Court Opinion

ID: 9586643
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:13:39.156956+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:46.460614
License: Public Domain

Bell, Judge,
dissenting. The confusion in this case seems to arise in assuming that the Civil Service Board of Fulton County is the first and final finder of the facts. In actuality it is the appointing authority which is the initial finder of the facts. The Civil Sendee Board under the statute is merely an appellate quasi-judicial body.
Section 18 of the act as amended, Ga. L. 1945, p. 850, at p. 854, states specifically that “Such action of the appointing authority shall be final, except the Board may reinstate an officer or employee so removed in case it appears after proper hearing that the removal was made for personal political or religious reasons and not justified.” (Emphasis added.) Section 18a of this same act as amended provides for an appeal to the Civil Service Board.
The sole question then for the Civil Service, Board of Fulton County to determine on appeal is whether there was sufficient evidence to support the dismissal of the employee by the appointing authority. If there was such a sufficiency of evidence, then the board under the statute would be required to sustain the appointing authority.
By way of analogy the appointing authority as the finder of facts is, in our opinion, in very much the same position as the full board of the State Board of Workmen’s Compensation which by the statute is the initial and exclusive determiner of the facts. On appeal to the superior court and to this court, both courts are without authority to set aside any facts properly found by the board which are supported by the evidence.
It follows then in the instant case that if the record discloses a sufficiency of evidence to support the appointing authority in the dismissal of the employee Dunn that, progressively, the Civil Service Board of Fulton County, the superior court and this court are all bound to accept those facts and to affirm the dismissal. The record discloses that there is ample evidence to sustain the appointing authority in the dismissal of the employee. To illustrate, the record shows the following from the testimony of the dismissed employee Reno Dunn: “I never made any *169spot check to see whether they (the accountants under Dunn’s supervision) were doing this checking for validation, but I did reassure Mr. Thompson from what they told me everything was in order.” While there is much other testimony in the record which tends to support the appointing authority in the dismissal, this simple quotation from the testimony of Dunn is sufficient substantiation in and of itself, for the reason that the commissioner was justified in expecting from Dunn a more thorough check as to whether the security measures were being carried out, and in expecting more than the mere acceptance of the statement of the employees under Dunn that a proper check was being made and everything was in order.
While it is true that Section 18 of the act states in part that “. . . the board may reinstate an officer or employee so removed in case it appears after proper hearing that the removal was made for personal political or religious reasons and not justified,” it is clear that the board can only reinstate where the dismissal was solely for personal political or religious reasons and was not justified. It is equally clear that where the dismissal was justified by the facts, even though personal political or religious reasons may have been present in the dismissal, the appointing authority’s decision must be final.
In our opinion the case of Fitzgerald v. Mayor &c. of Savannah, 100 Ga. App. 372 (111 S. E. 2d 257), supports this view here expressed. We do not construe the Fitzgerald case as authority to support the findings of the Civil Service Board of Fulton County for the reason that the Civil Service Board of Fulton County by the statute is clearly made an appellate tribunal. The statute involved in the Fitzgerald case (Ga. L. 1945, pp. 703, 705), which by the decision of the court, was construed as being the law of that case expressly provided that “the recommendations of said board shall be final only after the approval of the mayor and aldermen of the City of Savannah.” (Emphasis added). This language clearly shows that both the pension board and the mayor and aldermen of the City of Savannah were clothed with fact-finding responsibilities, with the final authority being expressly delegated to the mayor and aldermen. Here, the appointing authority is clothed by statute *170with this initial fact-finding authority, and the hearing before the Civil Service Board of Fulton County is merely for the purpose of reviewing on appeal whether the facts so found by the appointing authority are supportable. This situation required by the statute is not attenuated by the fact that on appeal additional evidence is offered, heard and considered.
To us it is unthinkable that the General Assembly intended that the decisions of the appointing authority could be overturned in any case where there is a conflict of evidence as to whether a firing is justified. To so construe the legislative intent is to hold in effect that the disciplinary power of the office of tax commissioner is vested in the review board and not in the commissioner. While it is true that the law here is a peculiar one in that the appeal body formally hears evidence, whereas appellate tribunals ordinarily do not, the mere existence of this peculiarity does not permit the conclusion that just any finding of the appeal board, which may be authorized by the evidence before it, can be handed down by it. Such authority in the board is precluded by the existence of the explicit and prohibiting provisions of the law to the effect that the action of the appointing authority is final except where the firing is done for “personal political or religious reasons” and not justified. We think that this prohibiting provision means that the firing must be found by the reviewing body to have been made illegally as a matter of law. This means that the review provisions of this law are alike in significance to the more formal procedure by certiorari, in spite of the fact that the reviewing body may hear evidence. Any other conclusion simply means that the actions of the appointing authority whose duties are varied, complicated, and complex can be crippled by appeals whenever there is a conflict of evidence. We believe that the commissioner’s responsibilities, judgment, discretion and policy should not be so circumscribed and fettered that it will make it difficult, if not impossible, for the one responsible to efficiently administer the duties of the office. We are not unmindful of the rights of the employee, but under the employee’s own testimony here, the discharge was authorized.

Felton, C. J., and Carlisle, J., concur in this dissent.