Commonwealth ex rel. Malone v. Crummer
Commonwealth ex rel. Malone v. Crummer
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
This is an action in quo warranto brought by the Commonwealth at the relation of the District Attorney of Allegheny County, to the use of Donald J. Payne, to oust from their positions ten named traffic sergeants in the City of Pittsburgh. The city intervened as a party defendant. After defendants had filed an answer to the complaint, together with new matter to which plaintiff replied, the court entered an order granting the latter’s motion for judgment on the pleadings. Prom that order defendants now appeal.
In pursuance of an ordinance of the City of Pittsburgh an organization known as the Traffic Division of the International Association of Chiefs of Police made a study of traffic conditions in Pittsburgh and offered several recommendations whereby greater police efficiency could be secured in dealing with the traffic problem. In order to implement those recommendations the city council enacted a budget ordinance fixing and determining the officers, personnel and employes to be retained in service for municipal purposes and functions for the then ensuing fiscal year of 1952, and also an ordinance fixing and creating the number, character, title and salary of such officers, personnel and employes for that year and including therein ten traffic sergeants at an annual salary each of $4,085; such positions had never theretofore existed in the police department of the city. Thereupon the Civil Service Commission posted an official bulletin announcing that a promotional competitive examination would be held for these new positions and stated therein that applicants must have had service for a
The first question raised by plaintiff is whether the City of Pittsburgh had the right to create the new position of traffic sergeant. The court below properly held that the city did have such power. The Act of March 7, 1901, P. L. 20, for the government of cities of the second class, contains a provision (Article II, section 1) that “Councils shall provide by ordinance for such bureaus, clerks, or other subordinate officers, as may be required for the transaction of the business of the departments.” Wholly apart from such express authority the city council undoubtedly possessed an inherent power to provide for positions such as those here in question, designed, as they were, to protect the lives and safety of the people. There is no more urgent problem facing our municipalities today than that of traffic control and regulation, and certainly the council could provide for such specialized positions in the bureau of police as were deemed necessary to deal effectively with that problem, nor is there anything in the Act of March 25, 1929, P. L. 67, classifying patrolmen and officers of the police department, which negatives that right; indeed there are many positions now existing in the police department additional to those there classified.
This brings us to plaintiffs final and probably more serious complaint, namely, that the effect of the Act of August 10, 1951, P. L. 1189, was to invalidate the requirement imposed by the Civil Service Commission of two years’ experience in the traffic division as a qualification for appointment as traffic sergeant. That Act, after providing in section 1 that all positions in the bureau of police in cities of the second class should, with certain exceptions, be in the competitive class of the civil service of such cities, further provided, in section 2, that “The civil service commissions in cities of the second class shall not have the power to change any rule or regulation which has been established and which is in force and effect on the date of the approval of this act in so far as the same shall apply to the positions provided for in this act to be in the competitive class; nor shall any commission have the power to waive any such rule or regulation in any specific case or cases.”
Plaintiff intimates that if the City of Pittsburgh can create new positions and the Civil Service Commission prescribe the qualifications for filling them the door might thereby be opened to possible chicanery by which favored employes could be promoted to higher grades by the Commission narrowing the competitive field through the formulation of required qualifications based on experience obtained through past tenure. Of course any power can be abused, but here there is not the slightest room for doubt that the creation of these new positions and the prescription of the qualifications required for filling them were measures designed in the utmost good faith and solely for the purpose of dealing with the ever-growing problem of traffic regulation in the City of Pittsburgh.
Because of the views thus expressed in regard to the merits of this controversy we have not given consideration to the question whether these traffic sergeants are public “officers” or mere “employes,” and therefore whether or not quo warranto lies, in any event, to oust them from their positions, but it may not be amiss in that connection to call attention to the fact that the title of the very Act of August 10, 1951, P. L. 1189, on which plaintiff relies is as follows: “Regulating the appointment,, promotion, suspension, reduction, removal and reinstatement of employes . . . in bureaus of police in cities of the second class; . . .”
The order is reversed, and judgment on the pleadings is here entered in favor of the defendants..
Section 5 of the Act provided that “No person employed in a competitive position in the bureau of police in any city of the second class shall be eligible for promotion from a lower grade to a higher grade until such person shall have completed at least four years service in the grade of patrolman.”
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