Opinion ID: 2105633
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Civil Service Statutes.

Text: Iowa Code section 400.18 reads: No person holding civil service rights as provided in this chapter shall be removed, demoted, or suspended arbitrarily, except as otherwise provided in this chapter, but may be removed, demoted, or suspended after a hearing by a majority vote of the civil service commission, for neglect of duty, disobedience, misconduct, or failure to properly perform the person's duties. Our characterization of the nature of Smith's discharge in connection with the prior appeal, City of Des Moines v. Civil Serv. Comm'n, 540 N.W.2d at 56-57, was a nondisciplinary discharge. That conclusion was for purposes of the city's argument that section 400.18 limited the commission's jurisdiction for reviewing public employee discharges to disciplinary matters. We rejected that conclusion. What we did not decide in the prior appeal but now believe to be the case is that section 400.18 establishes by express language a civil service review of discharges based on failure to properly perform the person's duties. In considering the reasons that prompted the city to discharge Smith, we are convinced that they implicate his ability to properly perform his duties. Although the statute uses the language failure to properly perform the person's duties, we believe a reasonable interpretation of that language would authorize a discharge based on future inability to adequately or safely perform one's duties as a result of an existing medical or physical condition. This leads directly to an accompanying conclusion that a discharge based on this premise may be challenged by a section 400.27 appeal, and the burden is on the public employer to establish that the employee is in fact not able to adequately or safely perform the requirements of the employee's job. The city urges that our decision in Hollinrake v. Iowa Law Enforcement Academy, 452 N.W.2d 598, 603 (Iowa 1990), authorizes employment decisions based on standardized fitness requirements and that individualized assessments are not required. The Hollinrake decision involved standardized, uncorrected vision requirements for acceptance by the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy. Completion of the course provided by the academy was a requirement for Hollinrake's continued employment as a deputy sheriff. At issue in the appeal was the validity of the police academy entrance requirements that had been established by administrative rule under chapter 17A. That was primarily an issue affecting new applicants for law enforcement positions and thus did not implicate civil service discharge requirements. Although in Hollinrake's situation continued employment was involved rather than new employment, no issue was presented concerning the civil service implications of the requirement for academy certification. If that issue had been raised, Hollinrake's rights, as a county employee, would have been subject to an entirely different statutory scheme than that affecting municipal employees such as Smith. See Haberer v. Woodbury County, 560 N.W.2d 571, 578 (Iowa 1997). We did discuss in Hollinrake, as an issue of administrative law, whether a determination of physical performance ability, based on standardized requirements, is arbitrary in the absence of an individualized determination based on evidence adduced at a hearing. In considering that issue, we concluded that standardized requirements may be a conclusive basis for decision making if the accuracy of the facts giving rise to the standardized requirements have been fairly tested by a rule-making process in which interested parties or entities are allowed to participate. Hollinrake, 452 N.W.2d at 603. In Miller v. Sioux Gateway Fire Department, 497 N.W.2d 838 (Iowa 1993), a disability discrimination case under Iowa Code section 601A.6 (presently codified as section 216.6), we again considered the issue of standardized rules for determining physical fitness requirements for public employment. The plaintiff in Miller was a fire fighter who was afflicted with diabetes mellitus. In considering his disability discrimination claim, we discussed the standards that had been developed by the National Fire Protection Association, an organization that develops physical fitness requirements for fire fighters. Those standards would have barred all persons afflicted with diabetes mellitus from employment as fire fighters. We noted, however, that the public employer involved in the Miller case had not adopted absolute rules concerning the employment of diabetics. Consequently, we concluded that the issue must be decided on an ad hoc basis based on the totality of medical evidence presented. Id. at 842. Smith maintains that, as was the situation in the Miller case, the city has never formalized Dr. Zorn's minimum cardiopulmonary performance on the maximum exercise stress test as a standardized requirement. Consequently, he urges that the issue of his fitness must be decided on the totality of the evidence presented at the hearing, including the views of Dr. Schwartz, Dr. Mosely, Dr. Fuortes, and Dr. Glazier. In the alternative, Smith argues that the minimum cardiopulmonary performance level applied by Dr. Zorn is arbitrary because (1) the studies on which it is based show that forty percent of the fire fighters that scored less than 33.5 ml/kg/min on the maximum exercise stress test were physically capable of performing fire suppression tasks under simulated fire-fighting conditions while wearing an SCBA, and (2) application of this standard will eliminate eighty-three percent of fire fighters over the age of forty. He also argues that the standard has been arbitrarily applied by the appointing authority in the Des Moines Fire Department so as to not be uniformly applied to similarly situated persons. In considering the arguments presented by both sides on this issue, we are convinced that the 33.5 ml/kg/min cardiopulmonary performance standard that was used as the basis for Smith's discharge represents the considered medical judgment of Dr. Zorn, the physician retained by the city to make physical fitness evaluations of its fire fighters. No evidence has been presented, however, that Dr. Zorn's conclusions have ever been formally adopted by the city as a standardized personnel policy to be applied in lieu of individual determinations. Our decision in Bryan v. City of Des Moines, 261 N.W.2d 685 (Iowa 1978), suggests that authority to establish that type of controlling standard lies in the city council. Id. at 687-88. There is nothing to suggest any council consideration of this significant personnel policy matter in the present case. There is not even any suggestion of formal action by the chief of the fire department as the appointing authority under section 400.15. The only evidence received concerning the source of the policy that the city applied to Smith is a document reproduced on the stationery of the professional corporation with which Dr. Zorn is associated. Absent some formal procedure for adoption of the Zorn standards by the city, we cannot conclude that those requirements have been tested by a rule-making process so as to preclude individualized determination of the issue. We are thus forced to conclude that the situation presented must be treated in the manner that was utilized in the Miller case, i.e., by considering the totality of the evidence presented on the issue. The city was certainly acting in a normal and reasonable manner in basing its judgments in this personnel matter on the views of the expert that it had hired for physical fitness examinations of fire fighters. On the other hand, an adversely affected employee such as Smith is entitled to challenge the factual basis for the conclusions of the city's expert in a civil service commission appeal under section 400.27. As we have previously noted, our review of the commission's conclusions in this type of case is conducted without giving weight or presumption of regularity to the findings of the commission. Reviewing the record in that manner and considering the totality of the evidence presented, we are persuaded by the opinions of the four doctors who disagreed with Dr. Zorn's conclusions that Smith has been shown to be physically capable of performing fire suppression duties while wearing an SCBA. This finding makes the city's reasons for discharging Smith inadequate under section 400.18. Consequently, we reverse the judgment of the district court and remand the matter to that court for an order reinstating Smith to the position he held prior to his July 18, 1994 discharge.