Jones v. House of Reformation

Mitchell, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. By Chapter 392 of the Acts of 1870 of the General Assembly of Maryland, the House of Reformation was incorporated, and since that time, as a private corporation, has exercised its functions in behalf of underprivileged' colored boys. Its charter has been amended a number ⁴⁵ of times since the original incorporation; and its rights and powers, except as changed in the manner to which reference is hereinafter made, are now set forth in article 27, sections 591 to 611, inclusive, of the Code of Public General Laws. About the time of its incorporation it established a reform school, located at Cheltenham in Prince George’s County, and gradually accumulated property, until in 1935 it had acquired 1200 acres of land, improved by buildings adapted to its purposes, equipped with stock for farming purposes and other personal property, of a total value in excess of §400,000.

The inmates of the institution in said year numbered more than 400 colored boys committed to it by courts of criminal jurisdiction throughout the state, at a cost of §200 per year per boy, the same being paid by the county or city unit from which the inmate was committed. In addition to the sum realized for the above service, the State of Maryland paid to the corporation a lump sum of §20,000 per year. This situation with reference to the institution prevailed until the passage of chapter 70 of the Acts of 1937, which added eleven new sections, to follow immediately after section 611 of article 27, in substance designed to authorize and empower the State of Maryland to accept title to all the property of the corporation and establish a state institution, to be known as the “Cheltenham School for Boys,” and to be a public agency of the State for the care and reformation of colored male minors committed or transferred to its care under the laws of the State. Section 611-B of the 1937 Acts provides that the House of Reformation, the appellee in this case, in consideration of the State of Maryland assuming its obligations to the colored male minors then under its custody and care, is authorized and empowered to transfer all of its property of every kind and description to the State of Maryland as of October 1st, 1937, except, however, the sum of §30,000, which sum the Act provides could be withheld by the corporate body, the House of Reformation, and be disbursed from time to time by the board of ⁴⁶ managers of said House of Reformation, in its discretion, for the uses and purposes of the Cheltenham School for Boys, or for the benefit of past and present employees of the House of Reformation, or both; the Act providing the manner in which the fund reserved by the corporation should be invested, and that any unexpended balance of principal and interest after ten years from October 1st, 1937, should be paid over by the board to the treasurer of the State of Maryland, and thereupon the board would take steps to effect the dissolution of the House of Reformation corporation.

