Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Merced County. No. 148400 Ronald W. Hansen, Judge.
Carroll, Burdick & McDonough, Gary M. Messing and Jason H. Jasmine, for Plaintiff and Appellant.
Allen, Proietti & Fagalde, Donald J. Proietti and Kimberly G. Flores, for Defendants and Respondents.
OPINION
Wiseman, J.
Appellant Thomas Fullerton was a Merced City Police Officer and a police union official. After a domestic incident, reported to police by himself, in which he pushed his estranged wife, the police department terminated his employment. The termination was upheld after an appeal to the city’s personnel board. The superior court denied Officer Fullerton’s petition for a writ of mandate to reverse the decision; he appeals.
We disagree with Officer Fullerton’s claim that the termination was not supported by sufficient evidence of wrongdoing on his part. We also reject his arguments that he was denied due process of law in the administrative and court proceedings. The judgment is affirmed.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORIES
Officer Fullerton called the police department at about 7:00 o’clock in the evening on March 23, 2004, to report an ongoing altercation with his estranged wife, Carmela Fullerton. According to the reports of the police investigation conducted that night and the following morning, the two had met outside in a parking lot near their separate apartments. Officer Fullerton was accompanied by his eight-year-old son Matthew, and Mrs. Fullerton was carrying the couple’s two-year-old son Grayson. Mrs. Fullerton handed Grayson to Officer Fullerton and then asked him if he had signed some tax forms related to their divorce proceedings. He had not. Mrs. Fullerton tried to take Grayson back. This led to a physical confrontation in which Mrs. Fullerton chased Officer Fullerton around a pile of wood a number of times (the parking lot belonged to a building under construction) and Matthew, the eight-year-old, picked up a crutch Officer Fullerton had been using and tried to push Mrs. Fullerton away with it. According to Mrs. Fullerton, Officer Fullerton shoved her three times, including once in her face and once in her chest, the last push causing her to fall onto the wood pile. Officer Fullerton admitted to pushing her once on her chest to make her let go of Grayson. A responding officer saw redness on Mrs. Fullerton’s upper left chest, a scratch inside her left elbow, and a bruise on her right underarm. Officer Fullerton had three small scratches and another scratch seven inches long on his right arm. At the request of the police, a judge issued an emergency protective order against both Fullertons, but no one was arrested or prosecuted in connection with the incident.
In a declaration Officer Fullerton’s counsel submitted to the personnel board, Mrs. Fullerton retracted her earlier account. She declared that Officer Fullerton pushed her only once and she believed he did it to protect himself and the child.
On behalf of the police department, on April 6, 2004, Commander Norman Andrade issued a notice of intent to terminate Officer Fullerton. The notice described the incident of March 23, 2004, and alleged three violations of the department’s General Order No. 340.35: (1) “‘Criminal, dishonest, infamous or notoriously disgraceful conduct adversely affecting the employee/employer relationship (on or off duty)’” (General Order No. 340.35(o)); (2) “‘Violating any misdemeanor or felony statute’” (General Order No. 340.35(z)); and (3) “‘Any other on-duty or off-duty conduct which any employee knows or reasonably should know is unbecoming a member of the Department or which is contrary to good order, efficiency or morale, or which tends to reflect unfavorably upon the Department or its members’” (General Order No. 340.35(aa)). The notice also alleged a violation of City Personnel Rules section 20.02D, “‘Misconduct, willful or negligent violation of the personnel rules, resolutions, and other related ordinances including written departmental rules, regulations, and policies.’” To support the allegation of criminal conduct, the notice claimed that, during the conflict with Mrs. Fullerton, Officer Fullerton violated Penal Code sections 273.5, subdivision (a) (infliction of corporal injury on spouse or cohabitant), and 273a (child endangerment).
Officer Fullerton requested a pretermination hearing, as was his right under Skelly v. State Personnel Bd. (1975) 15 Cal.3d 194 (Skelly). This Skelly hearing took place on May 19, 2004, with the police chief, Tony Dossetti, presiding as the hearing officer. After the hearing, Chief Dossetti decided to proceed with the termination. He issued a notice of termination, which reiterated the claims and allegations in the notice of intent to terminate. The termination was to become effective on June 9, 2004.
Invoking the city’s personnel rules, Officer Fullerton requested an administrative appeal hearing in a letter dated May 27, 2004. In an evidentiary hearing spanning six days in August and November 2004, the city’s personnel board heard testimony from numerous witnesses, including Officer Fullerton, Mrs. Fullerton, Chief Dossetti, and Commander Andrade. On December 9, 2004, the five-member board voted unanimously to recommend that the termination be upheld. Its written findings included the conclusions that on March 23, 2004, Officer Fullerton made “unwanted physical contact with his hand to his Wife’s upper body” even though he and the child “were not in danger” during the incident. Noting that Officer Fullerton’s duties as a police officer included a “domestic violence assignment,” the board also found that his “conduct damaged his credibility with the public.”
The city manager, James G. Marshall, reviewed the evidence presented at the administrative appeal hearing. On January 5, 2005, he issued a letter concurring in the personnel board’s decision.
Officer Fullerton filed a petition for a writ of mandate in superior court on April 4, 2005, asking the court to order the city to reverse its decision. The city filed an opposition. Two years passed, during which discovery disputes and settlement discussions took place. Finally, on April 25, 2007, Officer Fullerton filed his brief in support of the petition. The court heard the matter on July 30, 2007, issued a tentative oral ruling denying the petition, and took the case under submission. Officer Fullerton requested a full statement of decision. The court filed a detailed written ruling denying the petition on August 20, 2007. It found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that on March 23, 2004, Officer Fullerton pushed Mrs. Fullerton with his hand without legal justification, that this constituted “a domestic battery crime,” and that good cause for the termination therefore existed.
DISCUSSION
The city makes a threshold argument that Officer Fullerton has waived all his appellate issues by including misleading descriptions of the evidence and failing to support his claims with adequate arguments, authority, and record citations in his opening brief. With exceptions we will address, the defects in Officer Fullerton’s briefing do not rise to a level that would justify forfeiture of issues.
