Court Opinion

ID: 9559595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:32:04.505655+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:10:41.307765
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Justice,
with whom COMPTON, Justice, joins, dissenting.
The purpose of periodic review of disability status is to determine whether a member who was previously found to be disabled is now capable of working as a police officer. This is a practical standard. If a member can go back to work as a police officer, he should not continue to receive disability payments. The board must answer whether a member is now employable as a police officer either because of improvement in the member’s mental or physical condition which originally led to his disability rating, or because of new standards used by police departments.
In this case there is no evidence that Lucas’s personality disorder, which was found to be disabling by Board I, has changed in any important way. Likewise, there is no indication that police departments now use different standards which would enable Lucas to perform work as a police officer. He is therefore now no more capable of serving as a police officer than he was in 1982. Because of his personality disorder which was previously found to be disabling, Lucas cannot find employment as a police officer and no one seriously contends otherwise.
The explanation for Board II’s decision in this case is that the two doctors on whom Board II relied made a distinction between unsuitability for police work and incapacity for police work. They believe that Board I made a mistake in determining that Lucas’s personality disorder made him incapable of performing police work. In their view, his personality disorder merely made him unsuitable for police work.
I do not think that it is important to debate whether there is a substantive distinction between unsuitability for police work caused by a personality disorder and incapacity for police work caused by the same personality disorder. Board I found that Lucas’s personality disorder constituted a disability which made him “unable to perform his assigned duties.” In order to terminate disability payments, Board II must determine that there has been a significant change in this personality disorder — or a change in police standards — which makes Lucas now capable of doing police work. Since no substantial evidence supports either change, Board II’s determination must be reversed.