People ex rel. Bockes v. Wemple

“ The justices of the supreme court shall receive an' annual compensation of $6,000 each, payable quarterly in lieu of all other compensation, except that they shall receive, in addition to such stated salary, a per diem allowance of five dollars per day, for their reasonable expenses, when absent from their homes and engaged in holding any general or special terms, circuit court or court of oyer and terminer, or attending any convention, as hereinafter provided, to revise the rules of said court.”

The legislature in 1872 (by chapter 541 of the Laws of that year, § 1), in part, abrogated these provisions and enacted as follows, viz.:

“The said justices of the supreme court, except in the first judicial district, shall receive the sum of $1,200 annually, from the 1st day of January, 1872, in lieu of, and in full of all expenses now allowed by law.

“ This subdivision shall not increase the pay of any judge except the justices of the supreme court.”

These provisions of the law being in force, with respect to the compensation of supreme court justices, in the year 1880 the thirteenth section of article 6 of the constitution was amended. The section as amended, so far as is material to our consideration here, reads as follows, viz.:

“The official terms of the said justices * * * who shall be elected after the adoption of this article shall be fourteen years from and including the 1st day of January next after their election. But no person shall hold the office of justice or judge of any court longer than until and including the last day of December next after he shall be seventy years of age. The compensation of every * * * justice of the supreme court, whose term of office shall he abridged pursuant to this provision, and who shall have served as such * * * justice ten years or more, shall he continued during the remainder of the term for which he was elected’’

The one question, therefore, which is .to be answered, is, what is the “ compensation,” which is to be “ continued ” to the justice in the event mentioned in the constitution? The comptroller argues that it must be understood to be that portion of the justice’s compensation which represented an award for services, and not that additional portion which originated in a grant of an additional sum annually in lieu of expenses theretofore allowed by law. This argument is based, in part, upon a reasoning upon the supposed intention of the legislature, and, in part, upon the phraseology of the yearly appropriation acts of that body, which fixed the amount to be paid for “ salaries and expenses.” In so far as the position of the comptroller rests upon subsequent legislative enactments, as furnishing evidence of the original legislative intention, I think it is unsound and quite untenable. I fail to understand how the legislative act of appropriating sums of money for the support of government can furnish any evidence of the intention with which some previous act was passed, which fixed the amount or mode of payment of an official’s compensation. The legislature is not vested with judicial functions, and when it is claimed that the purpose of an act is obscure, and that

It is an elementary rule that statutes are to be interpreted according to their intent. The intention of the legislature is undoubtedly the great principle which controls in the office of interpretation; but, as Chancellor Kent says, in his commentaries (vol. 1, p. 462), “ the words of a statute, if of common use, are to-be taken in their natural, plain, obvious and ordinary signification.” It is only where the literal acceptation of the words used will work a mischief or some absurd result, or wher^ some obscurity in the sense compels it, that we need resort to extrinsic-aids of interpretation. The intent of the legislature is to be sought, primarily, in the words used, and, if they are free from ambiguity, there is no occasion to search elsewhere for their meaning. As it was said in McCluskey v. Cromwell, 11 N. Y., 593 , “ it is not allowable to interpret what has no need of interpretation, and when the words have a precise and definite meaning to go elsewhere in search of conjecture, in order to restrict or extend the meaning. The natural and obvious meaning should be taken without resorting to subtle and forced construction.”

The rules which apply in the construction of statutes, apply equally in reading a constitution. Newell v. People, 7 N. Y., 97 . In that case Johnson, J., said : “ Whether we are considering an agreement between parties, a statute, or a constitution, with a view to its interpretation, the thing we are seeking is the thought which it expresses. * * * If the words embody a definite meaning, which involves no absurdity * * * then that meaning apparel* upon the face of the instrument is the one which alone we-are at liberty to say was intended to be' conveyed. * * * It must be very plain, nay, absolutely certain, that the people did not intend what the language they have employed, in its natural signification, imports, before a court will feel itself at liberty to-depart from the plain reading of a constitutional provision.”

