Court Opinion

ID: 9624410
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:02:12.089088+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:46.057533
License: Public Domain

SCHAUER, J.
I dissent. The sheriff of the city and county of San Francisco is a department head and by the express provisions of section 20 of the San Francisco charter is authorized to “reduce the forces under his jurisdiction to conform to the needs of the work for which he is responsible, any other provision of this charter to the contrary notwithstanding” (italics added). Acting under this power the sheriff abolished two positions of superintendent of jail. Hanley and Reilly, respondents herein, who had held the two positions were not discharged from employment; they were merely returned to the next highest positions which they had occupied prior to their promotion to jail superintendent. The evidence is undisputed that no one else was appointed to occupy the two positions and no new positions to take over the duties of jail superintendent were created; rather, the duties of the abolished offices were absorbed by personnel already employed; such duties were assumed partly by the undersheriff, partly by the sheriff’s secretary, and partly by captains of the watch stationed at the two jails. There was thus no pseudo, but an actual, abolishment of the two superintendent positions, and the finding of the trial court that the sheriff acted in bad faith must necessarily relate to a uurely metaphysical concept. In respect to the conduct of the duties of his office the finding simply is not sustained by the evidence.
It is my view that the efforts of governmental heads to reorganize their offices for purposes of efficiency and the saving of money for the taxpayers without any curtailment of the duties performed is highly commendable and should be supported and encouraged rather than unnecessarily, let alone arbitrarily, stricken down by the courts.
Upon the undisputed law and facts, the judgment should be reversed.