CITY OF TULSA v. LYNCH

CITY OF TULSA v. LYNCH
1943 OK 187
145 P.2d 202
193 Okla. 505
Case Number: 30950
Decided: 05/18/1943
Supreme Court of Oklahoma

CITY OF TULSA
v.
LYNCH et al.

Syllabus

¶0 1. MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS -- Charter provision did not prevent city from reducing number of policemen in order to keep expenditures within constitutional debt limit.
A municipality of this state may reduce the number of its policemen when such reduction is necessary to keep its expenditures within the debt limit for municipalities provided in our State Constitution even though its charter contemplates that policemen shall hold their office during good behavior.
2. SAME--Charter provision did not prevent transfer of policemen to other duties when financial considerations required reduction in personnel.
A charter provision protecting policemen generally as a class in the duration of their employment examined, and held not to afford special protection on the basis of particular assignments to duties, and therefore held not to prevent the transfer of a policeman from one duty to another in connection with the reorganization of the department when a reduction in personnel is necessary upon financial considerations.

Appeal from District Court, Tulsa County; Leslie E. Webb, Judge.

Action by Claude Lynch against the City of Tulsa et al. From the judgment the city appeals. Reversed.

E. M. Gallaher, L. A. Justus, Philip J. Kramer, and C. Lawrence Elder, all of Tulsa, for plaintiff in error.
Eldon J. Dick and Lou Etta Bellamy, both of Tulsa, for defendant in error.

DAVISON, J.

¶1 This case is in all essential respects identical with cause No. 30727, City of Tulsa v. Emmett Johnson et al., 193 Okla. 501, 145 P.2d 198, this day decided. The disposition of the cause in the trial court corresponds to the disposition made by the trial court in cause No. 30727, supra, except that the money judgment was for a different amount. The issues presented to this court are the same except that no cross-petition has been filed by the defendant in error, a distinction which is immaterial.

¶2 Our decision in cause No. 30727, supra, determines the issues in this appeal, and the opinion and syllabus in that case is adopted as the opinion and syllabus in this case.

¶3 This cause is therefore reversed, with directions to enter judgment in favor of the defendant city.

¶4 CORN, C. J., GIBSON, V. C. J., and OSBORN, BAYLESS, WELCH, HURST, and ARNOLD, JJ., concur. RILEY, J., dissents.