The People ca rel. Wright agt. Common Council of Buffalo. this respect have been prescribed by section 6, title 5 of the charter of the city of Buffalo, and that requires, when the estimates shall be made and submitted, that the common council shall proceed to consider the same, and whether it does so nominally as a committee, or as the common council itself, the exercise of the authority will be precisely the same. The power has been conferred alone upon the common council, and whether its members act under that name, or under the name of a committee of the whole, can make no substantial difference in the exercise of this authority; it will still be, under this section, the action of the common council, although it may not be so final in its character as to render further consideration needless. That further consideration by the members of the common council as such, or acting as a committee of the whole, would change the result is extremely improbable, inasmuch as the estimate was stricken out by the decisive vote of thirteen to one. The probabilities, on the contrary, are so decided, arising out of the action which has been taken, as to support the conclusion asserted in the affidavit, that it is the design of the common council to reject the estimated item, and in that manner prevent the law from being carried into effect. And these facts are sufficient to entitle the application to be sustained if a legal right to the writ has been made out and the applicant is authorized by law to maintain the proceeding. It is true, as has been urged on behalf of the common council, that the writ is not to be issued in a doubtful case, or where any other remedy for adequate redress shall be found to exist. But no other remedy has been prescribed or provided by law for the redress of the wrong complained of as the foundation of this action. And if the right is to be clearly derived from the law, then neither of these objections stand upon any legal foundation. The right to the allowance of the estimate, or of some other proper and adequate amount, depends upon the construction. which shall be given to chapter 354 of the Laws of 1883 as it The People ex rel. Wright agt. Common Council of Buffalo. has been amended by chapter 410 of the Laws or 1884. By these acts very definite and broad provisions were first made to regulate the civil service of the state, and to provide for promotions and appointments to certain public offices of the state. This, so far as the laws were rendered applicable to the city, was to be done by open and competitive examinations, testing the fitness of the applicants for appointment in the public service. It was not, in the first instance, rendered obligatory upon the city, but the mayor was vested with the authority to provide rules and regulations for carrying its provisions into effect in the official civil service of the city so far as the offices designated and mentioned in it were referred to. The mayor of the city, it has been made to appear, did provide such rules and regulations, and persons were employed and selected to make investigations and examinations authorized by the law, and they have to the present time been conducted without subjecting the city to expense. But by section 2 of chapter 410 of the Laws of 1884, the mayor of the city was no longer left at liberty to exercise his volition upon the subject. But the duty was made mandatory, and he was not only authorized but thereby directed to prescribe such regulations as had previously been indicated in the law of 1883, or to continue and carry those into effect which had been previously adopted. And to carry out the design and intention of the law it was provided that the mayor "shall from time to time employ suitable persons to conduct such inquiries and make examinations, and shall prescribe their duties and establish regulations for the conduct of persons who may receive appointments in the said service" (Laws 1884, 488, sec. 2). And to render the observance of this duty still more imperative, if that could be done after the employment of this positively mandatory language, it was further declared in the same section that "after the termination of three months from the passage of this act (which took effect on the 29th day of May, 1884) no officer or clerk shall be appointed, and no person shall be admitted to or be promoted The People ex rel. Wright agt. Common Council of Buffalo. in either of the said classes now existing or that be arranged hereunder pursuant to said rules until he has passed an examination or is shown to be exempted from such examination in conformity with such regulations." These directions are so clear and positive as to leave the mayor no discretion upon the subject, but he must from time to time employ suitable persons to conduct the examinations and make the inquiries required. But neither this act nor the one preceding it contains any express provision for compensating the persons to be so employed by the mayor, and for that reason it has been urged that their services were intended to be obtained gratuitously. But the act has not so declared or provided; and by requiring the mayor to employ suitable persons to perform these services, it is to be implied from that language that it was intended that they should be reasonably remunerated for such services. For in no other manner can persons be ordinarily induced to render services of the description of those prescribed by the law. What the mayor