The learned judge found warrant for his expressions in the language of Chief Justice.’Marshall, in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat, 188 , and of Bronson, J., in the People v. Purdy, 2 Hill, 31 , and 4 id.,. 384; in which cases provisions of the Constitutions of the United Stafe§ and of this state, respectively, were the subjects of interpretation. The reading of text books and of reported decisions, however; only serves to confirm in the mind the view that where-

Is there any ambiguity or doubtful meaning about the language and words of the Constitution in question ? What is the reasonable doubt, which a fail’ mind will or can entertain as to the import of the provisions that “ the compensation of every justice, whose term of office shall he abridged pursuant to this provision, and who shall have served as such justice ten years or more, shall he continued during the remainder of the term for which he was elected t ” The language is general. It says that “ the compensation ” shall be continued. It does not say compensation for services and, in fact, it would have been impossible to convey by the use of that word any sense of restriction, or of deprivation; for the compensation was as well for services on the bench, as for what his duties and office entailed upon him off of the bench. The word compensation means,- and, I think, obviously means the sum of money which the judicial officer had been in receipt of from the state when his term of office was abridged. In the Law of 1870, which gave a per diem allowance for reasonable expenses, etc., that payment even was regarded as in the nature of compensation to the justice; for the language used was, that the $6,000 a year was in lieu of all other compensation, except that they shall receive in addition to such stated salary a per diem allowance, etc.”

The effect of the use of the word '' except,” in connection with the grant of compensation, is to invest the grant of a per diem, allowance with the legislative idea of further compensation. Then the act of 1872 abrogates the provision for a per diem allowance and grants to the justices “ the sum of $1,200 annually “ in lieu ” of expenses. This language is substitutional in its effect. It substitutes an annual grant of money to the incumbent, in the place of an allowance for expenses. This I think was a clear grant of pay, or compensation, having no connection with the expenses incurred by a justice. As granted by this act, it became naturally and plainly as much a part of the compensation to the justice as though his salary, eo nomine, had been increased to compensate him further for what his office entailed upon him in the way of duties and work. Expenses, or no .expenses, he became entitled to the whole of the $1,200. In my belief, from all that we can divine from language, and by reasoning from cause to effect, the intention of the legislature was to make a permanent addition to the stated salary, which should be beyond the power of subsequent legislatures to affect. The law operated to increase the fixed compensation of the justices, while withdrawing any compensation measured and determined by time occupied. Under the old system of a per diem allowance of five dollars, of course the amounts received by the various justices must have varied materially in accordance with the necessity for travel in the

The words “in lieu of all expenses now allowed by law,” in the act of 1872, indicate that that allowance was superseded, and that it could no longer be claimed in addition to the increased compensation. The logic of the thing must lead us to suppose that the legislature intended, by passing the act of 1872, to change the whole system, and, instead of paying the varying expenses of the justices, to substitute a larger salary or compensation, to cover all services and all expenses.

The relator’s position, when in office, was that of an individual employed in behalf of the government of the state, in a station of public trust, for a certain compensation. When elected in 1876, the compensation, which that employment entitled him to receive from the state treasury, was the sum of $7,200 per annum, and was paid in fixed'' quarter-yearly sums. He had the guarantee of the 14th section of article 6 of the constitution, that the compensation received by him in accepting and in holding office could not be diminished during his official term. The ■ constitutional amendment of 1880, in prescribing the judicial term affixed the limitation of age, but the people were as careful to respect their guarantee as they were to be just to the public servant, whom they would retire from office regardless of his capacity and strength. I think we should hold that the people meant the full force of the words chosen to express their will. Had they intended to limit the receipt of compensation to salary as originally fixed, they could well have said so. Shall we say that they have actually said so ?

I think exact justice and the gravity of the danger of importing into the constitutional words another and a more technical meaning, require us to hold that the people meant to continue to the justice, retiring by the disqualification of age, whatever he had been in receipt of from the state before his term was thus abridged. The $7,200 had become a debt of the state, which nothing could extinguish except payment, and which remained such until the official term for which he was elected had expired.