I. Sufficiency of the evidence
Officer Fullerton contends that his writ petition should have been granted because the city presented insufficient evidence in the administrative proceedings to establish good cause for his discharge. We disagree.
Employees who, like Officer Fullerton, are subject to termination only for good cause, may be terminated if there is “some fact which would constitute a reasonable cause for the removal.” (Bannerman v. Boyle (1911) 160 Cal. 197, 206.) The agency’s (here, the city’s) task was to determine whether a preponderance of the evidence showed the existence of such a fact. (See Skelly, supra, 15 Cal.3d at p. 204, fn. 19; McCoy v. Board of Retirement (1986) 183 Cal.App.3d 1044, 1051, fn. 5.) In ruling on a petition for administrative mandamus in a case involving a fundamental vested right, such as the right of a city employee to continued employment, the trial court’s task is to exercise its independent judgment to determine whether the agency’s findings are supported by a preponderance of the evidence. At the same time, the burden of persuasion is on the petitioner, and the agency’s findings are afforded a presumption of correctness. (Fukuda v. City of Angels (1999) 20 Cal.4th 805, 816, fn. 8, 817; Strumsky v. San Diego County Employees Retirement Assn. (1974) 11 Cal.3d 28, 32; Flippin v. Los Angeles City Bd. of Civil Service Commissioners (2007) 148 Cal.App.4th 272, 279 (Flippin).) Our task in reviewing the trial court’s findings is to determine whether substantial evidence supports them, resolving conflicts and making reasonable inferences in favor of the judgment. (Bixby v. Pierno (1971) 4 Cal.3d 130, 143, fn. 10; Flippin, supra, at p. 279.) Substantial evidence is evidence that is reasonable, credible, and of solid value, from which a reasonable trier of fact could make the necessary findings under the applicable standard of proof. (In re Jerry M. (1997) 59 Cal.App.4th 289, 298.)
The evidence was undisputed that Officer Fullerton pushed Mrs. Fullerton during the incident on March 23, 2004. At the administrative hearing, both Fullertons testified that, while they were arguing over who would hold Grayson, Officer Fullerton pushed Mrs. Fullerton’s chest. Officer Fullerton said, “I pushed her away from [Grayson] and myself. [¶] … [¶] … I pushed her out with my right hand, an open hand in the shoulder area, left shoulder area.” She said, “[H]e … extended his arm with a lot of pressure using his palm and pushed me in the chest, and I remember it, you know, took me back.” She also said it hurt and a bruise appeared the next morning.
There was conflicting evidence about whether the purpose of the push was to protect Grayson or Officer Fullerton from harm. This conflict came from Officer Fullerton’s own testimony. Fullerton testified, “Carmela reached for the baby. I had him in my left arm. I turned away from her so that she wouldn’t be able to grab him. Unfortunately, I did not succeed, and she did grab him. She started yanking on his left arm. He started to cry .…” Then he pushed her away. He said he thought Grayson was “in jeopardy,” that Mrs. Fullerton “caused him physical pain” by grabbing his arm, and that he was protecting the child from her. Mrs. Fullerton admitted that she was trying to take Grayson back when Officer Fullerton pushed her; she said he seemed to be squeezing the child too tightly and she was afraid he might drop the child because he was limping from the injury that necessitated the crutch. When counsel asked Officer Fullerton why he did not resolve the situation by simply giving Grayson back to his mother, however, a different reason for the push emerged: “I hadn’t seen my son in over a week, and Carmela knows that the only way that she can cause me pain is to take my children from me.… That’s why she—I have a text message, you know, when she withheld him from me before, saying I’m not going to let you see him because you may not give him back. She knows the only way to hurt me is [to] take my children from me. And that’s why she was doing that.”
From this evidence, the trial court could reasonably conclude that there was no legal justification for the push. It could disbelieve the claim of self-defense or defense of another and could find that Officer Fullerton’s real intent in choosing to push Mrs. Fullerton instead of letting her hold her child was to prevail in the contest of wills in which the parents were engaged.
The fact that Officer Fullerton pushed his wife in public without legal justification was good cause for the termination. As Commander Andrade pointed out in his testimony, “Officer Fullerton was a domestic violence incident officer.” If nothing else, when an officer with that assignment pushes his wife in a public place without legal justification, it “tends to reflect unfavorably upon the Department,” as the notice of termination said, quoting subdivision (aa) of General Order No. 340.35. The record sufficiently supports the determination that good cause for the discharge existed.
Officer Fullerton urges us to weigh several other portions of the record. He points out that Mrs. Fullerton’s credibility was impeached by witnesses claiming she had made false reports about previous incidents between Officer Fullerton and herself. He says a witness named Diego Lopez, who spoke to police on the telephone but who could not afterward be located, gave conflicting statements, one of which exculpated him. These points do not alter our conclusion. Our task in ruling on an appellant’s claim of insufficient evidence is not to determine whether a preponderance of the evidence supports the judgment. We do not make an independent decision about how we would have ruled in the trial court’s place. Instead, we only determine whether the record as a whole contains enough evidence to permit a reasonable fact-finder to find as the trial court did. The evidence we have described was sufficient.
Officer Fullerton also argues that the personnel board erred when it declined to rule on evidentiary objections. The chairman presiding at the personnel board hearing explained that he was not a judge and would note evidentiary objections for the record but would not rule on the admissibility of evidence. This was consistent with section 806 of the Merced City Charter, which provided that personnel board hearings “may be conducted informally and the rules of evidence need not apply.” In his appellate briefs, Officer Fullerton has cited no authority and articulated no arguments to show why the presiding officer in an administrative hearing would be required to sustain or overrule evidentiary objections as if he or she were a judge presiding in a court. His claim on this point therefore has not been adequately briefed and we will not address it further. (Associated Builders & Contractors, Inc. v. San Francisco Airports Com. (1999) 21 Cal.4th 352, 366, fn. 2.)
