State ex rel. St. Louis Fire Fighters Ass'n Local No. 73, AFL-CIO v. Stemmler

• Decision Date: 10 April 1972
• Docket Number: AFL-CIO,No. 57072,57072
• Parties: STATE of Missouri ex rel. ST. LOUIS FIRE FIGHTERS ASSOCIATION LOCAL NO. 73,, an Unincorporated Association, et al., Respondents, v. George STEMMLER et al. (Respondents in Mandamus), Appellants, R. Elliott Scearce (Respondent in Mandamus), and The City of St. Louis (Defendant), Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 456

479 S.W.2d 456

STATE of Missouri ex rel. ST. LOUIS FIRE FIGHTERS ASSOCIATION LOCAL NO. 73, AFL-CIO, an Unincorporated Association, et al., Respondents, v. George STEMMLER et al. (Respondents in Mandamus), Appellants R. Elliott Scearce (Respondent in Mandamus) and The City of St. Louis (Defendant), Appellant.

No. 57072.

Supreme Court of Missouri, En Banc.

April 10, 1972.

Motions for Rehearing and Clarification Denied May 8, 1972.

Bartley, Goffstein, Marshall & Bollato, William H. Bartley, John H. Goffstein, Clayton, for respondents.

Thompson, Walther, Shewmaker & Gaebe, Richard D. Shewmaker, St. Louis, for appellants Stemmler, Cummings and Gould and the City of St. Louis.

Aaron A. Wilson, City Counselor, Salmon B. Mumma, Associate City Counselor, amicus curiae.

FINCH, Chief Justice.

This case, written on recent reassignment, involves the question of whether a home rule charter amendment providing that salaries for St. Louis firemen shall be not less than those of corresponding ranks of St. Louis police officers (whose pay is fixed by the Missouri General Assembly) is constitutional. We hold that it is.

St. Louis is a constitutional charter city operating pursuant to Art. VI, §§ 31, 32(a) and 32(b), of the Constitution of Missouri. ¹ Those provisions authorize the city to amend or revise its charter, subject only to the requirement that such charter be in harmony with and subject to the Constitution of Missouri and its laws in matters of general interest and statewide concern. Subject to such limitations, the home rule charter is the city's organic law--its constitution. Sanders v. City of St. Louis, Mo., 303 S.W.2d 925.

Art. I, § 1(20), of the St. Louis Charter authorizes the city 'To provide and maintain a fire department,' and Art. XVIII, § 4(a) thereof provides that the board of aldermen shall adopt a plan of compensation fixing rates of pay for all employees in the classified service (including firemen) on recommendation of the civil service commission.

At an election held on September 15, 1970, the voters of St. Louis approved an amendment to Art. XVIII which added a new § 31 thereto. That new section provided that, notwithstanding any other provisions of the charter or ordinances, the salaries of designated ranks and positions of employees of the Fire Department 'shall from and after the effective date of this section and thereafter not be less than the salaries provided by law for the said equivalent and corresponding ranks and positions of officials of the police force of the City of St. Louis.' The amendment set forth a table specifying what were corresponding ranks in the two departments.

After voter approval of the above charter amendment, the civil service commission held a meeting concerning a proposed compensation ordinance for firemen. In spite of the newly adopted § 31 of Art. XVIII, the commission recommended an ordinance containing salary levels for firemen which in some instances were lower (and in others higher) than those for corresponding police positions as listed in the charter amendment. The board of aldermen adopted this recommended ordinance, effective November 1, 1970.

Thereupon the relators herein sought mandamus (Count I) and declaratory judgment relief (Count II) in this proceeding. They sought to act individually and as representatives of a class under Rule 52.08, V.A.M.R. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of relators, holding the charter amendment to be valid and directing by writ of mandamus that the civil service commission recommend an ordinance whereby firemen would receive not less than the salaries of corresponding ranks of the police force. Both the city and the members of the civil service commission have appealed.

The first contention by appellants is that since salaries of police officers of the City of St. Louis are fixed by the general assembly of Missouri, ² the charter amendment results in the general assembly, rather than the board of aldermen, fixing the compensation of the city's firemen. This, they say, constitutes an unconstitutional attempted delegation by the city of its legislative responsibility to fix the compensation of its firemen.

