Court Opinion

ID: 9740795
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:41:50.601309+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:19.989877
License: Public Domain

Kelly, P.J.
(dissenting). The reviewing circuit judge noted in her opinion that
[stripped of various unproven allegations of bias, Tauber has done no more than present a fact-finding hearing in which an issue of credibility was resolved against his position.
This assertion is correct, but does not justify affirming the hearing officer’s decision. The hearing officer decided the issue of credibility against Tauber without hearing any testimony contra to Tauber’s version of the incident. Tauber was the only one that testified in front of him. The hearing officer simply read the police officer’s account of the events from his written reports. The other person involved in the altercation, a prisoner identified by name, number, and lock, did not testify. The hearing officer drew conclusions from the officer’s report which were not contained in the report. The officer himself did not initially issue a citation to Tauber. The officer "informed A.R.N.M. Brown of what I saw, and he instructed me to *341write Mr. Tauber a ticket for threatening behavior. I did as instructed.” The officer’s report did mention that Tauber told the officer that he was defending himself from an attack by another prisoner and that prisoner Wynn was acting as a lookout for the prisoner who had assaulted him.
The hearing officer inferred that Wynn was not the attacker but the defendant, Department of Corrections, refused to allow plaintiff to call as witnesses the prisoners assigned to adjoining cells. This rendered his right to present evidence meaningless. MCL 791.252; MSA 28.2320(52).
The majority’s rather elaborate construct of "plaintiff’s version of the incident” which turns his testimony into an admission that the attack had ended is a replay which seems to me out of focus. We don’t know how many seconds this altercation took, but the failure of the department to allow plaintiff to discover witnesses and the failure of the department to produce Wynn and Eidenier certainly impairs the process.
The majority correctly outlines the scope of review applied to prison disciplinary hearings by § 106 of the Administrative Procedures Act, MCL 24.306; MSA 3.560(206). Section 106 provides that a decision should be set aside if substantial rights of the petitioner have been prejudiced because the decision is "Not supported by competent, material and substantial evidence on the whole record,” or "Arbitrary, capricious or clearly an abuse or unwarranted exercise of discretion.” The hearing officer found against Tauber in the absence of any evidence refuting Tauber’s claim of self-defense. This decision was not supported by evidence, and seems to me an unwarranted exercise of the hearing officer’s discretion.
I find the decision of the hearing officer not supported by competent and substantial evidence on the whole record. I would reverse.