Opinion
No. 823 C.D. 2013
03-12-2014
City of Philadelphia v. Civil Service Commission, Blair Biggs, Jonathan Bryant, and Maurice Griffin, Jr. Appeal of: Blair Biggs, Jonathan Bryant and Maurice Griffin, Jr.
BEFORE: HONORABLE BERNARD L. McGINLEY, Judge HONORABLE ANNE E. COVEY, Judge HONORABLE ROCHELLE S. FRIEDMAN, Senior Judge
OPINION NOT REPORTED
MEMORANDUM OPINION BY SENIOR JUDGE FRIEDMAN
Blair Biggs, Jonathan Bryant, and Maurice Griffin, Jr. (together, Counselors) appeal from the March 25, 2013, order of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County (trial court), which granted the City of Philadelphia's (City) appeal and vacated the decision of the City's Civil Service Commission (Commission) to reinstate Counselors to their positions as youth detention counselors at the City's Youth Study Center (YSC). We affirm.
YSC, which operates under the City's Department of Human Services (DHS), is a secure detention facility for juveniles accused of committing crimes. On the evening of January 9, 2011, N.A., a YSC resident, was behaving in an unruly manner and refused to take his medication. Pursuant to YSC protocol, N.A. was confined to his room, but he continued to be verbally belligerent. Counselors confronted N.A. in his room. When N.A. attempted to leave the room, a physical altercation ensued while Counselors tried to restrain him. As a result, N.A. suffered a fractured jaw, a severely swollen eye, and a bloody nose.
Following an internal investigation, YSC concluded that Counselors failed to use proper safe crisis management techniques during the altercation with N.A. YSC also determined that N.A. would not have sustained such severe injuries had Counselors used proper safe crisis management techniques to restrain him.
The Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare also investigated the incident and issued an indicated report of child abuse against Counselor Bryant, which was later overturned. (Commission's Op. at 2, 8.) Prior to this action, Counselor Bryant was suspended for 20 days for failing to take proper action to keep a resident safe. (Id. at 2.)
After an evidentiary hearing, the YSC Disciplinary Board (Board), which was comprised of Counselors' peers, determined that Counselors violated YSC policies and recommended that Counselors be suspended for 30 days. DHS Commissioner Ann Marie Ambrose subsequently reviewed the matter and concluded that Counselors' conduct warranted their dismissals. Commissioner Ambrose found that if Counselors had followed YSC policies, the situation would not have escalated into a full-blown physical altercation in which N.A. was seriously injured. Therefore, she ordered that Counselors be discharged.
Counselors timely appealed to the Commission, which conducted four days of hearings. The Commission reversed Commissioner Ambrose's decision and reinstated Counselors because it determined that the City failed to establish just cause for Counselors' removal. The Commission concluded:
Section 7.7-303 of the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter provides that "[a]ny dismissal or demotion after the completion of the required probationary period of service, or suspension of any employe in the civil service shall be for just cause only." 351 Pa. Code §7.7-303.
[W]e find [Counselors'] request to overturn [Commissioner Ambrose's] decisions to be reasonable. The Commission finds the testimony of [Counselors] to be credible. Specifically, the Commission believes the testimony of [Counselors] in regard to the use of the [safe crisis management] upper torso hold and their intent to restrain [N.A.], not to harm him.(Commission's Op. at 9.) The Commission was also troubled by Commissioner Ambrose's failure to personally interview the individuals involved, stating that her "lack of investigation contribute[d] significantly to the Department's failure to establish just cause for [Counselors'] dismissals." (Id. at 10.)
Further, the Commission finds that the Department failed to meet its burden that [Counselors'] actions constituted misconduct to support just cause for dismissal. Specifically, there was no evidence that [Counselors] intentionally injured [N.A.] when attempting to apply an upper torso hold or at any other time during the altercation with [N.A.]. To the contrary, [Counselors] attempted on numerous occasions to counsel [N.A.] and prevent him from injuring himself and others. In regard to credibility, the Commission finds [Counselors'] recountings of the incident to be credible and consistent with the incident reports submitted. Conversely, [N.A.'s] account[s] as to how he was injured have been inconsistent since the time of the incident.
