CITY OF TULSA v. BLAIR

CITY OF TULSA v. BLAIR
1944 OK 171
148 P.2d 165
194 Okla. 192
Case Number: 31108
Decided: 04/11/1944
Supreme Court of Oklahoma

CITY OF TULSA
v.
BLAIR

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; Prentiss E. Rowe, Judge.

Action by J. S. Blair against the City of Tulsa. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded.

E. M. Gallaher, L. A. Justus, Jr., Philip J. Kramer, and C. Lawrence Elder, all of Tulsa, for plaintiff in error.
Wm. Blake, of Tulsa, for defendant in error.

DAVISON, J.

¶1 This is an action by J. S. Blair, a former policeman of the city of Tulsa, to recover a money judgment against that city for salary asserted to have become due and payable to him since his alleged wrongful dismissal from duty by the defendant city on November 30, 1938.

¶2 In the district court of Tulsa county the cause was tried to the court without the aid of a jury, resulting in a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff. The defendant city presents the case for review.

¶3 Plaintiff was one of 15 policemen of the city of Tulsa discharged the latter part of November, 1938, for economic reasons impelled by constitutional considerations.

¶4 On the date of his dismissal and prior thereto plaintiff had been assigned to duty as a radio patrolman. The facts and legal questions involved in this appeal are in all essential respects identical with those presented to us in City of Tulsa v. Johnson, 193 Okla. 501, 145 P.2d 198. Our decision in that case controls in the case at bar.

¶5 As we pointed out in the cited case, the charter provisions of the city of Tulsa intended to protect policemen against wrongful discharge establishes no system of seniority under which older men in point of service are given a priority over more recent appointees.

¶6 On authority of the above cited case, the syllabus of which is adopted as the syllabus in this case, the cause is reversed and remanded.

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