide, or unless such retention and continuation be required by the Constitution of Tennessee.

Since this Charter was drawn and approved by the people of the affected area, there have been several matters in regard thereto submitted to the courts for clarification and resolution. The first case was that of Frazer v. Carr, 210 Tenn. 565, 360 S.W.2d 449 (1962), in which it was held that the Charter did not offend the Constitution of Tennessee.

The next case, in order of publication, was that of Winter v. Allen, 212 Tenn. ----, 367 S.W.2d 785 (1963). This case approved the Charter provisions which transferred the duties of assessing merchant's ad valorem taxes from the county court clerk where they had been lodged by general statute, to the tax assessor of the Metropolitan Government.

The third case was that of Robinson v. Briley, 212 Tenn. ----, 374 S.W.2d 382 (1963), which approved the transferal of certain functions and duties from the county trustee, lodged there by general statute, to the Metropolitan Treasurer.

In Winter v. Allen we stated that State ex rel. Hays v. Cummins, 99 Tenn. 667, 42 S.W. 880 (1897), declared unconstitutional an Act which sought to take from the sheriff a substantial part of his righful duties. We distinguished the Cummins case from Winter v. Allen on the ground that the county court clerk had many duties and many functions, the assessment of merchant's ad valorem taxes being only one among them.

In Robinson v. Briley, supra, we said that State, ex rel. Hays v. Cummins had to be confined to the facts appearing therein and consequently the holding was not binding as a precedent on the interpretation of the provisions of the Charter.

Subsection (p) of T.C.A. § 6-3711 directs that the consolidation charter provide for such administrative agencies as may be necessary and appropriate to perform the consolidated functions and for this purpose for the alteration or abolition of existing city and county offices.

T.C.A. § 6-3702, however, recognizes that certain offices are provided for in the Constitution of Tennessee in this language:

* * * after said consolidation no officer or agency of said county or of said municipal corporation shall retain any right, power, duty or obligation unless this chapter or the charter of the metropolitan government shall expressly so provide, or unless such retention and continuation be required by the Constitution of Tennessee.

Article 7, Section 1 of the Constitution of Tennessee provides that 'There shall be elected in each County, by the qualified voters therein, one Sheriff, one Trustee, one Register;' etc. In the Constitution of 1796, Article 6, Section 1, it was provided that 'There shall be appointed in each county, by the county Court, one sheriff, one coroner, one trustee', etc.

In the Constitution of 1834, by Article VII, Section 1, it was provided that 'There shall be elected in each County, by the qualified voters therein, one Sheriff, one Trustee, one Register', etc.

It is obvious that express provisions have been made in all three Constitutions adopted by the voters of Tennessee for the office of Sheriff, and any language that may have been employed in any prior decisions of this Court, and particularly in Robinson v. Briley, supra, from which it might be remotely concluded that we held the office of Sheriff or any other constitutional office could be or was abolished by the Charter was a mere inadvertence and not meant to be a holding of this Court.

The only method by which the Constitution may be amended is set out in Article 11, Section 3 of the Constitution itself.

In the recent case of Glasgow, et al. v. Fox, et al., 213 Tenn. ----, 383 S.W.2d 9, released for publication on August 28, 1964, it was said:

'* * * the predominant intent of the Act is to provide for consolidation of 'all,' or 'substantially all,' of the governmental and corporate functions of county and city governments into one new metropolitan government; it does not necessarily require that all functions or officers of the prior governments be obliterated, but leaves a large discretion in these matters to the drafters of the Metropolitan Charter. (See T.C.A. § 6-3702).

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'It is true that some of the functions of some of these officers were changed or transferred to other officers. For instance, some of the functions of the county court clerk and some of the functions of the tax assessor were changed or transferred to other officers. Winter v. Allen, 212 Tenn. ----, 367 S.W.2d 785, supra. Some of the duties and functions of the county trustee were likewise changed (Robinson v. Briley, 212 Tenn. ----, 374 S.W.2d 382), and some of the duties of the sheriff were transferred to the chief of police; but none of these officers was abolished, and even the incumbents were continued in office.

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'* * * (sec. 8.202) provides for the department of metropolitan...