In re Baird — 82 N.Y. Sup. Ct. 545

Majority

p. 545

In the Matter of the Application of Andrew D. Baird and Others, Appellants, for a Writ of Mandamus to G. Cochrane Broome and Others, Supervisors of the County of Kings, Respondents.

Headnote

Redistricting a county — when a mandamus to compel it is properly denied.

The average number of inhabitants in each of the Assembly districts of the county of Kings is 54,877, and the variation from that standard in any one district is but about 6,000, and the variation in most of the districts is much less.

Held, that an order denying a motion for a writ of mandamus to compel the supervisors to redistrict such county wap proper.

Appeal by the relators, Andrew D. Baird and others, from an order of the Supreme Court, made at the Kings County Special Term and entered in the office of the clerk of the county of Kings on the 2§th day of August, 1893, denying the relators’ motion for a writ of mandamus.

p. 546

Tliis was an application made to compel the redistricting of the county of Kings on the ground that the districts of the county, as determined by the defendants, did not consist of convenient and contiguous territory, and that the population of such districts was not made as nearly equal as was attainable by the method of division-employed.

Jesse Johnson, F. F. Bama/rd, B. F. Blcdr and Fckoin H. FEobbs, for the petitioners, appellants.

John B. Meye/iborg, for the respondents.

The opinion of the Court of Appeals in this case when it was decided there, contains this language:

“"We do not intend by this decision to hold that every trifling deviation from equality of population would justify or warrant an application to a court for redress. Such, we think, is not the meaning of the provision. It must be a grave, palpable and unreasonable deviation from the standard, so that when the facts are presented argument would not be necessary to convince a fair man that very great and wholly unnecessary inequality has been intentionally provided for. This is as hear an exact definition of the meaning of this section in this regard as I am able to now give.”

In view of the rule so enunciated and of the duty devolved upon the board of supervisors to divide the county of Kings into eighteen Assembly districts, each of convenient and contiguous territory, and as equal in point of population as possible, without a division of the four towns in the county, our conclusion is that there is not only no unreasonable deviation from the standard, but that the standard has been observed.

The average number of inhabitants in each district is 54,8'T'r, and the variation from that standard is only about 6,000 in any case, and in most cases it is much less.

Our conclusion is that the order should be affirmed.

Peatt, J., concurred; CulleN, J., not sitting.

Order affirmed.