Court Opinion

ID: 9691118
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 20:11:09.101801+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:10.909326
License: Public Domain

McCALEB, Justice
(dissenting in part).
It is not my purpose to revive my disagreement with the majority respecting the *105right of the Civil Service Commission to reinstate an employee, who has been illegally dismissed (as well as one who is lawfully dismissed), “* * * under such conditions as it deems proper and may order full pay for lost time”, as specifically provided by Section 15(0) (3) of Article 14 of the Constitution. Notwithstanding my inability to subscribe to the rationale of the rulings in State ex rel. Boucher v. Heard, 228 La. 1078, 84 So.2d 827 and Bennett v. Louisiana Wild Life and Fisheries Comm., 234 La. 678, 101 So.2d 199, which, as stated in my dissent in the Bennett case, had the practical effect of obliterating Paragraph 3 of Section 15(0) of Article 14 of the Constitution, those rulings were accepted and applied by me, as organ of the Court, in Dickson v. Department of Highways, 234 La. 1082, 102 So.2d 464, where we reversed the ruling of the Commission denying the employee’s appeal and held that he must be regarded as never having been taken off the payroll.
When the Dickson case was brought here on the second occasion (see Dickson v. Richardson, 236 La. 668, 109 So.2d 51), that being a mandamus proceeding in which the employee sought to have the appointing authority ordered to pay him full wages for time lost, the defendant pleaded that the Department was entitled to offset from the wages the sum of $4,502.62 which the employee had admittedly earned during his forced separation from the service. This plea of set-off was denied on authority of the doctrine of the Heard and Bennett cases and also the general jurisprudence in mandamus proceedings involving civil service employees under prior laws.
However, the defendant in that matter again directed our attention to the clear and express provisions of Section 15(0) (3) of Article 14 of the Constitution, referred to hereinabove, as ground for maintenance of the claimed offset. We rejected the applicability of the constitutional provision to the mandamus proceeding, reasoning that it pertained only to cases in which the Commission itself reinstates the employee.
In view of the fact that the original opinion in the instant case, which was being handed down on the same day as Dickson v. Richardson, upheld the constitutional right of the Civil Service Commission to reinstate Hermann under such conditions as it deemed proper, it was essential in the Dickson case, where the defendant’s plea of offset was disallowed, to rationalize the two holdings so that conflict would not ensue. Hence, giving due credence to the rulings in the Heard and Bennett cases and revitalizing the language of Section 15(0) (3) of Article 14 of the Constitution, we reasoned in the Dickson case that the Constitution meant what it said but that its provisions were restricted in operation to cases where the Commission itself reinstated the employee. This provided, in *107my opinion, a logical explanation of the different conclusions reached in the two cases. Besides, this interpretation of the constitutional provision was highly proper as it effected a partial reestablishment of the clear language of the Constitution which had been stricken from the law by the tenuous reasoning of the Heard and Bennett cases.
The Dickson case was a unanimous opinion, every member of the Court subscribing thereto. The context of that’ opinion is plain and understandable, so it is evident that the subscribing justices believed that the construction therein given Section 15 (O) (3) of Article 14 of the Constitution was sound. Yet, the majority view in the instant case rejects that interpretation without discussion and renders ineffective the plain language of the constitutional provisions for all practical purposes.
This case, in my estimation, furnishes a glaring • example of the untoward result of the Court’s decision deleting the constitutional provision, which vests the Civil Service Commission with the discretion of reinstating an employee under such conditions as it deems proper and with or without back pay. This appellant, while under federal indictment for income tax evasion, applied for and was granted continuances of his hearing before the Civil Service Commission on August 15, 1957, October 9, 1957, November 14, 1957, February 13, 1958, March 13, 1958 and April 10, 1958, evidently on his counsel’s plea that the trial of his appeal for reinstatement might prejudice his defense before the Federal Court. For each delay obtained at his request, he is now to be paid for services he has not performed. Under the ruling on rehearing, it is the public fisc which suffers as a result of the indulgences extended to appellant. To say this is grossly inequitable is to put it mildly.
To this I cannot subscribe and, therefore, respectfully dissent from that part of the opinion and decree which amends the Civil Service Commission’s ruling by deleting therefrom the portions disallowing back pay for the period of suspension and decreasing the remaining back pay by any amount Hermann may have earned in the interim.