II. Due process
Officer Fullerton argues that several features of the administrative and trial court proceedings violated his right to due process of law. To the extent that his arguments concern the minimum procedural standards that were required to be observed, he raises questions of law that we review de novo. (Bostean v. Los Angeles Unified School Dist. (1998) 63 Cal.App.4th 95, 107.) Where he argues that the evidence fails to support the trial court’s rejection of due process arguments, we apply the substantial-evidence standard discussed above.
A. Impartial reviewer
Officer Fullerton argues that he never received a hearing before an impartial reviewer because the pretermination hearing officer and the official who made the final decision after the administrative appeal were the police chief and the city manager, the same officials who made the original decision to fire him. He contends this means he was denied due process of law. The question is close. After careful consideration, we conclude that the procedures employed here satisfied due process requirements.
Section 607 of the Charter of the City of Merced vests city department heads, such as the chief of police, with the power to appoint and remove city employees, subject to the approval of the city manager:
“Each department head shall have the power to appoint and remove such deputies, assistants, subordinates and employees as are provided for by the city council for his department … subject to the approval of the city manager being first had and received.”
Section 501 of the charter also states that the city manager must approve all proposed removals of employees by department heads.
Skelly, supra, 15 Cal.3d 194, 215, provides employees like Fullerton with a pretermination right to a copy of the charges and the materials on which they are based, as well as a right to respond “to the authority initially imposing discipline.” Section 806 of the Merced City Charter also provides for a post-termination appeal hearing before the city’s personnel board. After the hearing, according to the same section, the personnel board must “certify its findings and recommendations to the board or officers from whose action the appeal was taken, and to the city manager and city council. The recommendations of the personnel board shall be advisory only to the board or officer having appointive power.”
We understand these charter provisions to mean that the police chief and city manager were required to agree both on the initial decision to terminate and on the final decision to uphold the termination after the personnel board hearing. The police chief was authorized to carry out the initial termination only after obtaining the city manager’s approval. The recommendation of the personnel board was certified to the “officers from whose action the appeal was taken”—the police chief and city manager—who, since the recommendation was advisory only, then had to make the final decision.
In this case, Commander Andrade issued the notice of intent to terminate while Chief Dossetti issued the notice of termination after presiding over the Skelly hearing. Nothing in the record shows participation by the city manager at the initial termination stage, but, given our obligation to make reasonable inferences in favor of the judgment, we will not presume absent evidence to the contrary that the city failed to follow its procedures. After the personnel board concluded its hearing and issued its recommendation, the city manager issued a letter in which he concurred in the board’s findings and stated that the termination “be upheld.” Again, although nothing in the record shows participation by the police chief in the final decision, we assume absent evidence to the contrary that the city followed its procedures and that, therefore, the police chief, as one of the two officers in whom the appointive power was vested, was a party to the final decision.
With this understanding of the procedural events in this case, we take Officer Fullerton’s claim to be that, because the city manager and police chief made the initial decision to fire him, then one of them presided over the pretermination hearing, and finally the two of them made the final decision after the administrative appeal, his case was never reviewed by a neutral administrative decision maker.
The trial court ruled that the city manager’s involvement at the final stage satisfied the requirement of a neutral reviewer. That it did so is not obvious, in our view, for the city manager was also required by the charter to be involved in the initial decision. As we will explain, however, the trial court’s view is correct.
A state or local government employee who can be fired only for cause has, unlike an at-will employee, a property interest in his or her job that is protected by the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. (Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill (1985) 470 U.S. 532, 538-539.) This means that, before termination, the “public employee is entitled to oral or written notice of the charges against him, an explanation of the employer’s evidence, and an opportunity to present his side of the story.” (Id. at p. 546.) Applying the state and federal Constitutions, the California Supreme Court held in Skelly that, “[a]s a minimum, [the] preremoval safeguards must include notice of the proposed action, the reasons therefor, a copy of the charges and materials upon which the action is based, and the right to respond, either orally or in writing, to the authority initially imposing discipline.” (Skelly, supra, 15 Cal.3d at pp. 208, 215.)
On the question at issue here—what characteristics the reviewing officer or tribunal must possess—the United States and California Supreme Courts have provided only limited guidance. In Withrow v. Larkin (1975) 421 U.S. 35, 46-47, 55, the United States Supreme Court held that a state licensing board did not violate due process principles when it acted as both the investigator and the adjudicator of disciplinary charges against a medical doctor. At the same time, however, the court stated that “[a]llowing a decisionmaker to review and evaluate his own prior decisions”—i.e., the situation said to be presented in our case—“raises problems that are not present here.” (Id. at p. 58, fn. 25.) In Morrissey v. Brewer (1972) 408 U.S. 471, 485-486, the court held that the officer presiding at a preliminary parole revocation hearing must be someone other than the parole officer who first determined that the parolee committed a probable parole violation. It seems to us, however, that the interests at stake in that type of hearing are far different from those at issue here. In Williams v. County of Los Angeles (1978) 22 Cal.3d 731, 737, a three-justice plurality stated that a Skelly hearing must take place before a “reasonably impartial, noninvolved reviewer.” The plurality did not provide a standard for determining whether a reviewer is reasonably impartial and noninvolved.
In the absence of controlling authority, Courts of Appeal facing situations similar to the present one have reached competing conclusions. In Civil Service Assn. v. Redevelopment Agency (1985) 166 Cal.App.3d 1222 (Civil Service), a civil service employee was fired after an alleged “physical confrontation” with his supervisor. A deputy executive director signed the termination notice, presided over a post-termination hearing, and then upheld the termination. The employee requested a further appeal before the executive director, who declined, saying he was satisfied with the deputy executive director’s decision. (Id. at p. 1224.) The superior court denied the employee’s petition for a writ of mandamus (id. at p. 1225), but the Court of Appeal reversed. Although the deputy executive director would have been adequate as a hearing officer for a Skelly—i.e., pretermination—hearing, her role in the initial decision disqualified her from presiding over a final, post-termination review. After quoting the Williams plurality’s view that a “‘reasonably impartial, noninvolved reviewer’” is required, the court wrote, “Obviously, Agency’s apparent practice of having the same person who originally imposed the discipline also review that decision raises grave doubts as to the fairness of the appeal.” It ordered that this practice be discontinued on remand. (Id. at p. 1227.)
