Opinion ID: 2175707
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Credit for Schilling's earnings.

Text: As we view the situation, this issue arises because of some facts that were not clearly present or understood on the first appeal in these cases. It now appears that Schilling's regularly assigned shift at the time of his suspension was from midnight to 8 a.m. It further appears that during 1970, and up until his suspension in September, 1970, he earned the additional sum of $3,369.24 as overtime pay for work from the sheriff's office. The total amount of his back pay for the suspension period was $11,510.38. During the period of his suspension, Schilling earned $3,869.13 from other employment. The trial court deducted this sum from the back pay owed, and awarded Schilling a net sum of $7,641.25. The trial court, perhaps with justification, found some lack of clarity in our mandate [1] in the previous case. This, coupled with the previously unknown facts that Schilling worked the midnight-to-8 a.m. shift and also earned $3,369.24 overtime in the sheriff's office during 1970 and prior to his suspension, produced a difficult situation for the trial judge to resolve. However, even given this difficult situation, the intent of the mandate was correctly applied to the facts of this case by the trial court, which, in so doing, stated: . . . Counsel for the petitioner argues in effect that the County is not entitled to deduct any of the petitioner's earnings because none of these earnings were made between 12:00 A.M. to 8:00 A.M., the shift to which he was assigned as a deputy. With this conclusion the Court cannot agree. It lends itself to an almost absurd result. Under this interpretation all Schilling had to do was to refrain from getting a third-shift job and could then earn as much as he wanted or was fortunate to earn and would not be required to deduct any of it. . . . The appellants were entitled to credit for the earnings of Schilling from employment during his suspension when such employment was unrelated to outside or part-time employment held by Schilling prior to his suspension.