The Act then names the board of managers of Cheltenham School for Boys, provides the manner in which their successors shall from time to time be chosen, defines their duties and fixes their compensation ; and section 611-D provides, in part: “And the Board of Managers of the Cheltenham School for Boys shall appoint all new employees from lists provided by the Commissioner of State Employment and Registration; provided, however, that upon the transfer of the property as aforesaid, the present employees of The House of Reformation shall become employees of the Cheltenham School for Boys, and shall continue in the discharge of their present functions and duties as classified service employees of the State of Maryland under Article 64-A of the Annotated Code of Maryland, title ‘Merit System,’ without need of special examination as to fitness, and they shall have all the' rights and privileges accorded State employees the same as if they had been State employees from the time of their employment by the House of Reformation, or from the time said Merit System went into effect.” The record shows that between the passage of the Act of 1937 and October 1st of said year, the time limited by the Act for the formal transfer of the property to the State, Harry C. Jones, State Employment Commissioner, the appellant in this case, who by virtue of his office is charged with the administration of the Merit System, sought the opinion of the Attorney General as to whether, upon the transfer of the property to the State, he, as ⁴⁷ such commissioner, would be authorized to conduct classification tests for employees of the Cheltenham School for Boys thereby brought into the Merit System under the provisions of the Act of 1937; and that the Attorney General, in reply to the inquiry, instructed the Commissioner that the language of section 611-D of the Act brought into the Merit System a number of persons who had not theretofore taken any examination or obtained a rating under the system, and that the Commissioner was required by the Act to accept them into the system and was authorized to give them classification tests in order to determine in which of the many Merit System classifications such new employees might respectively fall; the Attorney General adding that such classification would be for the benefit of the employees as well as the uniformity of the State service, because by obtaining a classification they would then be in a position to secure other employment in the State, in event of a possible layoff at the Cheltenham School for Boys. This correspondence between the Commissioner and the Attorney General led to apprehension on the part of Enoch Harlan, president of the House of Reformation, who thereafter interviewed the Commissioner and obtained from him the information that it was the intention of the Commissioner, promptly after October 1st, if the House of Reformation had been turned over to the State in the meantime, to send to every employee of the school a blank application, to be filled in and sent to the Employment Commissioner, for a position as an employee of the State of Maryland; that he would then hold examinations and determine the proper classification of each person applying, and his fitness for the position applied for; that in case the applicant was not, in his judgment, fitted for the position applied for, the Commissioner would designate the classification to which the applicant would be relegated; that if the applicant failed to qualify, in the judgment of the Commissioner, for the post he was then filling at the school, the applicant would not be permitted to longer fill such position, and it would be ⁴⁸ necessary for the position to be filled from the classified list of state employees; and finally, that if the board of managers of the school should attempt to retain any one in his or her old position, after the Commissioner had decided such person was not fitted for such position, then he would not permit the salary to be paid to that person. The result of this interview caused Mr. Harlan, on May 15th, 1937, to write to the Attorney General, setting forth the attitude of the Commissioner as to his duties in the premises; in which letter, in part, the writer stated: “This is so contrary to my understanding of both the letter and spirit of the Act that I am writing you for a clarification of the matter. The Commissioner says that the Cheltenham employees cannot, in his judgment, become state employees, with all the rights and privileges accorded state employees under the Merit System, unless he examines and classifies them.

This matter of the present' employees becoming entitled to all the rights and privileges of state employees under the Merit System is rather negligible, as I understand it. The principal benefit is that the employee, if laid off at Cheltenham, would be eligible for a position in some other Maryland state institution, and very few, if any, of the Cheltenham employees would be interested in a position elsewhere. I have no objection to their being examined and classified, but I do object to any employee that is satisfactory to the board being removed from his position by the Commissioner’s refusing to pay the wages or salary.” In reply to the above letter, the Attorney General, on May 21st, wrote Mr. Harlan as follows: “I have your letter of May 15th in which you bring to my attention certain matters concerning the induction of employees at Cheltenham into the Merit System. Although I suppose you alreády have seen our opinion to Employment Commissioner Harry C. Jones, on this subject, I take pleasure in enclosing a copy thereof for your files.

I do not think you have any cause for apprehension that any employees will be dropped or discharged as a result of this ruling. By the terms of the Act all of the present employees at ⁴⁹ Cheltenham are brought into the State service and in doing so it is customary that some rating be given these persons to determine in what classifications they should be placed. This is the same procedure which was. followed when the employees of the Board of State Aid Charities were brought into the State service two years ago.” Other correspondence, between the State Budget Director and the Attorney General, found in the record, culminated in the following summary of the Attorney General’s opinion, as of June 24th, 1937, with reference to the subject of controversy: “(1) That the Commissioner may, in his discretion, proceed to classify these employees at any time they are inducted into the State service. (2) That these employees may not be discharged, dismissed or demoted as a result of such classification tests, since the statute provides that they shall continue to discharge ‘their present functions and duties.’ In taking over Cheltenham it is important that the statute be scrupulously followed.

