Court Opinion

ID: 9760584
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:01:28.935326+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:13.355427
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION
BY Judge McGINLEY.
I respectfully dissent to the majority’s conclusion that “[i]n short, the Commission’s findings regarding Boles’ performance of her work duties and the excuses for her poor performance are not supported by substantial evidence.” Majority Opinion at 11.
Substantial evidence is “such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.” Lewis v. Civil Service Commission, City of Philadelphia, 518 Pa. 170, 174, 542 A.2d 519, 522 (1988). It is more than just a “scintilla” of evidence and must do more than create a suspicion of the evidence of the fact to be established. Id.
In the present controversy, the Department sent a Notice of Intention to Demote for the following:
At that time [July 28, 2004], your supervisor established a target date of August 19, for you to present an outline of your plan to a brainstorming session with the rest of the OOW [Office of Watersheds] staff. At that time, you indicated the August 19 date did not pose a problem.
... He [Supervisor] stressed to you that the OOW staff members should be notified of the August 19 meeting no later than August 12.
On August 19, the date on which your meeting with OOW staff was supposed to be held, no meeting occurred ... [o]n *396that date, he also learned that you had almost no contact with OOW staff regarding the WTC Project.
On August 26, only one of 22 staff members of OOW attended your meeting because of lack of timely notice, or follow up by you....
On August 27, your supervisor spoke with you, and a new task/list, which you agreed to, was established. That plan included a draft WTC plan distributed to OOW staff by September 3. At that time, you told your supervisor you did not need assistance on the project.
Your deadline of September 3, was missed....
Notice of Intention to Demote, January 7, 2005, at 2-3.
With regard to the assignment deadlines, Boles testified before the Commission:
Q: Now, you indicated that you were not given particular deadlines to meet. But yet, if you take a look at your exhibit number 1 from the e-mail from Chris Crockett to you, there’s a deadline of July 21st with respect to meeting-to developing missions, goals and objectives. Isn’t that true?
A: Right. I don’t think I said that I didn’t get deadlines, (emphasis added).
Q: Okay, so there were deadlines. Did you meet this July 21st deadline?
A: Yes.
Q: You did? Is that this document?
A: No. In fact, there are several documents, some of the Powerpoint presentations, and there was also written documentation that shows that-and the matrix we spoke about.
Q: This may be August 26th okay. Now I notice throughout the document there are a lot of bullets without any elaboration. Was this what you considered to be your final document?
A: No.
Q: So-and this was the end of August?
A: This was August 26th, yes.
Q: So you presented this to Mr. Crockett and he told you this was not satisfactory? Is that correct?
A: No.
Q: Okay, on August 26th — you presented this to him on August 26th. What did he say?
A: He had another meeting to go to, he would try and sit with Brian and I to go through some of the documents-through the documents we had. It was that, the Powerpoint presentation, as well as the matrix. I was given a whole set of tasks-a new set of task [sic] to go along with-new assignments were given based on this document. I completed the task that he had asked for in order to prepare this document, and on that date I got a new set of assignments, (emphasis added).
Q: Did he ever indicate to you that the work that you presented was not satisfactory?
A: Not in writing — no. What he said to me was-this is what was completed. The task that I had, this is what I used to complete it, right? Then, on that date, I was asked to then provide goals and objectives, some questions for the staff about how to make this a better document.
Q: That’s fine. Just>-I would-if she could just tell us when those documents were completed?
A: This was September 23rd, it would be a Thursday. I had a meeting with Chris Crockett, and got new direction. *397This is why-well, you know, the project is not complete. You cannot go on vacation because you haven’t completed these assignments. So that very day, I completed the documents. We had a meeting scheduled for September 24th— because I was to go on vacation that following week-which was a Friday. The meeting was cancelled by Mr. Crockett .... (emphasis added).
Notes of Testimony (N.T.), June 22, 2005, at 64-65, 68, and 70; Reproduced Record (R.R.) at 117a-18a, 121a, and 128a.
With regard to the scheduling of the project staff meeting, Boles testified:
Q: The meeting on August 26th to interview staff members or to get their feedback, can you outline what you did to call that meeting?
A: I sent an e-mail to the managers, as I ivas told by Mr. Crockett to do-sent an e-mail to the managers and asked them to invite their stajf-that might be the best way to do it. I agreed with him because I didn’t know what staff should be working on the Watershed Technology Center and I didn’t want to have a meeting with twenty people, thirty people if you count the consultants. So I sent an e-mail to the managers. There was one manager, Joanne Dahme, who said the date was not good for her, and I said well, when I hear’ from the other staff members, I’ll let you know if we can move the dates around, and she said fine. What I did was I gave her a copy of the draft document that we were going to be looking over. She did say she had another meeting to go to. So what she did was she made comments for me and gave that to me prior to us meeting, (emphasis added).
Q: okay.
A: Mr. Crockett did come over and, you know, said that he didn’t get the email about the meeting. And I had said, well, you know, your e-mail did decline but we’re trying to schedule the date. So if the dates don’t work for all managers, then we’ll have to reschedule anyway. At that point, he went downstairs to Seth Tannenbaum, to our computer experts, and wanted to know why he didn’t get an e-mail about the meeting, where obviously Joanne had gotten it. Brian said he didn’t get it, but Brian did attend the meeting, so I’m not sure how two or three could have gotten it.
N.T. at 59-60; R.R. at 112a-13a. Boles also testified that she sought feedback from persons unable to attend and that she spoke to persons outside the Department and reviewed websites to collect additional information. N.T. at 51; R.R. at 104a. Although, Boles did not have “face-to-face meeting”, Boles testified that she obtained the requested information. N.T. at 66-67; R.R. at 119a-20a.
After review of the evidence, I concur with the Commission’s determination that the Department failed to meet its burden of proof:
... Appellant [Boles] performed her job duties even if in a manner different than what Crockett would have liked. As an Engineer III, Appellant [Boles] had some discretion as to how to complete her tasks. Appellant [Boles] chose to speak with persons outside the Department to get her information after she had no success meeting with persons within the Department. The Department’s complaints about Appellant’s [Boles’] use or lack of use of e-mail ... are not persuasive in its decision to demote. Even if the Commission were to conclude that there are some stylistic issues that need to be worked out between Appellant [Boles] and management, Appellant [Boles] was not given sufficient time to perform her tasks and to achieve success.... After more than *398tiventy years of service to the City and several years as an Engineer III, the Commission believes that the Department has not shown that Appellant’s [Boles’] performance over a three to four month period warrants demotion, (emphasis added).
Opinion of the Civil Service Commission, February 10, 2006, at 3-á.
I would reverse the trial court.
Judge PELLEGRINI joins in this dissent.