People ex rel. Corscadden v. Howe

• Decision Date: 23 February 1904
• Citation: 177 N.Y. 499,69 N.E. 1114
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. CORSCADDEN v. HOWE, County Treasurer. CORSCADDEN v. HASWELL et al.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

177 N.Y. 499

69 N.E. 1114

PEOPLE ex rel. CORSCADDEN

v.HOWE, County Treasurer.

CORSCADDEN

v.HASWELL et al.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Feb. 23, 1904.

Appeal and Cross-Appeals from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department.

Application by the people, on the relation of John E. Corscadden, for a writ of mandamus to John A. Howe, county treasurer of the county of Albany, and action by John E. Corscadden against Isaac M. Haswell and others. From a judgment of the Appellate Division affirming an order of the Special Term granting a peremptory writ (84 N. Y. Supp. 604), defendant appeals, and from a judgment of the Appellate Division modifying a judgment granting an injunction in the second action (84 N. Y. Supp. 597), both parties appeal. Affirmed in the first action, and reversed in the second.

Parker, C. J., and O'Brien and Werner, JJ., dissenting.

Edwin Countryman, for plaintiff.

J. Newton Fiero and J. S. Frost, for defendants.

CULLEN, J.

By chapter 261, p. 456, of the Laws of 1885, the management and care of the Albany Penitentiary were vested in a board constituted by that act, and known as the ‘Albany Penitentiary Commission.’ By an amendment in 1895 (chapter 761, p. 1638, Laws 1895) it was enacted that said penitentiary commission, the constitution of which was changed by said amended act, should within fifteen days from June 10, 1895, and each five years thereafter, appoint for a period of five years a superintendent or principal keeper of said penitentiary at an annual salary of $3,000. Under these statutory provisions, John E. Corscadden, the relator in the mandamus proceeding, and plaintiff in the equity action, the subjects of these appeals, was in November, 1900, appointed superintendent of the penitentiary for the term of five years. In 1902 a statute (chapter 127, p. 387, Laws 1902) was passed entitled ‘An act to amend chapter two hundred and sixty-one of the laws of eighteen hundred and eighty-five, entitled ‘An act in relation to the management of the Albany Penitentiary,’ relative to the salary of the keeper of said penitentiary.' This statute amended section 4 of the original act of 1885 in several particulars: First, it provided that the salary of the superintendent should be fixed by the commission, instead of being established at the rate of $3,000 a year. It also authorized the commissioners, whenever, in their discretion, it seemed to be for the best interests of the county of Albany, to dispense with the services of the superintendent and place the penitentiary in the custody and care of the sheriff, and, if deemed advisable, to close and discontinue the same and sell the lands and buildings. Assuming to act under the authority granted by the statute last mentioned, the commissioners, who, with the sheriff, are the defendants in the equity action, notified the relator that on March 1, 1903, they would place the penitentiary in the hands of the sheriff of Albany county, and would remove the relator from his office as superintendent. Thereupon Mr. Corscadden brought an action to restrain the commissioners from removing him from his office and from transferring the penitentiary to the sheriff, and obtained in such action a temporary injunction. The complaint in the action set forth the facts above recited, and charged that the statute of 1902 was unconstitutional and void, for several reasons stated; that it impaired the obligation of the plaintiff's contract; that it deprived him of property without due process of law, and that it abridged his privileges and immunities as a citizen of the United States and a citizen of the state of New York; and that it violated section 16 of article 3 of the Constitution of the state, which prescribes that ‘no private or local bill which may be passed by the Legislature shall embrace more than one subject and that shall be expressed in the title.’ The complaint also alleged irreparable injury to the plaintiff's rights, and that the plaintiff was without adequate remedy of law. To this complaint the defendants, the penitentiarycommissioners, demurred on the grounds that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. Final judgment was awarded the plaintiff on demurrer, and the defendants were enjoined from removing the plaintiff from his office, or in any way interfering with him in the exercise of his duty. On appeal the Appellate Division modified the judgment by striking therefrom a provision restraining the defendants from fixing the plaintiff's salary, and as modified the judgment was affirmed. During the pendency of the litigation the county treasurer refused to pay the relator his salary as superintendent. After the decision of the Special Term in the injunction action, Corscadden applied for a writ of peremptory mandamus to compel the payment of such salary. In his moving affidavit he stated at length the facts already given, the decision of the Special Term awarding him an injunction, and that he had remained in possession of the office. In answer to the application, the county treasurer disputed none of the facts stated by the relator, but averred that an appeal had been taken from the judgment. The Special Term awarded the writ as prayed for, and on appeal the order was affirmed by the Appellate Division. In this court the two appeals-one from the judgment in the action, and the other from the final order in the mandamus proceeding-have been argued together.