(dissenting.) — I am of the opinion that the judgment below should be affirmed, for reasons which I shall briefly state. Section 13, of art. 6, of the judiciary article of the constitution, adopted in 1869, fixed the elective term of justices of the supreme court at fourteen years, but provided that no person shall hold the office of judge or justice of any court longer than until, and including, the last day of December next after he shall be seventy years of age. The effect of this latter provision was ta shorten the elective term in case of incumbents who reach the prescribed age of seventy years during their elective term, that is,, before the expiration of fourteen years and a fraction of a year after the commencement- of such term. Their term then ceased, and with it the emoluments of the office. In 1880 § 6 was. amended by adding this clause: “The compensation of every judge of the court of appeals, and of every justice of the supreme-court, whose term of office shall be abridged pursuant to this provision, and who shall have served as such judge or justice ten years or more, shall be continued during the remainder of the term for which he was elected.” The relator was elected several times a justice of the supreme court, the last time in 1875, and his term under that election commenced January 1, 1876. He attained the age of seventy years in 1887, and his term ceased by limitation of age January 1, 1888, two years prior to the expiration of his elective term. His compensation was continued during the two years by force of the constitutional amendment of 1880, and the point in controversy is as to the meaning of the term “ compensation,” used in that amendment, that is to say, whether it embraces simply the stated salary of a justice of the supreme-court, of $6,000 a year, fixed by § 9, chap. 408, of the Laws of 1870, or includes also the sum of $1,200 a year, specified in chap. 541 of the Laws of 1872.

The general appropriation bill of 1872 contains the following-provision: “The justices of the'supreme court, for salaries and ex> penses, pursuant to chapter four hundred and eight of the Laws of eighteen hundred and seventy, two hundred and thirty-seven thousand six hundred dollars. The said justices of the supreme court, except in the first judicial district, shall each receive the. sum of twelve hundred dollars annually, from the first day of January, eighteen hundred and seventy-two, in lieu of, and in full of, all expenses 33 ow allowed by law. This subdivision shall not increase the pay of any judge, except the justices of the supreme court”

It will be noticed that the appropriation purports to be made for salaries and expenses, pursuant to chapter 408 of the Laws of 1870. The 14th section of the judiciary article of the constitution of 1869 prescribes that the judges and justices mentioned in the prior section “ shall receive for their services a compensation to be established by law, which shall not be diminished during their official terms.” The act, chapter 408 of the Laws of 1870, is the

If a person was employed on the terms that his salary should be $6,000 a year, and that he should also be paid a certain sum for expenses in the business, the ordinary understanding would be that his compensation was $6,000 a year, and that the sum for expenses was an estimated charge assumed by the principal in the conduct of the business.

The legislature may alter and diminish the salary of an officer during his term, unless restrained by a constitutional provision, and I think it would have been competent fof the legislature to have repealed the per diem clause in the statute of 1870, and deprive a judge thereafter of any allowance for expenses, without infringing the constitutional mandate that the compensation of a

It is said that the clause in the act of 1872, “ This sub-division shall not increase the pay of any judge, except justices of the supreme court,” implies that the annual allowance of $1,200 was compensation. The purpose of this clause seems to have been to preclude any claim on the part of the judges of other courts in cities, who . might be assigned to sit in the supreme court, that they were de facto judges of that court while so engaged and were therefore entitled to the allowance. Their pay was not to be increased, that is to say, they were not to be paid their expenses under the act of 1872. The exception in the first clause was confined to justices of the supreme court in the first district. Judges of the city courts sitting in the supreme court are not justices of the supreme court, and the last clause was intended to make it clear that they were not to have the benefit of the act.

The argument that as a judge after seventy can render no service, and yet is entitled to his salary, there is no incongruity in allowing him to claim after that time the sum allowed him for expenses while he was on the bench, although he is in no situation to incur them, is specious, but not, I think, sound. The compensation of a judge is continued after seventy, during the term for which he was elected, provided he had served for ten years, as an

Orders of special and general terms reversed and writ of mandamus issued as prayed for by the relator.

All concur, except Andrews, J., who reads for affirmance, and Danforth, J., not voting.