The City timely appealed to the trial court, which vacated the Commission's decision and upheld Commissioner Ambrose's dismissal of Counselors. The trial court held that a lower just-cause standard applied due to Counselors' "sensitive" positions as youth detention counselors, citing City of Philadelphia v. City of Philadelphia Civil Service Commission (Carter), 895 A.2d 87 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2006). Applying the Carter factors, the trial court concluded:
In Carter, this court explained that, when determining just cause,
the nature of the job is an important consideration; an employee in a "sensitive position" may be subject to dismissal if only to avoid the appearance of impropriety whereas an employee in a non-sensitive position may not. A second relevant factor is whether the conduct in question demonstrates a lack of judgment that erodes confidence in an employee's character. A third factor concerns safety. An employee whose job it is to protect the safety of others is expected to behave in a manner consistent with this goal even while off duty.
While the Civil Service Commission may decide whether [Commissioner Ambrose's] determination of just cause was made in good faith, it may not usurp the Commissioner's authority and decide just cause in her stead when bad faith has been neither evidenced nor considered. As the Civil Service Commission committed an error of law when it substituted its own disciplinary discretion absent a showing of bad faith on the part of [Commissioner Ambrose], this Court was compelled to reverse the Civil Service Commission's reinstatement of [Counselors].(Trial Ct. Op. at 11.) The trial court also determined that Counselors' failure to follow proper protocols, as well as their attempts to cover up the incident, "presented the appearance of impropriety" and demonstrated a lack of judgment, thereby justifying their dismissals. (Id. at 8.) Counselors now appeal to this court.
N.A. testified that on the way to the hospital, Counselor Biggs offered to buy N.A. a cheesesteak if he did not tell anyone how he was injured. (Commission's Op. at 6.) At the hospital, Counselor Biggs did not inform the medical staff that N.A.'s injuries resulted from an altercation with YSC counselors. (Id. at 3.) Although Counselors point out that the Commission credited Counselors' testimony and discredited N.A.'s, those credibility findings were limited to the parties' testimony regarding what transpired during the altercation in N.A.'s room. (See id. at 9.) The Commission made no credibility findings in relation to what transpired after the incident.
Our scope of review of a municipal civil service commission adjudication is limited. If a full and complete record was made before the commission, we must affirm the adjudication unless it violates constitutional rights, is not in accordance with the law, or contains factual findings that are unsupported by substantial evidence. McAndrew v. Municipal Civil Service Commission of Scranton, 952 A.2d 1219, 1222 n.7 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2008).
Counselors first argue that the trial court improperly substituted its judgment for that of the Commission by making its own factual findings and credibility determinations. We disagree. Although the trial court cited certain testimony of the City's witnesses when reciting the facts, it relied primarily on the facts as found by the Commission and ultimately concluded that the Commission committed an error of law, which was within the scope of its review. See City of Philadelphia v. Civil Service Commission (Johnson), 967 A.2d 1034, 1041-42 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2009). We find no error.
Next, Counselors challenge the trial court's determination that the City was not required to show that Counselors intentionally harmed N.A. in order to prove just cause for their removal. They claim that the trial court erred in applying a lower just-cause standard. We disagree.
It is undisputed that Counselors had sensitive positions with YSC. See Carter, supra (identifying youth detention counselor as a "sensitive" position). Thus, the trial court properly applied the Carter factors in making its just-cause determination. The trial court concluded that Counselors' conduct not only had the appearance of impropriety, but it also evidenced a lack of judgment and cast doubt on Counselors' character and fitness to perform their job duties. See Davis v. Civil Service Commission of the City of Philadelphia, 820 A.2d 874, 878 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2003) ("Even a single instance of misconduct or an error of judgment can constitute just cause for dismissal if it adversely reflects on the fitness of a person for his duties."). The evidence credited by the Commission showed that, in attempting to restrain and control N.A., Counselors escalated, rather than de-escalated, the situation in violation of YSC policies and their job duties. As this court recognized in Carter, "[a]n employee whose job it is to protect the safety of others is expected to behave in a manner consistent with this goal." 895 A.2d at 93. We conclude that the record contains substantial evidence to support the trial court's just-cause determination.
