Winn v. Jordan

• Decision Date: 20 June 1957
• Citation: 101 N.H. 65,133 A.2d 485
• Parties: Charles S. WINN et al. v. John W. JORDAN et al., New Hampshire Personnel Commission.
• Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court

Page 485

133 A.2d 485

101 N.H. 65

Charles S. WINN et al. v. John W. JORDAN et al., New Hampshire Personnel Commission.

Supreme Court of New Hampshire.

Argued April 2, 1957.

Decided June 20, 1957.

Sheehan, Phinney, Bass, Green & Bergevin and Richard A. Morse, Manchester, Richard A. Green, Manchester, orally, for plaintiffs.

Louis C. Wyman, Atty. Gen., Elmer T. Bourque and Arthur E. Bean, Jr., Asst. Attys. Gen., for defendants.

DUNCAN, Justice.

Legislation adopted in 1950 provided for the classification of salaries and positions of state employees. Laws 1950, c. 9. See, also, Laws 1950, c. 5, part. 25. The act called for establishment of a Personnel Commission and defined its duties, one of which was to establish a classification plan which should include the principles recommended by the Governor's Advisory Committee on Reclassification. RSA 98:3, 98:8, subd. IV.

RSA 98:14 provides: 'Any employee affected by the allocation of a position in a classification shall, after filing with the director of personnel a written request for reconsideration thereof, be given a reasonable opportunity to be heard thereon by the director; any employee who is dissatisfied with the ruling of the director shall have a right of appeal to the commission.' RSA 98:15, immediately following, provides for appeal to the Commission by any employee who is dismissed, demoted or suspended, upon which there shall be a right to public hearing; and any action or decision thereon is made subject to 'rehearing and appeal as provided in chapter 541 of the Revised Statutes Annotated.'

It is not disputed that the pending proceedings are governed by section 14, supra, of the act, and the parties were in agreement at the arguments that no appeal lies from this decision of the Personnel Commission because none is 'authorized by law.' RSA 541:2. Petition of Dondero, 94 N.H. 236, 51 A.2d 39. Cf. RSA 98:15, supra. Although the plaintiffs have mistaken their remedy, our practice permits consideration of their petition as one for writ of certiorari, entitling them to the limited determination of whether the Commission has acted 'illegally in respect to jurisdiction, authority or observance of the law.' Cloutier v. State Milk Control Board, 92 N.H. 199, 203, 28 A.2d 554, 557; Goldsmith v. Kingsford, 92 N.H. 442, 444, 32 A.2d 810. Upon this assumption, the plaintiffs have urged that this court should either prescribe the reclassification which they seek or in the alternative require that the Commission reconsider their appeal for the purpose of making express findings with respect to their requests.

The law is settled that it is not open to this court to make findings de novo, or to revise those made by the Commission. Opinion of the Justices, 98 N.H. 533, 536, 104 A.2d 195, and cases cited. This is peculiarly so in this case because the manner of classification of positions of state employees is 'purely an administrative matter for the * * * commission to decide.' McDonald v. City Manager of Fall River, 273 Mass. 368, 173 N.E. 593, 594. It is not contended in these proceedings that the services performed by individual employees do not properly come within the classified positions governing their pay. The issue is solely one of whether the duties and responsibilities of the positions have been properly evaluated in determining the labor grade assigned to the positions. '[O]rdinarily the exercise of such a function is executive or administrative in its nature rather than judicial.' Curry v. Civil Service Commission, 125 Conn. 344, 346, note, 5 A.2d 846, 847; Simons v. McGuire, 204 N.Y. 253, 97 N.E. 526; Cicotte v. Damron, 345 Mich. 528, 535, 77 N.W.2d 139; Annotation, 134 A.L.R. 1103, 1106. Hence it is doubtful that this court could properly make the classification sought by the plaintiffs even if an appeal were authorized by the statute. See Howe v. Civil Service Commission, 128 Conn. 35, 40, 20 A.2d 397.

A fundamental precept in the proper classification of positions calls not only for consideration of the duties of a particular position, but also of the relative duties of other comparable positions involved in the plan. RSA 98:13, subd. XIII. As is pointed out in Position Classification in the Public Service (Civil Service Assembly 1942), p. 320: 'The analysis of the position presented for review, its evaluation as to kind and level of work, the applicability of class specifications, the comparative analysis of other positions, the allocation of the position to its proper class, the propriety of establishing a new or changing an existing class, the determination of the characteristics of a new or changed class in relation to existing classes--are all technical questions which are embraced in deciding the action to be taken. * * * One of the first and most important things that any classification staff has to learn is that a classification plan is an integrated structure, all the parts of which are connected and deserve attention when a change is contemplated in any one of them.' For these reasons the Legislature properly confided the duty of making a final determination to the Commission, which under the statute was given the responsibility of establishing the plan in the first place, and of revising it 'from time to time.' RSA 98:8, subd. IV, supra.

The only question for this court to determine is whether is the exercise of its classification powers the Commission has abused its discretion by arbitrary, unreasonable or capricious action. Carls v. Civil Service Commission of New Jersey, 17 N.J. 215, 221, 111 A.2d 45; Howe v. Civil Service Commission, supra; Sippell v. Dowd, 191 Misc. 558, 76 N.Y.S.2d 440, 447, affirmed 274 App.Div. 1027, 86 N.Y.S.2d 478. See Powell v. Fuller, 96 N.H. 322, 75 A.2d 926.

It is argued that the evidence before the Commission, which came solely from the plaintiffs,...