Opinion
No. 30948.
December 18, 1945. Rehearing Denied January 8, 1946.
(Syllabus.)
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 reductions 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 Webb, Judge.
Action by D.M. Sikes against the City of Tulsa et al. Judgment for plaintiff, and the City appeals. Reversed.
E.M. Gallaher, L.A. Justus, Jr., Philip 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.
This case is in all essential respects almost identical with City of Tulsa v. Johnson, 193 Okla. 501, 145 P.2d 198. The disposition of the cause in the trial court corresponds to the disposition made by the trial court in the cited case, except that the money judgment was for a different amount.
In the present case testimony of Riley Stuart and Joe O'Donnell was offered for the purpose of attempting to show that the reason for the dismissal of plaintiff was because of the personal dislike of the police and fire commissioner for plaintiff. The testimony of these witnesses does not change the rule of law in the cited cause, supra.
Our decision in the cited case, supra, determines the issues in this appeal, and the opinion and syllabus in that case are adopted as the opinion and syllabus in this case.
The cause is reversed.
GIBSON, C.J., HURST, V.C.J., and WELCH, CORN, DAVISON, and ARNOLD, JJ., concur.