has been required to do is to employ suitable persons, and the power to employ others to render services on behalf of the municipality, includes the obligation to provide for their compensation. The employment can usually be expected to be secured in no other way; and when a person or persons are employed it is a reasonable, as well as a natural implication, that the services rendered in the course of the employment shall be reasonably or correspondingly rewarded. This is the effect of employing others to render services in the ordinary relations of business, and as the city has not been. exonerated from that effect it may be assumed that it was designed that it should observe and fulfill the ordinary obligation arising out of the act of employment. In no other way can the services of others be ordinarily secured. It is true that they have been otherwise secured up to the present time under the authority contained in the preceding law. But there is no expectation that gratuitous services will be further rendered for the city under this statute by persons whom the VOL. II 9 The People ex rel. Wright agt. Common Council of Buffalo. mayor shall consider it his duty to employ. It has been intimated that persons may be found who would be willing to render the same service without compensation, but they may not be persons whom the mayor, in the exercise of this authority, would be willing to select or appoint. That certainly is his judgment, for he made this estimated amount upon the apparent understanding that it would become necessary to enable him to carry into effect these provisions of the statute. And where an appropriation of money is essential for that purpose, although not so declared in the law itself, the obligation to make it is to be derived by implication from it. The rule upon this subject is, that "whenever a power is given by statute everything necessary to make it effectual or requisite to attain the end is implied;" and "where the law requires a thing to be done it authorizes the performance of whatever may be necessary for executing its commands" (Sedg. on Statutory, &c., Law, 92; 1 Kent [7th ed.], 513, marg. p. 464). Steif agt. Hart (1 Comst., 20, 30); Chipman agt. Montgomery (63 N. Y., 221), and the case of Baker agt. City of Utica (19 N. Y., 326), requires no different construction to be placed upon the statute. It is, on the contrary, an authority in favor of the right of persons rendering services to a municipal corporation to be compensated for the value of such services where no specific provision of law has been made declaratory of the right or extent of compensation. In that class of cases the compensation is to be a reasonable remuneration for the services rendered; and it would be the duty of the mayor, within these statutes, to confine the compensation to such limits. What the law intended was that the mayor should be obliged to employ the persons whose services should be requisite to carry out its provisions, and to exercise all the authority which should become necessary to attain that end. And as the persons employed would be entitled to be reasonably compensated for the services rendered by them the obligation to provide for the payment of that compensation has been included in the law. By omitting The People ex rel. Wright agt. Common Council of Buffalo. to provide the manner in which the money should be obtained to make this compensation the end and purpose of the law are not to be defeated; for, as the services are on the employment of the mayor and on behalf of the city, the funds required to remunerate the employment are necessarily a charge upon the city, as all other expenses of the municipal government have been made by the charter. Whatever may be required to meet these obligations has been directed, by title 2 of the charter, to be estimated by the heads of the departments. This includes all expenditures considered to be necessary for the ensuing fiscal year in the administration of the affairs of the city government. This is such an expenditure, and under this portion of the charter it was a proper subject to be estimated, and estimated by the mayor, inasmuch as he is the person who was to exercise this authority and employ the persons required to render these services. Pursuant to this obligation the mayor made the estimate for what he considered would be the necessary expenses of carrying these provisions of the laws of the state into execution, and communicated and presented the estimate to the common council. This body has been authorized by section 6 of title 5 of the charter by a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to alter or amend the estimate. But where it has been made pursuant to the direction of a positive statute, as it has been in this instance, the common council has not been invested with the power of wholly rejecting the estimate. It may under the authority to alter or amend the estimate, extend, modify or limit it, as that may appear to be justified by the facts, but the common council has no authority arbitrarily to reject the estimate. Its legal, as well as its absolute duty is, on the contrary, to consider it in good faith, with sound judgment and discretion, and if any misapprehension has intervened in its amount, to correct it and apportion it to the probable necessities of the service for which it may be designed. This, according to the papers which have been produced upon the application, has not been done. The esti |