In Burrell v. City of Los Angeles (1989) 209 Cal.App.3d 568, two city employees challenged a city charter provision that gave them a right to appeal to the Board of Civil Service Commissioners disciplinary measures imposed by department officials. The charter provision required that any reduction in discipline recommended by the board must be consented to by the official who originally imposed discipline. (Id. at p. 572.) The punishments at issue were a 10-day suspension and a termination. (Id. at pp. 573, 574.) The Court of Appeal, in an opinion by Justice Boren joined by Justices Kennard and Campbell Lucas, rejected the argument that, by placing the final decision in the hands of the original decision maker, the charter provision violated due process by depriving the employees of an impartial reviewer. “[M]ere involvement in ongoing disciplinary proceedings does not, per se, violate due process principles,” it held. Instead, “[t]hose principles are violated … if the official or officials who take part in the proceedings are demonstrably biased or if … circumstances such as personal or financial interest strongly suggest a lack of impartiality.” (Id. at p. 582.) As an apparent limitation of its holding, however, the court pointed out that the original decision maker is vested with the final decision only in those cases in which the board recommends a reduction in penalty even though it finds that the charges are substantiated by the evidence. “If it finds an inadequate basis for the charges, and that the employee is fit to fill his position, the Board is required by [the challenged charter provision] to reinstate the disciplined employee. The only limitation on the Board’s powers occurs after it has already determined that the charges against the employee are substantiated.” (Id. at p. 584.)
In Gray v. City of Gustine (1990) 224 Cal.App.3d 621, a city manager demoted a police chief to lieutenant. When the police chief requested an administrative appeal, the city manager proposed a hearing at which he, the city manager, would be the presiding officer and after which he would make a recommendation to the city council regarding reinstatement. The police chief rejected this proposal and filed a writ petition in superior court, where the city prevailed. (Id. at pp. 624-625.) Writing for this court, Justice Baxter agreed with the police chief’s view that the proposed hearing was defective because of the lack of a neutral decision maker. “The administrative appeal offered by the city manager was clearly inadequate and failed to comport with the fair hearing aspect of due process. The city manager exercised the punitive action against Gray and was embroiled in the controversy. [Citation.] Due process requires that the hearing judge or judges be impartial. [Citation.] Gray is entitled to have his case heard by a neutral arbiter. A biased decision maker conducting either judicial or administrative hearings is constitutionally unacceptable.” (Id. at pp. 631-632.)
In Brown v. City of Los Angeles (2002) 102 Cal.App.4th 155 (Brown), a police officer was demoted and his pay reduced. He filed an administrative appeal, but the parties agreed to stay the appeal because negotiations on appeal procedures were pending between the police department and the police officers’ union. (Id. at pp. 163-164.) The officer proceeded with litigation. (Id. at p. 165.) While his writ petition was pending, the union negotiations concluded and the police department issued the new administrative appeal procedures. (Id. at pp. 166-167.) The trial court dismissed the petition on the ground (among others) that, administrative appeal procedures now being available, the police officer had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. (Id. at p. 167.) The Court of Appeal reversed. Justice Lillie wrote that if the new administrative appeal procedures were constitutionally inadequate, then exhaustion of them would have been futile, and failure to exhaust would not be a ground for dismissal. (Id. at p. 168.) The combination of several provisions rendered them inadequate (id. at p. 178), including the provision that “the chief of police [who] initially authorized the punitive action … is also the final decision maker on the administrative appeal.” (Id. at p. 177.) The court distinguished Burrell, pointing out that there, the final, post-appeal decision was placed in the hands of the initial decision maker only if the appeal board found the charges to be substantiated. (Brown, supra, at p. 177.)
Finally, in Flippin, supra, 148 Cal.App.4th 272, a city employee was discharged after being found asleep during work hours in a hammock hung from his city truck. (Id. at p. 274.) A Skelly hearing was held, at which the presiding officer was a supervisor who had investigated the complaint against the employee and recommended the discharge. (Id. at p. 277.) The Court of Appeal rejected the employee’s claim that he was denied an adequate Skelly hearing because the presiding officer was not impartial. Observing that the employee’s argument “would categorically disqualify any official initiating disciplinary action against an employee from presiding over that employee’s Skelly hearing,” the court found “no authority that precludes an officer from performing such a dual function.” (Id. at p. 281.) The court found support in Civil Service, supra, 166 Cal.App.3d at page 1227. In that case, there was a due process violation because the final decision maker after a post-termination appeal was also the initial decision maker, but the court stated that this would not be a violation at a pretermination Skelly hearing. (Flippin, supra, 148 Cal.App.4th at p. 282.)
We agree with Flippin and Civil Service that there is no constitutional bar to a supervisor who made the initial decision to proceed with a termination also acting as the Skelly hearing officer. Skelly itself guarantees a pretermination hearing before “the authority initially imposing discipline” (Skelly, supra, 15 Cal.3d at p. 215), and while this language does not affirmatively state that the initial decision maker can also be the hearing officer, it certainly leaves open the possibility. The plurality’s reference in Williams v. County of Los Angeles, supra, 22 Cal.3d at page 737 to a “reasonably impartial, noninvolved reviewer” is not binding authority; and we know of no case in which it was adopted as a controlling standard, applicable to Skelly hearings, by a majority of the California Supreme Court. Even if it were the controlling standard, the court has provided no guidance for determining when a reviewer is reasonably impartial and noninvolved. There is also no United States Supreme Court case holding that the pretermination hearing to which a public employee is entitled must be presided over by someone other than the supervisor who decided to impose discipline. We do not see any reason to adopt this as a new requirement in this case.
The harder question is whether the procedures for the final, post-termination decision were unconstitutional here. The city’s charter required the personnel board, after hearing the administrative appeal, to refer the matter back to the original decision makers, the city manager and the police chief. Does this mean Officer Fullerton never had the opportunity to present his side of the story to a reasonably disinterested decision maker, the defect the court found in Brown, supra, 102 Cal.App.4th at page 177?
