Court Opinion

ID: 9671946
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:45:59.808305+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:13.268726
License: Public Domain

McCALEB, Justice
(dissenting in part).
I do not subscribe to the majority view that there was no “probative”1 evidence submitted to the Civil Service Commission to sustain the dismissal of appellant from the New Orleans Police Force for permitting a graft system to be conducted *447at the Third Police District, while he was in charge of that District, and in failing (if he did not participate in these illegal activities) to know that bribe money was being collected and distributed by the officers under his command. Actually, I think that not only considerable circumstantial evidence was adduced, from which an inference could logically be drawn that appellant knew or should have known of the graft system, but there was also direct evidence which, if believed, tended to show that he was an active participant in the system.
It is conceded by the majority, and the fact is not disputed by anyone, that a system of graft existed in the Third Police District of New Orleans from 1951 through 1955 and that Police Sergeant Bray directed the collections and distributed the proceeds to the participants, which allegedly included the police captains in command of the station. Appellant’s position is that he was a strict disciplinarian and that he neither participated nor had any knowledge that a system of graft was in existence. But Bray testified that it was his recollection that appellant personally discussed the graft payments with him at the police station when the former was in charge thereof and that he placed an envelope containing money with the notation “Captain” on appellant’s desk. Indeed, his testimony indicates that appellant thought that he, Bray, had not ferreted out all of the illegal operations being conducted in the district which should be included in the system for he said, when asked the nature of his discussion with appellant,— “* * * what impressed me mostly was because I thought he was questioning my integrity; that there was more going on on the outside than we knew.”
“Q. He was questioning your integrity ? A. He didn’t question but to my opinion, he was.
“Q. What did he say? A. That there was more handbooks going on outside than we knew about.
“Q. In other words, he was telling you that you weren’t picking up enough money? A. The way I figured it, yes, sir.”
True enough, Bray’s testimony is somewhat weakened by his concession, on cross-examination, that he had admitted, during the trial of appellant for malfeasance growing out of the same facts, that he could not swear that a system of graft was actually in existence during the four months appellant was stationed at the Third District. But this merely affects the credibility of his statement; it does not erase Bray’s testimony that he discussed the graft system with appellant.
Thus, the conclusion that there is no evidence at all to show that appellant was cognizant of the system is without basis as we are without the constitutional right to determine whether Bray should be. be*449lieved; our only inquiry iá one of law, that is, whether any evidence was submitted to the Civil Service Commission'-in support of the charges.
On the other hand, I believe that appellant is entitled to a new trial before the Civil Service Commission for the reason that the Commission has not made an independent finding that appellant either participated in the graft system or that he had, or should have had, knowledge of its existence during the time he was in command of the Third District. In substance, the Commission simply found that there was before the Superintendent of Police “substantial, although conflicting, evidence” to that effect and then concluded that the Superintendent did not abuse his discretion in discharging appellant on the basis of such (conflicting) evidence. In summarizing its standard of reviewing the Superintendent’s disciplinary action, the Commission upheld the discharge because “the action of the Superintendent * * * was predicated on substantial evidence of such a nature that a private employer under comparable circumstance would have acted likewise.”
This standard of review is allegedly based upon our decision in Broussard v. State Indus. School, 231 La. 24, 90 So.2d 73, at page 77, wherein it was stated: “Whether the personal conduct is detrimental and prejudicial to the service is largely within the discretion of the appointing authority under this rule [Civil Service Commission Rule 12.1] and the-commission will not disturb the appointing authority’s action in this respect unless it appears to have been arbitrary and capricious and motivated by personal prejudice and/or political reasons.”
In the Broussard case, a female counsel- or at a school for delinquent youth was discharged because of a bigamous marriage. The quoted statement was made in dismissing appellant’s argument that, even if the appellant was guilty of bigamy, such conduct did not constitute cause for discharge. As clarified by the subsequent discussion, this statement presupposes that the conduct upon which the discharge is founded has a reasonable relationship to an administrative conclusion that the employee’s retention is prejudicial to the efficiency of the service in which employed. The Broussard case is not authority for the proposition that, in the absence of such prerequisites, the civil, service commission should not disturb the discretion of the appointing authority in disciplining an employee, nor for the proposition that such discretion will not be disturbed if a private employer would have acted likewise in comparable circumstances.
For the civil service amendment provides that no classified employee shall be disciplined or discriminated against except for cause. Art. XIV, Sections 15(A) (1) *451and 15(N) (1), La.Constitution. The civil service commission is vested with exclusive jurisdiction to decide appeals of employees from such adverse administrative action and to decide the legality thereof, Art. XIV, Sec. 15(0) (1), and thus its function, inter alia, is to decide whether the cause of discharge expressed by the appointing authority does or does not exist in fact. The commission abdicates its function of review if it states, without itself finding that the cause for discharge does in fact exist, that there was evidence before the appointing authority from which the latter might have concluded that cause for discharge existed.
The Civil Service Commission is an administrative board of a quasi-judicial character, and it is for that reason that this Court, on its review of the commission’s decisions on questions of law alone, has applied the well-established doctrine that it will not substitute its judgment for that of the commission in the absence of a clear abuse of discretion. See Konen v. New Orleans Police Department, 226 La. 739, 77 So.2d 24, and other cases cited in the Broussard case, supra. But this principle cannot be resorted to by the commission in deciding employees’ complaints of discriminatory action; the commission hearing of these cases is not the review of an action taken by another board or tribunal; it is the first hearing of an adversary nature in which the employee has the right to present his side of the case and, although the burden of proof is on the employee, the commission cannot surrender its function of determining whether in fact cause existed for the employee’s discharge by resort to a rule that the action of the appointing authority will not be disturbed unless found to be arbitrary or capricious or a rule that the discharge will be upheld if a private employer, with no constitutional prohibition against discharges without cause, might in comparable circumstances have acted likewise.
For these reasons, I think that the case should be remanded for a new trial.

. If the majority is employing the word “probative” to indicate “believable” evidence or truth, then, clearly, it steps outside of the Court’s sphere of jurisdiction in civil service cases, our review being limited to questions of law.