Opinion ID: 2141729
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: employee's burden of proof under caniglia is questionable

Text: Pierce contends that the Commission's decision to terminate his employment was arbitrary and capricious because it was unsupported by competent evidence. The County counters that the district court properly relied on Caniglia. [14] The County argues that in an appeal from a disciplinary action, this court puts the burden of persuasion on the employee. It argues that under Caniglia, the Commission correctly found that Pierce had failed to prove someone accompanied him and that his presence in Nahriri's unit was excused. In Caniglia, we discussed an employee's burden of proof in appealing a disciplinary action to a city's personnel board. We stated that the employee had the burden to show that good cause for her dismissal did not exist. [15] Caniglia, however, is an anomaly in our case law. In no other case has this court placed the burden on the employee to prove good cause did not exist in a disciplinary action. [12] Notably, Caniglia was decided before Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill. [16] Neb. Rev. Stat § 23-2510 (Reissue 1997) does provide that county employees may appeal a disciplinary order to the Commission. But when an employee has a protected property interest in continued employment, the Commission's public hearing [17] is usually the postdeprivation hearing. That hearing satisfies due process requirements under Loudermill. Because the evidentiary hearing before the reviewing tribunal or agency is de novo, many courts hold that the employing authority bears the burden of proving that the employee engaged in the conduct on which the authority based its disciplinary charge. [18] But we decline to decide the continued vitality of Caniglia. Assuming arguendo that the County proved Pierce was in Nahriri's unit unaccompanied, we nonetheless reverse. We conclude that the County has failed to show Pierce's mere violation of a work restriction, without any other showing of misconduct, warranted termination as a second offense of [i]mmoral, indecent, disgraceful, or inappropriate conduct.