Rozler v. Franger

• Decision Date: 20 January 1978
• Citation: 401 N.Y.S.2d 623,61 A.D.2d 46
• Parties: Urban ROZLER, as Mayor of the Village of Lancaster and Urban Rozler and Donald F. Pfeifer, Individually and on behalf of the Village of Lancaster, Respondents-Appellants, v. William R. FRANGER et al., Individually and as Members of the Board of Trustees of the Village of Lancaster and James E. Sharp, Frederick A. Wolf, Appellants-Respondents, Hon. Louis J. Lefkowitz, Attorney General of the State of New York, Respondent.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

Page 623

401 N.Y.S.2d 623

61 A.D.2d 46

Urban ROZLER, as Mayor of the Village of Lancaster and Urban Rozler and Donald F. Pfeifer, Individually and on behalf of the Village of Lancaster Respondents-Appellants, v. William R. FRANGER et al., Individually and as Members of the Board of Trustees of the Village of Lancaster and James E. Sharp, Frederick A. Wolf, Appellants-Respondents Hon. Louis J. Lefkowitz, Attorney General of the State of New York, Respondent.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department.

Jan. 20, 1978.

Jaeckle, Fleischmann & Mugel, Buffalo, for appellants-respondents; Edward Murty, Buffalo, of counsel.

Ruth Kessler Toch, Sol. Gen., Louis J. Lefkowitz, Atty. Gen., Albany, for respondent; Elaine Weiss, Niagara Falls, of counsel.

Donald A. Walsh, Albany, for N. Y. S. Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials, amicus curiae.

Before MARSH, P. J., and CARDAMONE, DILLON, HANCOCK and WITMER, JJ.

HANCOCK, Justice:

We construe Municipal Home Rule Law § 10, subd. 1, par. ii, subd. e, sub-par. 3 (hereinafter Municipal Home Rule Law § 10(1)(ii)(e)(3)) as permitting a village to amend or supersede the Village Law with respect to its own property, affairs or government, and hold that section 10 as so construed is constitutional.

The instant proceeding arises from the enactment on July 14, 1975 by the appellants-respondents village trustees of Local Law No. 10, 1975, which by its terms vests in the Board of Trustees of the Village of Lancaster the power to appoint, supervise and terminate all departmental and non-elected officials and employees of the village. The local law further provides for the repeal of sections 3-301, subd. 3; 4-400, subd. 1, pars. c & e; 3-308, subd. 5; and 3-312, subd. 3 of the Village Law ¹ of the State of New York, as they apply to the Village of Lancaster. These sections of the Village Law vest certain specified powers in the village mayor, including the power of appointment, supervision and termination of employment with respect to the village personnel.

On or about September 17, 1975 Local Law No. 10 was put to a referendum and passed by the voters of the Village of Lancaster.

The respondent-appellant mayor thereafter commenced this proceeding seeking an order, inter alia, declaring Municipal Home Rule Law § 10(1)(ii)(e)(3) to be unconstitutional and Lancaster Local Law No. 10, 1975 to be null and void and directing appellants-respondents Wolf and Sharp, employees of the village, to repay money allegedly illegally paid to them under the local law. The Attorney General was joined as a party respondent because the constitutionality of a State statute was in issue.

By order dated December 12, 1975 the respondent-appellant Donald F. Pfeifer, a resident, citizen and taxpayer of the village, was joined as a petitioner.

Special Term in a judgment and order based on its memorandum decision declared Municipal Home Rule Law § 10(1)(ii)(e)(3) to be constitutional, held the Village Law to be a general law, and declared Local Law No. 10 to be null and void. It denied the further relief requested by the respondents-appellants mayor and Pfeifer including the request that the village recover the allegedly illegal payments from Wolf and Sharp.

The issue on this appeal is whether the village was empowered under section 10(1)(ii)(e)(3) of the Municipal Home Rule Law to supersede or amend, in their particular application to the village, the various provisions of the Village Law pertaining to the authority of the mayor to appoint, terminate and supervise the non-elected officers and employees of the village.

Municipal Home Rule Law, Article two, section 10, in so far as pertinent, reads:

(1) In addition to powers granted in the constitution, the statute of local governments or in any other law,

(i) every local government shall have power to adopt and amend local laws not inconsistent with the provisions of the constitution or not inconsistent with any general law relating to its property, affairs or government and, (Emphasis added.)

