Calvaruso v. Brown
Annotate this CaseIn February 2013, the police chief of the Akron Police Department appointed Charles Brown as “acting chief of police,” a temporary assignment by the chief of police to administer the division of police during his absence. Relators, six of the nine police department captains who claimed that they were qualified to hold the positions of deputy police chief and acting police chief, sought a writ of quo warranto seeking to oust Brown from the positions of de facto deputy chief and acting chief of police. The Supreme Court denied the writ, holding (1) Brown could not be ousted from the office of acting chief of police because there was no such office within the police command, and quo warranto does not lie to remove someone from a temporary assignment; and (2) because Brown did not hold the office of deputy chief or claim to be a deputy chief, he was not a de facto deputy chief for purposes of a quo warranto action, and therefore, he could not be ousted from that office.
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