We begin answering this question by observing that the situation here is not the same as in Brown, where a single individual who made the original decision—the police chief—also made the final decision. The salient feature of the situation here, in our view, is that the initial and final decisions were made by two people, one of whom had a background role. The city charter contemplates that a department head, such as the police chief, has the power to terminate employees but must obtain the approval of the city manager before doing so. This arrangement puts the department head in the active role. The city manager is merely to give approval for a plan of action conceived, presented, and executed by the department head. The roles are the same when the termination is originally proposed as when it is confirmed after an administrative appeal, for the charter says the personnel board is to make its recommendation to the same officers who terminated the employee.
Nevels v. Hanlon (8th Cir. 1981) 656 F.2d 372, a federal case presenting similar facts, provides a persuasive analysis. Nevels was an employee of a state department of labor. A deputy commissioner of labor fired him for incompetence and misconduct. Under the state’s rules, the commissioner of labor was required to approve the initial decision to terminate. After a post-termination hearing, an administrative appeal board found some evidence supporting the charges but determined the sanction of termination to be excessive; it recommended reinstatement with lesser discipline. Pursuant to the state’s rules, the matter was then referred back the commissioner of labor, who rejected the board’s recommendation and upheld the termination. (Id. at pp. 374, 376.)
The Eighth Circuit rejected Nevels’s argument that, because the rules “require the Commissioner to make the initial determination to dismiss an employee and then to make the final decision of any appeal, the Commissioner is predisposed to uphold his original decision and is, therefore, not an impartial decisionmaker.” (Nevels v. Hanlon, supra, 656 F.2d at p. 376.) The court explained:
“Although the Commissioner is technically the party who initiated Nevels’ discharge, in actuality, it was initiated by Nevels’ immediate supervisor. Having the Commissioner review the actions of his subordinate runs a far less ‘risk of actual bias or prejudgment’ than [the combination of investigative and adjudicative functions in Withrow v. Larkin, supra, 421 U.S. 35,] which was held to be valid. We, therefore, agree with the district court’s rejection of Nevels’ claim that the Commissioner was ‘constitutionally incapable of rendering an objective judgment.’” (Nevels v. Hanlon, supra, 656 F.2d at pp. 376-377.)
Here, similarly, the city manager’s role in the original decision, though mandatory, was secondary. The fact that he oversaw the initial termination decision in a supervisory capacity does not mean his objectivity was overwhelmed for purposes of giving his approval at the final stage. We believe a final decision maker can be reasonably impartial and reasonably noninvolved in the initial decision even though he or she was not completely uninvolved.
Our analysis is not undermined by the fact that the police chief, who had the active role in the initial termination decision, was also involved in the final decision. The city manager’s role at the final stage is mandatory, so he retains a final veto over the decision to impose discipline. A reasonably noninvolved decision maker with a final veto over the challenged action is enough to satisfy due process.
We reach the same conclusion by applying the balancing test set forth in Mathews v. Eldridge (1976) 424 U.S. 319, 335. This is the general test for determining whether the due process clause requires a proposed form of procedure as a condition of depriving an individual of a protected liberty or property interest. For instance, the court in Brown, supra, 102 Cal.App.4th at pages 174 and 178, used the Mathews v. Eldridge test to determine whether procedures demanded by the appellant were required by due process principles. The test requires courts to balance three factors:
“First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government’s interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail.” (Mathews v. Eldridge, supra, 424 U.S. at p. 335.)
The first factor favors Officer Fullerton. There is no doubt that an employee’s job is of vital importance to the employee. The second factor favors the city. There is not much likelihood of a substantial gain in accuracy of decisionmaking if the final decision were vested in other officials. For the reasons we have stated, the city manager can be expected to have a sufficient degree of detachment from the issues and personnel involved and can be expected to exercise his veto over the final disciplinary decision in a reasonably impartial manner. The third factor also favors the city. We cannot say the city is unfree to find disadvantages in an employee discipline system in which final decisions are made by officials further removed from daily operations than are department heads and the city manager. The city could reasonably view such a system as weakening supervisors’ authority over employees. Weighing all these factors together, we conclude that a change in procedures is not required by due process principles.
Quite apart from his argument that the city’s administrative procedures are structurally flawed, Officer Fullerton makes a claim of actual bias on the part of the police chief. He claims Chief Dossetti had a personal vendetta against him because of his union activities, so his role in the firing not only violated due process principles but constituted retaliation in violation the First Amendment.
These claims are based on Officer Fullerton’s role in the police union, the Merced Police Officers Association (MPOA). On March 19, 2004, less than a month before the issuance of the notice of intent to terminate Officer Fullerton, MPOA filed a petition for a writ of mandate in superior court against the police department, Chief Dossetti, and Commander Tom Martin. At the time, Officer Fullerton was president of MPOA. The petition alleged various instances of misconduct by Commander Martin and prayed for an order directing the department to comply with various policies.
The trial court rejected Officer Fullerton’s claims of actual bias and retaliation, writing that “[t]he fact that [Officer Fullerton’s] marital problems coincided with his union activism is insufficient to support a finding that he was fired in retaliation for his union activities.”
Whether Chief Dossetti was actually biased or acted to retaliate against Officer Fullerton are factual questions as to which we must defer to the trial court’s view of the evidence, if reasonable. Apart from the fact that the union lawsuit and termination “coincided,” as the trial court put it, Officer Fullerton mentions only two items of evidence in his brief to support his claims of actual bias and retaliation. First, Chief Dossetti testified that, before the Skelly hearing, he decided he should terminate Officer Fullerton. This shows nothing but that Chief Dossetti sat as the Skelly hearing officer in a matter in which he initiated the discipline, an issue we have already addressed. Second, Officer Fullerton says Chief Dossetti must have been biased because his testimony “completely misstated the facts, and was contrary to all the other witnesses and other evidence.” In support of this claim, Officer Fullerton’s brief says only that Chief Dossetti testified that Officer Fullerton “struck” Mrs. Fullerton, while Officer Fullerton and Mrs. Fullerton testified that he “pushed” her. Chief Dossetti’s use of the word “struck” to describe what Officer Fullerton did in applying his hand to his wife’s chest does not show bias or retaliation. The trial court’s view of the evidence on this issue was reasonable and there is no reason for us to disturb its findings.
