DocketNumber: No. 17407
Citation Numbers: 124 Wash. 405
Judges: Fullerton, Parker
Filed Date: 4/27/1923
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 8/12/2021
— The respondent, John S. Veitch, is a member of the police force of the city of Seattle, having been appointed to the position on April 21, 1910. The position is within the classified civil service of the city and appointments thereto are regulated by the city charter and the rules of the civil service commission created thereby. Among these regulations is the requirement that all applicants for positions under thé classified civil service shall be subjected to examination as to their qualifications and fitness for the position in which they desire employment, which examinations shall be public and open to all citizens of the United States, with specified limitations as to residence, age, health, habits and moral character; and, with special reference to appointments to the police force, one of the limitations prescribed is that the applicant shall be between the ages of twenty-three and thirty-eight years.
At the time of the respondent’s appointment, applicants for positions within the classified civil service were required to make their applications by verified petition, blank forms for which were furnished the applicants, and were required to make answer to certain questions printed thereon. The respondent made application on such a blank form, and to the question, “What is the date of your, birth?” answered “18 day of Feb. 1875,” and to the question, “Where were you born?” answered, “Waddington, N. Y.” The ques-'
On May 10, 1915, the respondent made application to the United States district court of the western district of Washington to be naturalized as a citizen of the United States.' This application was also made by a duly verified petition. In it the applicant swore that he was born on February 18, 1867, at Winchester, Ontario, Canada; that he emigrated to the United States in 1895, and that on October 24, 1896, he declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States at Minneapolis, Minnesota, before the United States district court of the fourth judicial district. He also made oath that he was married in Canada; that he had two children, and that the eldest of whom was born at Shoal Lake, in Canada, on April 16, 4892. This application came on to be heard before the United States district court in which it was made on August 27,1915, and was denied with prejudice, “It appearing,” as the order of the court recites, “that petitioner had registered for each annual election since 1910 as an' elector born in the state of New York, and having made application under oath for public positions, claiming to have been born in the state of New York, and held such positions under such representations and statements.”
Sometime in the early part of the year 4921; complaint was made to the civil service commission that' individuals who were not citizens were being employed in the police department, Evidently specifically naming
The trial court, after finding that the respondent had been regularly appointed to the police force after satisfactorily passing the examinations touching his qualifications, found that the respondent was a citizen of
With the court’s findings and with its conclusion, we are unable to agree. The city charter of the city of Seattle creates a civil service commission and empowers the commission so created to classify all the offices and places of employment in the city. It further empowers the commission to make rules to carry out the purposes of the provisions of the charter, and provides that no appointment to any office or place shall be made except under and in accordance with such rules. The charter further provides:
. “The commission shall investigate the enforcement of this article and of its rules and the action of the examiners herein provided for, and the conduct and action of the appointees in the classified service, and may inquire as to the nature, tenure and compensation of all offices and places in the public service. In the course of such investigation each commissioner shall*410 have the power to administer oaths and the commission shall have the power to require the attendance and testimony of any city officer or employe or other person, and the production of books and papers relevant to such investigation.”
Among the rules promulgated by the commission is the following:
“Fraudulent conduct or false statements by an applicant or by others with his connivance in any application or examination shall be deemed cause for the exclusion of such applicant from any examination or for removal of his name from the eligible register or for discharge from the service after appointment, provided the name of no person shall be removed from a. list of eligibles nor shall any person be dismissed from the service under this section without first having an opportunity to be heard in his own behalf.”
We are clear that there is here granted to the civil service commission ample authority to inquire into the standing of any employee on the civil service list, and authority to inquire whether any such officer has made false statements for the purpose of obtaining an appointment thereunder. The commission possibly does not have power in itself to remove a police officer, but it could make the results of its investigations known to the authority having such power, leaving it to that authority to take such action as it deemed advisable, and could rightfully refuse to approve the payroll in so far as it directed payment to anyone not entitled to employment by the city. This, as we read the record, is all that the commission was' purposing to do, and plainly it was error on the part of the court to enjoin them from so doing. As to the chief of police, who has the power of removal, there is no evidence as to what his action would be should the commission recom
But we think there are other and stronger reasons for denying the respondent relief. The trial court should not have overlooked the respondent’s many manifestly false statements. As we have heretofore shown, the respondent, in his application for a position on the police force, swore that he was born in the state of New York. On the trial he admitted this sworn statement to be false, and no palliation or excuse for it is made or attempted. He also swore in the same application, and swore while giving his testimony in the present trial, that he was born on February 18, 1875. In our opinion, the record all but conclusively shows that these statements were likewise false. As we have shown, it is contradictory of his sworn statement made in his declaration of intention to become a citizen of the United States, and contradictory of his subsequent sworn statement made when he applied for final citizenship before the United States district court. Moreover, in January, 1910, the month preceding the month when he made his application for a position on the police force, and when it is legitimate to presume the age limits requisite to such .an appointment were unknown to him, he registered as an elector in King county, giving his age as forty-three, which would correspond with a birth date of 1867. In later registrations, after he had applied for and had been appointed to a position on the police force, he gave his age so as to correspond with a birth date of 1875. The deposition of his mother, then a resident of Canada, was taken and read in his behalf in the present proceeding. In her testimony she states on oath that the respondent was born on February 18,1867. In his application for admission to citizenship made to the district court be
But the record need not be further pursued. It is replete with evidence that the respondent procured his position by fraud and false swearing, and seeks to retain it by similar practices. It is needless to say that equity will not lend its strong arm under such circumstances to aid him in his desires.
The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded with instructions to dismiss.
Main, C. J., Tolman, and Mackintosh, JJ., concur.