It will be convenient to dispose of the mandamus proceeding first, as the issue presented by that proceeding is very narrow and sharply defined. The relator has continued in possession of the office, and the salary has not been paid to any other claimant. The relator being thus an officer de facto, the appellant, the county treasurer, would have been protected in paying the salary to him. At the same time the relator could not compel such payment unless he established that he held the office de jure as well as de facto. Dolan v. Mayor, etc., of N. Y., 68 N. Y. 274, 23 Am. Rep. 168. Therefore the sole question presented by the appeal in this proceeding is the validity of the provision of the act of 1902 which authorized the penitentiary commissioners to discharge the relator and turn the penitentiary over to the sheriff. We agree with the learned court below that, so far as relates to that provision, the statute is in conflict with the constitutional mandate that a local or private bill shall not embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in the title. The difficulty with the statute is not that it embraces more than one subject, but that that subject is not sufficiently expressed in the title. The whole matter of the regulation, custody, and disposition of the penitentiary, the number and grades, the appointment, terms, tenure, and salaries of its officers, might properly constitute but a single statute. But the divisibility of subjects is very much akin to the divisibility of matter, and most subjects include things which may be treated as mere details of the greater subjects, or as independent subjects in themselves. The object of the constitutional requirement was to ‘advise the public in general, and members of the Legislature in particular, by the title of the bill, what interests are likely to be affected by its becoming a law.’ People ex rel. Burroughs v. Brinkerhoff, 68 N. Y. 259. Therefore it is very apparent that the title of a bill may be so limited as to exclude provisions which unquestionably could fairly be enacted in a single statute with a more comprehensive title. In the title of the statute before us it is stated that the purport of the act is not merely to amend ‘an act in relation to the management of the Albany penitentiary,’ but to amend it only in one particular and on one subject-the salary of the keeper of the penitentiary. To our minds, such a title not only fails to advise the public and the Legislature that any other details of the penitentiary management than the salary of the keeper are affected by the bill, but is substantially a proclamation to the contrary. We do not deem it profitable to review the many decisions of the courts on the effect of the constitutional inhibition under discussion. The general rule to be deduced from them is that it is not necessary that the title of the bill should be the best that could be selected, nor is it necessary to set forth in the title the various details of the object or purpose to be accomplished by the bill. It is sufficient if the title fairly expresses the general purpose of the bill, but at the same time the title must be such as to reasonably apprise the public of the interests that are or may be affected by the statute. If there be any conflict in the decisions, it is not as to these general rules, but as to their application to particular cases. In the present case we think that the title of the bill, instead of apprising the public that it was intended to bestow powers upon the commissioners to discontinue the penitentiary or turn it over to the sheriff, tended to avert attention from the subject. The order appealed from should therefore be affirmed, with costs.

Having determined that the attempted removal of Mr. Corscadden from his office of superintendent of the penitentiary was illegal, the only question which remains to be decided in the injunction action is whether such an action can be maintained. We are of opinion that it cannot. As early as the case of Tappan v. Gray, 9 Paige, 507, it was held by the chancellor that the court of chancery had no jurisdiction to enjoin at the suit of the incumbent of an office the intrusion of a hostile claimant illegally appointed to the office. This decision was unanimously affirmed by the Court of Errors. 7 Hill, 259. In Matter of Sawyer, 124 U. S. 200, 8 Sup. Ct. 482, 31 L. Ed. 402, the Supreme Court of the United States held that an injunction granted by the Circuit Court of the United States to restrain...