Officer Fullerton also contends that his due process rights might have been violated because the city might have failed to follow its own procedures. He says, “[T]he ultimate decision was … supposed to be made by the Police Chief, but was apparently made by the City Manager.” As we have said, the city charter required the initial decision to be made by the police chief with the approval of the city manager; it required the personnel board to refer the final decision to the same officers. Nothing in the record shows that this procedure was not followed.
Officer Fullerton claims in passing that his right to a neutral reviewer is also guaranteed by the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights Act (Gov. Code, § 3300 et seq.), and that the proceedings violated this statutory right, as well as the constitutional rights we have already discussed. Government Code section 3304, subdivision (b), provides that no public agency may take punitive action against a public safety officer without providing an opportunity for an administrative appeal. Officer Fullerton had an administrative appeal, however, and he fails to cite any authority or articulate any arguments that would show how the decision makers in that appeal were not sufficiently impartial under the statute. Otto v. Los Angeles Unified School Dist. (2001) 89 Cal.App.4th 985, 999, which Officer Fullerton cites, states that the statute mandates an evidentiary hearing before a neutral fact-finder, but nothing in that case suggests that a hearing before a neutral advisory panel—like the city’s personnel board—is not sufficient. The case also contains no standard of neutrality. Officer Fullerton’s claim on this point therefore has not been adequately briefed and we will not address it further. (Associated Builders & Contractors, Inc. v. San Francisco Airports Com., supra, 21 Cal.4th at p. 366, fn. 2.)
In sum, we are unpersuaded by all of Officer Fullerton’s claims regarding the impartiality of the reviewers in the administrative proceedings. The proceedings were adequate in this respect.
B. Alleged defects in the personnel board’s findings
Officer Fullerton contends that his due process rights were violated because the reasons for termination relied on in the personnel board’s findings differed from the reasons set forth in the notice of termination. He says the alleged discrepancy amounts to a failure to provide notice of the charges, as required by Skelly, supra, 15 Cal.3d at page 215.
We have described the charges contained in the notice of intent to terminate and the notice of termination, which included criminal conduct and unbecoming conduct which tends to reflect unfavorably on the police department or its members. The criminal conduct alleged was the violation of Penal Code sections 273.4, subdivision (a), and 273a. All the charges were based on a description, included in the notice, of the conflict between Officer Fullerton and Mrs. Fullerton on March 23, 2004.
Officer Fullerton claims that “[n]one of these grounds were even addressed” by the personnel board, whose decision to recommend upholding the termination was “based on entirely different grounds .…” These contentions do not accurately represent the record. The personnel board’s written findings and recommendation discussed the March 23, 2004, incident. On the basis of that incident, the board found that Officer Fullerton pushed Mrs. Fullerton, and that the push was not justified by any need to defend himself or the child. It found that these actions reflected poor judgment and that “Police Officers are held to a higher standard .…”
The findings of an administrative appeal panel are to be liberally construed and need not be stated with the formality expected in judicial proceedings. They need only make the basis of the administrative action reasonably clear to the parties and reviewing courts. (Steele v. Los Angeles County Civil Service Com. (1958) 166 Cal.App.2d 129, 136.) Here, the board did not state that Officer Fullerton committed a criminal violation and did not specify which of the enumerated charges it intended to sustain. It is reasonably clear that, based on the pushing of Mrs. Fullerton, the board found unbecoming conduct that reflected unfavorably on the police department or its members. Officer Fullerton had explicit notice of that charge and the factual basis for it. He was not denied adequate notice.
Officer Fullerton also claims the personnel board’s report did not make sufficient connections between the evidence and the findings or between the findings and the discipline. He quotes Topanga Assn. for a Scenic Community v. County of Los Angeles (1974) 11 Cal.3d 506, 515: “[T]he agency which renders the challenged decision must set forth findings to bridge the analytic gap between the raw evidence and ultimate decision or order.… [The agency must reveal] the relationships between evidence and findings and between findings and ultimate action .…”
In this case, the connections between the evidence and the findings and between the findings and the discipline were not difficult to detect. The finding that, while standing in a parking lot, Officer Fullerton pushed Mrs. Fullerton even though he did not need to do so to protect anyone was based on the testimony and statements of witnesses, primarily Officer Fullerton and Mrs. Fullerton. The findings that this action reflected poor judgment and was not up to the standards expected of police officers were supported by Officer Fullerton’s own testimony that one reason he pushed Mrs. Fullerton instead of letting her hold the child was that he knew she was trying to upset him or hurt his feelings, and by Commander Andrade’s testimony that Officer Fullerton was a domestic violence officer. These findings sustained the charge of unbecoming conduct reflecting unfavorably on the police department or its members. Having been sustained, that charge constituted grounds for termination under General Order No. 340.35(aa). All this is reasonably clear from the personnel board’s findings and recommendation, read in conjunction with the notice of termination and the hearing transcripts. We disagree with Officer Fullerton’s claim that the board did not adequately discuss these matters.
C. Alleged discrepancies between the personnel board’s and trial judge’s findings
Officer Fullerton faults the trial court for making the following statement in its oral tentative ruling:
“So with those factual findings, if the preponderance of evidence supports those factual findings, they support a basis for finding that a misdemeanor criminal conduct was committed, namely a 243(e), spousal battery, was committed. I think the evidence supports that. I don’t think it was 273.5. I just don’t think it rose to that level, but it was 243(e). And so on that basis the Court finds there is a misdemeanor, there is a basis for the termination.”
In its written final ruling, the court did not specify that there was a violation of Penal Code section 243, subdivision (e), but it did find that Officer Fullerton committed “a criminal domestic battery.”
Officer Fullerton points out that, in calling the push a battery, the trial court stated a conclusion the personnel board did not state. He presents two distinct theories about why this constituted error. First, he says that, instead of reaching this conclusion, the trial court should have determined that the board failed to make adequate findings of its own and therefore should have issued the writ. We have explained why the board did not fail to make adequate findings.