It is apparent that the Legislature intended that all present employees of the institution be inducted into the Merit System in the positions they held before the Act was passed.” It was under this status that the House of Reformation formally conveyed and delivered its property to the State in accordance with the Act of 1937; and from October 1st, 1937, to March, 1938, inclusive, the employees of the House of Reformation at the time of the transfer were paid by the State; the pay rolls for such employees being regularly certified by the appellant as Employment Commissioner, as provided by the general law of the State. It appears, however, that during the period in which all the employees were being paid by the State, the Commissioner conducted an examination of them for the purpose of classification, and that on March 4th, 1938, he advised the board of managers of the Cheltenham School that the result of his examination of the then fifty-seven employees was to place them in three groups, as follows: Group 1, containing the names and assigned ⁵⁰ Merit System classification titles of twenty-two employees who had been found to possess the minimum qualifications for the positions which they then held; group 2, containing the names of nine employees to whom, for reasons given in each case, no Merit System classification title could then be assigned, and whose further disposition was dependent on future administration policies of the board of managers; and group 3, containing the names of twenty-six employees who had been found not to possess the minimum qualifications for the positions then held by them, and to whom no Merit System classification would be assigned. Accordingly, when the April pay roll was presented to the Commissioner for certification, he refused to certify the same because it embraced the pay of twenty-six employees covered in his third group. This ruling resulting in the severance of the pay roll and the certification by the Commissioner as to employees embraced in the first and second groups above mentioned, which latter employees have been since continuously paid by the State.

In this situation the House of Reformation, on June 24th, 1938, filed in the Superior Court of Baltimore City a petition substantially setting forth what has already been stated in the foregoing narrative of the case; and praying that a writ of mandamus be issued, directed to the State Employment Commissioner, commanding him to certify and approve the supplemental pay rolls referred to in the petition, containing the names of employees of the institution whose pay roll the Commissioner had refused to certify, and the respective amounts due them for the months of April, May and June. The petition was demurred to by the appellant, who, upon the overruling of his demurrer, filed an answer admitting all of the material allegations in the petition, and concluding by setting forth the result of the detailed examinations of- the employees made by the Commissioner as hereinbefore stated, and an argument in support of his findings. The court sustained the appellee’s demurrer to that portion of the answer containing the detailed reports ⁵¹ and the argument justifying the same, with leave to answer further; and, the appellant having declined to supplement his answer, the case was heard and decided upon the pleadings, no testimony being taken. From the order of that court, directing that the writ of mandamus be issued as prayed, passed on September 22nd, 1938, this appeal is taken.

Briefly, two questions are presented by the record: (1) Has the appellee a sufficient legal interest in the controversial questions to sustain a writ of mandamus? (2) Are the parts of the Act of 1937, establishing the Cheltenham School for Boys, which purport to place under the Merit System all of the former employees of the appellee, in such conflict with the general Merit System law, Code, art. 64-A, as to be unconstitutional? Considering these questions in the order of their sequence, it may be observed that the purpose of the writ of mandamus is not to establish a legal right, but to enforce one which has already been established; and it therefore follows that the legal right of the appellee or relator to the performance of the particular act of which performance is sought to be compelled must be clear and complete. Stated differently, the party applying for the writ must show a clear legal right in himself and a corresponding imperative duty on the part of the defendant; and without the establishment of such clear legal right and duty, the writ should be denied. 56 C. J., 582; State, ex rel.

Henderson v. Taylor, 59 Md. 338 ; Caroline County v. Hinson, 126 Md. 470 , 95 A. 48 ; Brown v. Bragunier, 79 Md. 234 , 29 A. 7 ; State v. Latrobe, 81 Md. 222, 238 , 31 A. 788 ; Wailes v. Smith, 76 Md. 469, 476 , 25 A. 922 ; Curlander v. King, 112 Md. 518 , 77 A. 60 . Applying the settled principles enunciated in the above cited cases to the facts in the instant case, it is apparent that the retention of its then employees by the State, as provided for in the Act of 1937, was made a condition precedent to the transfer of its valuable property to the State by the appellee, and that therefore it has a clear legal right to insist that the above condition be fully per ⁵² formed; furthermore, that this right placed upon the State Employment Commissioner the corresponding duty to certify pay rolls for the payment of salaries düe certain employees of the Cheltenham School for Boys, which employees have admittedly rendered services to the above institution as a State agency under the authorization of the board of managers of the school, as provided in the Act; and this regardless of article 64-A, for the reason, as has been indicated, that the employees involved in this controversy are