(ii) every local government, as provided in this chapter, shall have power to adopt and amend local laws not inconsistent with the provisions of the constitution or not inconsistent with any general law, relating to the following subjects, whether or not they relate to the property, affairs or government of such local government, except to the extent that the legislature shall restrict the adoption of such a local law relating to other than the property, affairs or government of such local government: (Emphasis added.)

a. A county, city, town or village:

(1) The powers, duties, qualifications, number, mode of selection and removal, terms of office, compensation, hours of work, protection, welfare and safety of its officers and employees, except that cities and towns shall not have such power with respect to members of the legislative body of the county in their capacities as county officers. This provision shall include but not be limited to the creation or discontinuance of departments of its government and the prescription or modification of their powers and duties. . . .

e. A village:

(3) The amendment or supersession in its application to it, of any provision of the village law relating to the property, affairs or government of the village or to other matters in relation to which and to the extent to which it is authorized to adopt local laws by this section, notwithstanding that such provision is a general law, unless the legislature expressly shall have prohibited the adoption of such a local law. (Emphasis added.)

In holding Municipal Home Rule Law § 10(1)(ii)(e)(3) to be constitutional but Local Law No. 10, enacted thereunder, to be null and void, Special Term read § 10(1)(ii)(e)(3) as being subject to the limitation (set forth in Municipal Home Rule Law § 10(1)(i) & (ii)) that any local law adopted thereunder not be "inconsistent with any general law." Inasmuch as the Village Law was held to be a general law, the local law which purported to supersede or amend it was found to be contrary to the limitation in Municipal Home Rule Law § 10(1)(i) & (ii) and therefore void.

We agree that the Village Law is a general law. The New York State Constitution, Article IX, § 3, subd. d and Municipal Home Rule Law § 2, subd. 5 both define a general law as a law or state statute "which in terms and in effect applies alike to all . . . villages." ²

The Village Law, by its terms, applies to all villages of the state "heretofore or hereafter incorporated". (Village Law § 1-102.) Its constitutional purpose was "to provide a uniform charter for all such villages". (Matter of Cutler v. Herman, 3 N.Y.2d 334, 339, 165 N.Y.S.2d 449, 452, 144 N.E.2d 353, 355.) Thus, by its terms and in its effect, the Village Law is a "general law" as defined in Article IX, § 3, subd. d of the New York State Constitution and Municipal Home Rule Law § 2, subd. 5. The fact that twelve chartered villages are, by virtue of the saving clauses (Village Law §§ 23-2200, 23-2202), exempted from operation of the Village Law does not, as respondents-appellants contend, make it any less a general law. The exception to the operation of the Village Law for chartered villages is based on a reasonable classification and the law applies uniformly to all other villages throughout the state (Farrington v. Pinckney, 1 N.Y.2d 74, 95, 150 N.Y.S.2d 585, 604, 133 N.E.2d 817, 831; Matter of McAneny v. Board of Estimate & Apportionment of the City of New York, 232 N.Y. 377, 391 92, 134 N.E. 187, 192-193; Wholesale Laundry Bd. of Trade v. City of New York, 43 Misc.2d 816, 818, 252 N.Y.S.2d 502, 505, aff'd 22 A.D.2d 762, 252 N.Y.S.2d 955, aff'd 15 N.Y.2d 604, 255 N.Y.S.2d 265, 203 N.E.2d 652; Robinson v. County of Broome, 195 Misc. 24, 29-30, 87 N.Y.S.2d 501, 505-507, aff'd 276 App.Div. 69, 93 N.Y.S.2d 662; Matter of Hesselgrave v. King, 45 Misc.2d 256, 258, 256 N.Y.S.2d 753, 756).

We do not accept Special Term's reading of Municipal Home Rule Law § 10(1)(ii) (e)(3) to mean that a village may amend or supersede the Village Law but not in a way that is inconsistent with the Village Law. This clearly anomalous interpretation deprives the section of any meaning and violates the accepted canons of construction that all parts of a statute must be harmonized with each other and with the general intent of the statute, and that each part of the statute must, if possible, be given effect (McKinney's Statutes § 98); and that any construction should be avoided which produces an anomalous or absurd result (McKinney's Statutes § 145) or deprives a provision of meaning and effect (McKinney's Statutes § 144).

Further, the construction adopted by Special Term does violence to the natural and obvious meaning of the provision which is to allow villages to amend the Village Law as it affects their own affairs. It is fundamental that the court must, if possible, give effect to the plain meaning of the statute (McKinney's Statutes § 94; Patrolmen's Benevolent Assn. of the City of N. Y. v. City of New York, 41 N.Y.2d 205, 208, 391 N.Y.S.2d 544, 546, 359 N.E.2d 1338, 1340).

It is quite possible to resolve the apparent conflict between the provisions of Municipal Home Rule Law § 10(1)(ii)(e)(3) specifically authorizing villages to amend the Village Law, with the limiting provisions contained in Municipal Home Rule Law § 10(1)(i) & (ii) be reading the words " not inconsistent with any general law" as being impliedly subject to an exception where, as here, the inconsistency has been specifically authorized by the legislature in the same section as the limitation. Because the legislature must have intended the provision to have effect and to fit with the rest of the statute, reading the limiting phrases as subject to the proviso: "except as specifically authorized in this section" seems reasonable.

Such interpretation is consistent with the statutory mandate that the Municipal Home Rule Law "shall be liberally...