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Taylor v. Philadelphia

190 A. 663, 126 Pa. Super. 196, 1937 Pa. Super. LEXIS 395
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedOctober 22, 1936
DocketAppeal, 281
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 190 A. 663 (Taylor v. Philadelphia) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Taylor v. Philadelphia, 190 A. 663, 126 Pa. Super. 196, 1937 Pa. Super. LEXIS 395 (Pa. Ct. App. 1936).

Opinion

Opinion by

Keller, P. J.,

The Personal Registration Act of July 10, 1919, P. L. 857, 25 PS sections 361 to 421, applicable to cities of the first class, provides for the appointment by the Governor of five registration commissioners for a term of four years, each of whom is to receive a salary of four thousand dollars per annum, payable monthly by the treasurer of the city upon presentation of proper warrants signed by the chairman or chief clerk of the commission. Section 45 of the Act, 25 PS 344, directs the city council to appropriate annually, and from time to time, the funds necessary for the maintenance and operation of the commission, including the pay *199 ment of the registrars, the commissioners, and their clerks, counsel, etc., and to provide the commissioners with suitable and adequate rooms and furniture for keeping their records and performing their duties. Section 46 of the Act, 25 PS 442, imposes on the county commissioners the duty to see that the polling places are open and in proper order for the use of registrars on each day when they are required to be in session in the various election districts, and to provide for the payment of all rentals for the same. Registration Commissioners are not, strictly speaking, city officers. They are public officers (Com. v. Moore, 266 Pa. 100, 109 A. 611) created by the General Assembly, with the purpose in view of securing honest elections in cities. City Council has nothing to do with their appointment, the discharge of their duties or their removal from office. It can neither increase nor diminish their compensation. Any attempt to do so would be illegal and void. Its only duties are to appropriate the money necessary for the maintenance and operation of the commission and to furnish suitable and adequate accommodations for the performance of their duties.

Governor Pinchot appointed five registration commissioners, among them the plaintiff, C. Burgess Taylor. He served from July 11, 1931 to February 7, 1935, when he was removed from office by Governor Earle. He brought this action against the City of Philadelphia to recover the difference between his compensation as fixed by the Act of 1919, supra, and the total of the amounts paid him monthly by the city during the two year period from January 1,1932 to December 31, 1933. The city has appealed from the judgment entered in his favor, upon the verdict of a jury.

The facts on which the city relies to reverse this judgment are as follows:

On December 31, 1931 city council enacted an ordinance for the adoption of a financial program for the *200 city for the year 1932, section 18 of which appropriated to the Registration Commission aforesaid the sum of $320,710, of which sum, item A-l included an appropriation of $4000 for each of the five registration commissioners. Section 31 of this ordinance provided “that all per diem and other employes of the city, county or other departments paid by appropriation from this financial program for the year 1932 ...... receiving more than $1200 per annum, shall be decreased in wages or salary in the sum of ten per centum, to be apportioned in an amount in each pay so that the said per diem or other employe shall not receive in the aggregate during the year 1932 more than ninety per cent of the basic wage or salary hereinbefore specified; and the City Controller is hereby directed not to countersign any warrant in excess of the amounts provided by this section.” We may here note that the plaintiff was not a “per diem or other employe of the city, county or other department” referred to in the ordinance. He was a public officer, whose salary or compensation could not be lessened or diminished by City Council. The ordinance was without legal effect on the plaintiff’s salary as fixed by Act of Assembly.

On January 16, 1933 City Council enacted a like ordinance for the year 1933, section 18 of which appropriated to the Registration Commission aforesaid the sum of $224,946, of which sum, item A-l included an appropriation of $4000 for each of the five registration commissioners. Section 31 of this ordinance provided, “that employes of the City, County, or other departments or agencies paid by appropriation from this financial program for the year 1933, shall be decreased in salary, wages, or other compensation in the following manner: Those receiving compensation on per annum or monthly basis shall receive an exemption of Six Hundred ($600.00) Dollars per annum on the basic rate of salary, and from the remainder thereof a twenty- *201 three per centum reduction shall be made, to be apportioned in an equal amount in each pay......The City Controller is hereby directed not to countersign any warrant in excess of the amounts provided by this Section.” Again we may note that the plaintiff was not an employe affected by this ordinance. He was a public officer whose salary or compensation, fixed by Act of Assembly, could not be diminished by city council.

Nevertheless in making up the registration commission payroll sheets for the salaries payable to the registration commissioners the city officials attempted to deduct ten per centum in 1932 and twenty-three per centum in 1933, and the city controller countersigned, and the city treasurer paid, vouchers, not for the full monthly salary due the registration commissioners but only for that amount less the deduction ordained by city council as respects employes of the city, county, etc. The method of payment used may be summarized as follows: Vouchers were not drawn for each commissioner, but one voucher for all five commissioners was drawn in favor of the chief clerk or some other employe of the commission to whom a signed power of attorney to receive the same had been given by the Commissioners, which remained on file in the city controller’s office. Every month two payrolls were prepared, one for the city controller’s office, and one for the office of the registration commissioners. The city solicitor contends that the original was filed in the office of the registration commissioners and the copy in the city controller’s office. Plaintiff’s counsel asserts jusl; the opposite. We think they were both originals, with a few slight differences, but the fully executed one remained in the city controller’s office.

The payroll sheets are fourteen inches wide by seventeen inches long. The pay roll for January 1932 filed in the city controller’s office (Record 120a) is here *202 printed, as well as can be done in a page this size, all the pages constituting one sheet.

*203

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Bluebook (online)
190 A. 663, 126 Pa. Super. 196, 1937 Pa. Super. LEXIS 395, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/taylor-v-philadelphia-pasuperct-1936.