Court Opinion

ID: 9575860
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:18:02.959481+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:48:11.569119
License: Public Domain

Wilkie, J.
(dissenting in part). I concur with the majority opinion that sec. 63.10, Stats., required a hearing as a matter of right on this suspension and that the rule of the Milwaukee County Civil Service Commission to the contrary is invalid. A suspension with its attendant loss of pay to the employee and black mark on his personnel record can be almost as serious (especially if repeated) to the employee as removal or discharge. There is just as much reason for affording an employee a hearing on charges leading to suspension as on charges leading to removal or discharge.
I cannot concur with that part of the opinion remanding the matter to the circuit court with directions that an order be entered directing the commission to hold a hearing. In my opinion the commission has failed to order a hearing to be held “within three weeks” after the filing of the charge. If there was a breach of the statute, as there was, in the commission’s failure to order a hearing on the suspension charge, it was just as much a breach not to hold the hearing within the time prescribed by the statute. It would not be “fair play” to expect the employee, over a year and a half after the alleged offense to now present his case at a hearing that should have been held within twenty-one days of the charge. State ex rel. Ball v. McPhee (1959), 6 Wis. (2d) 190, 199, 94 N. W. (2d) 711. I would therefore reverse the judgment and remand the cause to the circuit court with instructions to enter an order directing the commission to set aside the suspension and reimburse the employee for any pay loss that he has suffered as a result of the illegal suspension.