In the opinion delivered by the learned district judge who heard this and other cases involving the same questions as those now presented, it was held (1) that the act known as the 'Civil Service Act' was constitutional; (2) that congress has not delegated to the president and the commission legislative powers; (3) that by rule 3, § 1, the internal revenue service has been placed under the civil service act, and rules made in pursuance of it; (4) that the plaintiffs in these actions are officers of the government in the internal revenue service; (5) that they cannot be removed from their positions except for causes other than political, in which event their removal must be made under the terms and provisions of the civil service act, and the rules promulgated under it which, under the act of congress, became a part of the law; (6) that the attempt to change the position and rank of the officer in these cases was in violation of law; (7) that a court of equity has jurisdiction to restrain the appointing power from removing the officers from their positions, if such removals are in violation of the civil service act. 83 Fed. 578.
On behalf of the government it is insisted that the circuit court of the United States, sitting in equity, was without jurisdiction to entertain this suit, and to grant the relief asked in the bill. If this position be well taken, it will be unnecessary to consider the other questions discussed in the able and elaborate opinion of the district judge.
In Sawyer's Case, 124 U.S. 200, 223, 8 Sup. Ct. 482, Chief Justice Waite, in a dissenting opinion, said that he was not prepared to hold that an officer of a municipal government could not, under any circumstances, apply to a court of chancery to restrain the municipal authorities from proceeding to remove him from his office without authority of law; that there might be cases when the tardy remedies of quo warranto, certiorari, and other like writs, would be entirely inadequate. In that view of the jurisdiction of equity the writer of this opinion concurred at the time the court disposed of that case.
But the court in its opinion in that case observed that, under the constitution and laws of the United States, the distinction between common law and equity, as existing in England at the time of the separation of the two countries, had been maintained, although both jurisdictions were vested in the same courts, and held that a court of equity had no jurisdiction over the appointment and removal of public officers, and that to sustain a bill in equity to restrain or relieve against proceedings for the removal of public officers would invade the domain of the courts of common law, or of the executive and administrative departments of the government.