Second, Officer Fullerton says, “It is not the province of the trial court to fix mistakes made in the administrative process.” This appears to be a claim that, by calling the push a battery, the trial court exceeded the scope of the review it is empowered to undertake of the administrative proceedings. It is unnecessary to consider the merits of that claim, because, as we have said, we reject the view that mistakes were made in the administrative process. Even if the trial court was wrong to state the conclusion that the push was a battery, we would have no grounds for reversal. Our task, so far as the facts are concerned, is to review the record and decide whether it contains sufficient evidence to support the trial court’s judgment. We have, and it does. The fact that the trial court stated a conclusion not mentioned by the administrative tribunal does not affect our view.
D. Separation of administrative and criminal investigations
Officer Fullerton argues that the city violated his due process rights by failing to follow its own procedures when it did not conduct an “independent administrative investigation,” separate from the criminal investigation, of the incident on March 23, 2004.
Section 1020.5 of the police department’s Personnel Complaint Procedure states:
“Where an employee of this department is accused of potential criminal conduct, a separate supervisor or assigned detective shall be assigned to investigate the criminal allegations apart from any administrative investigation. Any separate administrative investigation may parallel a criminal investigation. [¶] … [¶] [N]o disciplinary action (other than paid administrative leave) shall be taken against the accused employee based solely on an arrest or crime report. An independent administrative investigation shall be conducted based upon the allegations in the report in accordance with department policy.”
In support of his contention that these rules were not followed, Officer Fullerton cites testimony by Chief Dossetti. Chief Dossetti testified that an officer named Ortiz—who was not a supervisor or detective—was assigned to lead the criminal investigation. He also testified that the criminal investigation was the only investigation undertaken by the department. The city responds by arguing that section 1020.5 was not applicable because the case did not stem from a public complaint; that section 1020.5 does not require separate criminal and administrative investigations; and that, even if it does, the city complied because two supervisors, Commanders Andrade and Schindler, carried out an administrative investigation by reviewing the records of the criminal investigation before recommending disciplinary action.
It is unnecessary to reach the merits of the claim that the department violated its rules. A public agency’s deprivation of a person’s property interest in violation of its own rules does not necessarily amount to a constitutional violation. (Board of Curators, Univ. of Mo. v. Horowitz (1978) 435 U.S. 78, 92, fn. 8.) Officer Fullerton is obliged to show that the particular rule violation at issue deprived him of due process. (Denham v. Superior Court (1970) 2 Cal.3d 557, 564 [error must be affirmatively shown on appeal; “‘[t]his is not only a general principle of appellate practice but an ingredient of the constitutional doctrine of reversible error’”].) For the reasons that follow, he has not done so.
Officer Fullerton has cited no authority stating that a public employer’s failure to follow its internal rules in investigating alleged employee misconduct entitles the employee to reinstatement or a new hearing. The one case Officer Fullerton cites, Frates v. Burnett (1970) 9 Cal.App.3d 63, 71, concerns a public employer’s failure to follow its rules for conducting hearings regarding employee discipline. Specifically, the employer, a school district, failed to follow a rule giving a disciplined employee a right to a conference with the superintendent at which the employee could present his case. (Id. at p. 70.) Though the court stated that “[f]ailure to comply with civil service procedures will result in an invalid discharge,” in context this refers to hearing procedures. (Id. at p. 71.)
The cases the Frates court relied on (see Frates v. Burnett, supra, 9 Cal.App.3d at p. 71) confirm our interpretation. Each of those cases concerns either the decisionmaking process by which a termination is initially executed or the hearing process by which it is reviewed. None involved the investigatory process by which the public agency obtained the facts upon which the termination was based. (Baumgardner v. City of Hawthorne (1951) 104 Cal.App.2d 512, 517 [police chief could be discharged only after charges were filed with civil service board and served on chief, and chief was afforded hearing before board]; Ferdig v. State Personnel Bd. (1969) 71 Cal.2d 96, 103-105 [civil service employee who obtained employment by falsely claiming veterans’ preference was properly discharged without notice and hearing to which validly hired employees were entitled].)
Officer Fullerton has not attempted to show that separate criminal and administrative investigations are a form of process to which he is entitled under the balancing test of Mathews v. Eldridge, supra, 424 U.S. at page 335. He also cannot show that the procedures employed were rendered fundamentally unfair by the failure to conduct separate criminal and administrative investigations, for there is no indication that separate investigations would have led to even the possibility of a better result for him. Officer Fullerton does not argue, for example, that he could have revealed facts helpful to his disciplinary case if there had been an independent administrative investigation, but could not reveal these to criminal investigators without harming his criminal case. Instead, he relies in this appeal, as he has at each earlier stage of his case, on the claims that the criminal investigators uncovered no wrongdoing on his part and that the evidence presented in the administrative proceedings showed an absence of misconduct. In sum, no due process violation arising from the failure to conduct separate criminal and administrative investigations has been established.
E. Consideration of previous misconduct allegations
Officer Fullerton argues that the city violated his due process rights by considering, during the administrative proceedings, previous complaints against him. Again, he has not shown a due process violation.
All the places in the record Officer Fullerton cites are reports of or testimony about earlier conflicts between Officer Fullerton and Mrs. Fullerton. Chief Dossetti and Commander Andrade testified that these earlier conflicts were parts of the totality of the circumstances upon which the decision to fire Officer Fullerton was based. Police reports or case records about three conflicts, occurring on November 3, 2003, February 7, 2004, and March 19, 2004, were included in the record of the personnel board hearing. Two of these describe Mrs. Fullerton’s reports of physical abuse by Officer Fullerton. The third describes Mrs. Fullerton’s report that Officer Fullerton threatened a friend of hers at a bar. None of these incidents resulted in an arrest, though at least one apparently resulted in the issuance of an emergency protective order against Officer Fullerton and led to firearms owned by him being taken to the police station for safekeeping. One report describes Mrs. Fullerton’s retractions of earlier claims of physical abuse. Another contains the investigating officer’s conclusion that the domestic violence complaint was unfounded.