Appellants in their brief cite numerous cases which announce the general proposition that a legislative body may not abdicate or delegate its legislative power. However, that rule is not pertinent because we are not reviewing the validity of the action of a legislative body. Instead, we are dealing with the constitutionality of an amendment to the city charter and must decide the question of whether the people of St. Louis had the right to adopt that amendment and thereby provide in their charter (their fundamental law) that certain minimums should be observed thereafter in the fixing of compensation of their city firemen.

A consideration of this question necessitates a recognition of the basic fact that the people themselves are the source of all governmental power. Their will is supreme. They spell out in their constitution what form their government shall take and what powers it shall have. ³ Hence, when the people of the State of Missouri write or amend their constitution, they may insert therein any provision they desire, subject only to the limitation that it must not violate restrictions which the people have imposed on themselves and on the states by provisions which they have written into the federal constitution. ⁴

When we turn to the question of what may be provided in the St. Louis home rule charter, we find that the people of Missouri, by provisions written into the state constitution (Art. VI, §§ 31, 32(a) and 32(b)), have said that the people of St. Louis may write their own charter for their city government. The only restrictions stated in this constitutional grant of power are that such charter is subject to the Missouri constitution and the state laws of general interest and statewide concern. Of course, although not expressed in the Missouri constitution, it is implicit that the city charter, like the state constitution, may not violate restrictions imposed by the federal constitution. Subject only to the foregoing limitations, the people of Missouri, by Art. VI, §§ 31, 32(a) and 32(b), have granted to the people of St. Louis the power to write and to amend their own charter and to provide therein the kind of city government which they want.

We know of no state constitutional provision or any state law of general interest or statewide concern which says that a Missouri constitutional home rule charter city must leave the matter of compensation of city officials or employees entirely to its legislative body (board f aldermen or council), or that such city cannot have a charter provision either expressly fixing the amount of pay of such persons or, in the alternative, imposing limitations in the form of guidelines which the legislative body must follow in fixing such pay. As a matter of fact, this court in Kirby et al. v. Nolte, 351 Mo. 525, 173 S.W.2d 391, expressly recognized that St. Louis could write into its city charter provisions which limited its board of aldermen in their function of fixing compensation for city employees. The people of St. Louis had adopted an amendment to their city charter establishing a civil service commission which was to prepare a classification and compensation plan providing rates of pay for all city employees in the classified service. That charter amendment provided that when such a plan was drafted by the commission and submitted to the board of aldermen, the plan was to be adopted by ordinance. Pursuant to that charter provision, the commission prepared and submitted a plan, but the board of aldermen passed an ordinance which established salaries which differed from those specified in the proposed civil service plan.

In the litigation which followed, this court held that the language of the charter amendment was mandatory, and that the board of aldermen could either accept or reject the recommendation of the commission, but could not change it. In so holding, the court said, 173 S.W.2d l.c. 392: 'Granting that the fixing of a fundamental wage policy and rates of pay for various positions is ordinarily a legislative function, still the people of St. Louis, through an amendment to the charter, may properly impose a limitation on the legislative power to permit the fixing of such rates only on the recommendation of the commission.' (Emphasis supplied.) Subsequently, the opinion recognized specifically that the legislative power of the board of aldermen is subject to limitations imposed in the charter and that the effect of the civil service commission amendment was that the aldermen could not fix salaries without the recommendation of the civil service commission and they could not change those recommendations. This, the court said, 173 S.W. l.c. 393, 'does not violate Article III of the Constitution, which divides the powers of government into the legislative, executive and judicial departments.' ⁵

This same recognition of the power of the people themselves to write constitutional provisions with respect to compensating employees and the basis thereof appears in the language used by this court in two other cases. In State ex rel. Rothrum v. Darby, 345 Mo. 1002, 137 S.W.2d 532, the relator sought by mandamus to compel the city to pay money claimed to be due for salary as a member of the fire department. Under the Kansas City charter the city council was to fix salaries and the relator sought to recover his salary as fixed by the city council. The city defended on the basis of an agreement between the city manager and the fire department employees for deductions from their pay. The fireman was permitted to recover because under the charter his compensation was a legislative matter. However, even though the case did not involve a charter provision limiting the legislative power to fix rates of pay, Judge Hyde, in...