Whether a state officer is within the classified service and not
subject to removal under the Civil Service Act of the state is a
matter for the state court to determine, and its ruling is binding
upon this Court and presents no federal question.
Taylor v.
Beckham, 178 U. S. 548.
Where the judgment of the state court rests upon nonfederal
questions sufficient to support it, such as laches and long delay,
this Court cannot review the judgment upon the ground that a
federal question also exists.
Moran v. Horsky,
178 U. S. 205.
In a proceeding specifically for mandamus to restore petitioner
to a state office over which this Court has no jurisdiction, it
cannot consider
Page 226 U. S. 448
any rights which petitioner may have in a fund of which he may
be deprived without due process of law, and the judgment dismissing
for want of jurisdiction does not conclude his right in that
respect.
Writ of error to review 246 Ill. 26 dismissed.
The facts, which involve the jurisdiction of this Court to
review judgments of the state court by writ of error, are stated in
the opinion.
Page 226 U. S. 449
Memorandum opinion, by direction of the court, by MR. CHIEF
JUSTICE WHITE:
Upon the assertion that he had been wrongfully dropped "from the
payroll of the policemen of the City of Chicago," plaintiff in
error commenced proceedings in mandamus in the state court to
compel the placing of his name upon the said payrolls, to the end
that he might thereafter draw the pay alleged to be due him as a
police patrolman "as the other police patrolmen in said City of
Chicago are paid." This writ of error is prosecuted to a judgment
of the Supreme Court of Illinois (246 Ill. 26), affirming a
judgment sustaining a demurrer to the petition in mandamus and
denying the writ.
Among other contentions made by the plaintiff in error
Page 226 U. S. 450
and passed upon by the Supreme Court of Illinois was one to the
effect that he had become an officer of the classified service, and
entitled to the protection against removal conferred by an act
styled the civil service act, and that hence his removal from
office without written charges preferred against him, and without
notice and an opportunity to be heard, amounted to a denial of due
process of law within the purview of the state constitution and of
the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
But the court below held these claims not maintainable on the
ground that, upon a proper construction of the state statutes, the
petitioner was not in the classified service, and was subject to
removal. This ruling is binding upon us, and presents no federal
question.
Taylor v. Beckham, 178 U.
S. 548. Even, however, if we were at liberty to
disregard the action of the state court and attribute to the
plaintiff in error the status claimed by him, as in addition the
court below held that the right to the relief prayed was, in any
event, barred by long delay and laches, this would be sufficient to
prevent us from reviewing the alleged federal question.
Moran
v. Horsky, 178 U. S. 205,
178 U. S.
207.
It is strenuously insisted in argument that the plaintiff in
error was entitled to participate in a police pension fund to which
he had contributed from his wages for a long period of time, and
therefore to remove him was additionally to deprive him of property
without due process of law, in violation of the Fourteenth
Amendment. But the specific relief prayed was a writ of mandamus to
restore plaintiff in error to the payrolls as a policeman. What, if
any, rights in the pension fund referred to were protected by the
Constitution of the United States we therefore may not here
consider, and that question, from a federal point of view, is not
concluded by the judgment dismissing the writ of error which we
shall enter.
Writ of error dismissed.