Finally, Counselors assert that the trial court erred in failing to consider Commissioner Ambrose's failure to properly investigate the underlying matter before dismissing Counselors. Counselors claim that because Commissioner Ambrose did not personally interview the individuals involved, she made her decision to discharge them in bad faith. We disagree.
Contrary to Counselors' assertion, the DHS Commissioner is not required to investigate first-hand all incidents of employee misconduct before determining the appropriate discipline. As was her customary practice, Commissioner Ambrose reviewed the transcripts and exhibits from the Board's hearing, the YSC incident reports, and the photographs of N.A.'s injuries. Based on her experience and review of the record, she determined that N.A. would not have sustained such severe injuries had Counselors used proper restraint techniques. Our courts have recognized that "'[j]ust cause for removal must necessarily be largely a matter of discretion on the part of the head of the department.'" Carter, 895 A.2d at 92 (quoting In re O'Gorman, 409 Pa. 571, 576, 187 A.2d 581, 583 (1963)). "[O]nce just cause is found, neither the Commission nor this Court can impose a more lenient or a more severe penalty." Id. at 94.
The trial court explained:
To expect the Philadelphia DHS Commissioner, or head of any large and complex governmental [unit] for that matter, to personally conduct internal investigations and personally speak to all parties involved in the investigation is naïve and impractical, and has not been, nor will it ever be, the expected operational practices of any governmental agency the size and scope of DHS . . . a massive organization.(Trial Ct. Op. at 10 (emphasis in original).)
At the time of the hearing, Commissioner Ambrose had "twenty-five years of experience in this field and advocating for youth." (N.T., 4/3/12, at 33.) Before becoming DHS Commissioner, she "was the Deputy Commissioner for Juvenile Justice Services in [Philadelphia] for four years, . . . ran the State system for two and a half years[,] and ran all of the Youth Development Centers." (Id. at 24.)
Here, Commissioner Ambrose, the final authority with regard to discipline of DHS employees, determined that dismissing Counselors would best protect the integrity of her organization and the juveniles in DHS's care. Absent any evidence of bad faith, the Commission was required to defer to Commissioner Ambrose's discretion. See Carter, 895 A.2d at 94 (finding that the Commission erred in failing to defer to the agency head's decision to dismiss youth detention counselor for off-duty conduct, noting that it was not the Commission's province "to deprive Commissioner Martinez of the ability to decide what was best for the Department"); see also City of Philadelphia v. Civil Service Commission (In re Boles), 965 A.2d 389, 394 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2009) (noting that the Commission's authority is limited to determining whether misconduct occurred and whether it constitutes just cause, not what penalty should be imposed).
Commissioner Ambrose testified as follows:
[Counselors are] claiming that they used a variety of safe crisis management techniques in order to get [N.A.] under control, and that was the result. But from my reading of the transcript, it was - they were able to describe in pretty amazing detail the methods that they employed but not how he got injured. . . . [T]he techniques that they used, most of those techniques that they used seemed inappropriate for a kid of [N.A.]'s size, in the size room that we're talking about at the Youth Study Center. So that didn't make sense either to me.(N.T., 4/3/12, at 26, 38-39.) --------
. . .
[I]t is concerning to me that a youth in my care would be treated like this, that a youth in my care would be afraid to go back to the Youth Study Center because of what might happen to him if he tells the truth about what happened to him. That's not an acceptable set of circumstances for me. My job is to protect kids from abuse. And a kid in detention is no different in some ways than the other kids and, in fact, the standard's higher. I am not saying that these guys don't get subjected to difficult situations, but they're trained to make sure that they're able to handle the situations and the end result is not this.
In sum, we conclude that the trial court correctly determined that the Commission committed an error of law in conducting its just-cause analysis and in failing to defer to Commissioner Ambrose's decision to discharge Counselors. Accordingly, we affirm.
/s/_________
ROCHELLE S. FRIEDMAN, Senior Judge
ORDER
AND NOW, this 12th day of March, 2014, we hereby affirm the March 25, 2013, order of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County.
/s/_________
ROCHELLE S. FRIEDMAN, Senior Judge
Id. at 92-93 (citations omitted).