Rosenstrauch v. Reavy

174 Misc. 446, 21 N.Y.S.2d 358, 1940 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1922
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 3, 1940
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 174 Misc. 446 (Rosenstrauch v. Reavy) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rosenstrauch v. Reavy, 174 Misc. 446, 21 N.Y.S.2d 358, 1940 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1922 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1940).

Opinion

Murray, J.

This is an application pursuant to article 78 of the Civil Practice Act. It is directed against the Civil Service Commission, and affects an examination held for Senior Unemployment Insurance Claims Examiner,” a position with the Department of Labor, in the Division of Placement and Unemployment Insurance.

The petitioner is an attorney. He applied to take the examination. His application was rejected upon the ground that he did not show the required experience. He alleges that the Civil Service Commission acted in an arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable manner in excluding him; that he has been discriminated against. Petitioner claims that although he is an experienced lawyer, and has been in active practice as such, because he did not practice his profession in the employ of a “ large commercial, insurance, industrial, mercantile or governmental agency,” he could not be and was not credited by the Commission with his experience as a lawyer. He further asserts that the action of the Civil Service Commission in rating applicants to the extent of sixty per cent for “ training, experience and general qualifications is in direct violation of the law, because by this order the Commission applied a purely subjective standard rather than an objective standard, and that for this reason the examination cannot be called competitive.” He asks for an injunction restraining the Civil Service Commission from announcing the results of the examination which it conducted for “ Senior Unemployment Insurance Claims Examiner ” on February 17, 1940, and from utilizing any list resulting from such examination; also compelling [448]*448the Commission to revise the prescribed qualifications so as to include a law office where one has been actively practicing law as a place where the required experience may be gained, and compelling the Commission to eliminate the provision allowing sixty per cent credit for “ training, experience and general qualifications,” and requiring substitution of objective standards for rating of applicants for the position and requiring the Commission to accept the application of petitioner and other qualified attorneys who have filed applications for the examination and for such other relief as the court may deem just and proper.

Petitioner is twenty-eight years of age. He graduated from high school, college and law school, and was admitted to the bar in 1933. His application for permission to take the examination in question shows a general law practice by him since admission to the bar, except that in 1937 he became president of a soup corporation, and in 1939 retired from that occupation. He is not a stranger to the Civil Service Commission. In 1939 he took a civil service examination for the position of investigator A. B. C. Board. He also filed an application with the Commission to take an examination for assistant examiner in methods and procedure. For the position of A. B. C. investigator, his application shows “ no results.” The Civil Service Commission rejected his application for the position of assistant examiner in methods and procedure, because he had no appropriate experience. His request for permission to take the examination for Senior Unemployment Insurance Claims Examiner ” was refused by the Civil Service Commission for the reason that he did not show that he had satisfactory claims experience.

It is the contention of petitioner that the Civil Service Commission has not only discriminated against him as an attorney, but all other attorneys of the State of New York, asserting that the Civil Service Commission has arbitrarily refused to give! lawyers credit for experience obtained in their own law offices and work.

The answer of respondents denies that petitioner was rejected on any such grounds, but because his application revealed that he did not have the necessary and appropriate supervisory experience in meeting the minimum qualifications. The answer of the respondents shows in support of their position in rejecting petitioner’s application that a senior examiner of claims is required to supervise groups of from fifty to one hundred investigators and other employees engaged in searching and adjusting contested claims. Directly challenging the allegation of petitioner that lawyers as a class are discriminated against, the answer of respondents alleges that out of a total of one hundred and forty-nine persons, who quail-[449]*449tied for the examination under the requirements, thirty-five were lawyers, and that on a percentage basis approximately twenty-five per cent of all who qualified to take the examination were lawyers; that many of such lawyers qualified by showing sufficient training and experience gained in a law office.

To this court the claim of petitioner is based largely, if not entirely, upon the fact that he is a lawyer; that he has had seven years’ experience as such in his own office, except for about two years in the soup business, and that such experience is equally as good as that of a lawyer who has had the experience of working for the same time in a large commercial, insurance, mercantile, industrial or governmental organization. He claims that because of his law office experience it must be deemed that he is fully qualified for the work of supervising groups of employees ranging from fifty to one hundred and other employees engaged in searching and adjusting contested claims; that he is equally as efficient in doing this kind of work as is a person who has been employed for a large commercial, insurance, industrial, mercantile or governmental organization. The word supervise ” means, “ to be able to direct, to oversee and to exercise authority,” and is a quality which requires more than mere legal ability. It connotes not only knowledge but executive capacity.

A distinguished jurist has recently stated that courts are not organized nor do they exist to direct departments of administration of our government as to the manner they must conduct their business and respective functions. With that statement this court concurs. Individuals constantly petition the court for a judgment or decree or order to instruct, direct and regulate purely administrative bodies and agencies, and to declare to them how they must operate, and what they must do and not do. There is no greater fallacy extant than the notion that all wisdom and judgment is lodged in the judiciary. This erroneous supposition carried to its logical conclusion would annihilate representative government. It would be utterly destructive of order and good government. It would produce chaos and confusion. It is the negation of democracy.

The Civil Service Commission is an important arm and subdivision of the State of New York. It is a responsible administrative body clothed with broad powers, express and implied, conferred upon it by the Constitution and by statute. It would become lifeless and cease to function if shackled and straight jacketed by judicial process, or if stripped of reasonable discretion to carry into effect its considered judgments and rules,

[450]*450This proceeding at bar is a concrete example of a desire by the petitioner to obtain a judgment or decree by which it is proposed that the Supreme Court of this State nullify the work and efforts of the Civil Service Commission; that this court substitute its opinion, judgment and discretion in place and stead of that of the Commission. It is well to understand that the position petitioner wishes to have in the employ of the State is that of

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Related

Bruns v. Suffolk County Civil Service Commission
56 Misc. 2d 925 (New York Supreme Court, 1968)
Mallen v. Morton
199 Misc. 805 (New York Supreme Court, 1950)
Almassy v. Los Angeles County Civil Service Commission
210 P.2d 503 (California Supreme Court, 1949)

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Bluebook (online)
174 Misc. 446, 21 N.Y.S.2d 358, 1940 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1922, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rosenstrauch-v-reavy-nysupct-1940.