Officer Fullerton relies on Penal Code section 832.5 to support his claim that any reliance on these incidents and the records of them was improper. Penal Code section 832.5 provides that, before a police department may discipline an officer, it must remove from his or her personnel file any “[c]omplaints by members of the public that are determined by the … officer’s employing agency to be frivolous, as defined in Section 128.5 of the Code of Civil Procedure, or unfounded or exonerated .…” These complaints are to be placed in a separate file. Complaints placed in a separate file for this reason must not be used “for punitive or promotional purposes except as permitted by subdivision (f) of Section 3304 of the Government Code.” (Pen. Code, § 832.5, subds. (b), (c).) Subdivision (f) of Government Code section 3304, however, merely provides that, when a police department decides to impose discipline, it must notify the officer in writing within 30 days of the decision.
There is no demonstration in Officer Fullerton’s appellate briefs of a violation of Penal Code section 832.5. Penal Code section 832.5 is not an absolute prohibition on the consideration of unfounded, exonerated, or even frivolous complaints; it merely subjects their use to the requirements of Government Code section 3304, subdivision (f). Officer Fullerton has not shown that the use of the prior incidents was inconsistent with those requirements.
He also has not shown that Mrs. Fullerton’s complaints were frivolous, unfounded, or exonerated within the statutory meanings of those terms. Frivolous means “(A) totally and completely without merit or (B) for the sole purpose of harassing an opposing party.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 128.5, subd. (b)(2).) Unfounded “means that the investigation clearly established that the allegation is not true.” (Pen. Code, § 832.5, subd. (d)(2).) Exonerated “means that the investigation clearly established that the actions of the … officer that formed the basis for the complaint are not violations of law or department policy.” (Pen. Code, § 832.5, subd. (d)(3).) Although Officer Fullerton describes Mrs. Fullerton’s complaints on the three previous occasions as “frivolous” and says “all of them resulted in findings in favor of Fullerton,” he has not shown this, and the documents do not bear it out.
Only the report of the March 19, 2004, incident states that the complaint is unfounded. Mrs. Fullerton claimed that, as she was taking Grayson out of Officer Fullerton’s pickup truck, Officer Fullerton tried to drive away to prevent her from doing so and caused a part of the truck “where the glass meets the door” to hit her. The responding officer wrote in his report that before he investigated he told Mrs. Fullerton he “did not believe that any domestic violence had occurred, and that the classification of this report would reflect that.” At the end of the report, the officer concluded that the complaint was unfounded for the following reasons: Witnesses told him that Mrs. Fullerton had moved away from the address at which the conflict took place a few days earlier; he was “not able to locate any portion of the vehicle that she had described to me that would cause her to get a round bruise”; and “[c]omparing the window opening of the truck to the height of Carmela Fullerton, [he] was not able to locate … any evidence on the vehicle in the area of the area that was in question.” These statements do not “clearly establish[] that the allegation is not true,” (Pen. Code, § 832.5, subd. (d)(2)) so they do not show the complaint was unfounded. Mrs. Fullerton’s current address was not relevant to the question of whether the incident occurred (and it seems to have been undisputed that there was a confrontation, for the report mentions Officer Fullerton’s comments about Mrs. Fullerton taking the child from the truck); there is no indication that the responding officer had any expertise relevant to determining which parts of a truck might cause a round bruise; and the absence of evidence on the truck was irrelevant, as there was no reason to think Mrs. Fullerton’s arm would have damaged or left a mark on it.
The report of the incident on February 7, 2004, recites Mrs. Fullerton’s claim that Officer Fullerton threatened to beat her friend or challenged him to a fight outside a bar; Officer Fullerton’s claim that nothing happened; and the friend’s statements that Officer Fullerton “walked up to him, about a foot away, on two different occasions as though he wanted to hit him” and that “he could tell just by his posture and the look on his face that he wanted to engage in a physical confrontation.” Mrs. Fullerton intervened and there was no fight. The friend did not report any threats by Officer Fullerton and did not want any action to be taken against him. The report contains no exoneration; Officer Fullerton has not shown it to be frivolous; and the fact that it contains three witnesses’ three conflicting accounts of the facts does not show it to be unfounded.
The case report of the incident reported on November 3, 2003, concerns Mrs. Fullerton’s allegation that on that day, Officer Fullerton grabbed her by the arms and shook her, pushed her to the floor twice and into a chair once, and grabbed her face. When she made this report, Mrs. Fullerton claimed Officer Fullerton had assaulted her on other occasions as well. As mentioned above, the police department obtained an emergency protective order and served it on Officer Fullerton and took his personal firearms to the police station for safekeeping. Officer Fullerton made a statement also, saying Mrs. Fullerton had pushed him and he held her arms to make her stop. One of the investigating officers looked at places on the inside of Mrs. Fullerton’s arms where she claimed to have marks from being grabbed by Officer Fullerton; the investigating officer did not see anything and opined that marks inside her arms would not be “physically possible” because in past cases, he had seen marks on the outsides of domestic violence victims’ arms. Two weeks later, officers interviewed Mrs. Fullerton again and she retracted many of her earlier statements, but still maintained that he had grabbed her by the arms. In a letter dated November 6, 2003, Mrs. Fullerton reaffirmed that Officer Fullerton held her arms down (and said she tried to hit him after that), but stated that other claims she made were false and that she did not wish to proceed further in the matter. According to the report on the February 7, 2004, incident, Mrs. Fullerton said these retractions were false and she issued them under pressure from Officer Fullerton and his parents. Again, although the extent, if any, of wrongdoing by Officer Fullerton is by no means made clear in the record of this incident, he has not shown that the complaint was unfounded, exonerated, or frivolous.
Officer Fullerton also relies on Government Code sections 3305 and 3306, which provide:
“No public safety officer shall have any comment adverse to his interest entered in his personnel file, or any other file used for any personnel purposes by his employer, without the public safety officer having first read and signed the instrument containing the adverse comment indicating he is aware of such comment, except that such entry may be made if after reading such instrument the public safety officer refuses to sign it. Should a public safety officer refuse to sign, that fact shall be noted on that document, and signed or initialed by such officer.” (Gov. Code, § 3305.)
“A public safety officer shall have 30 days within which to file a written response to any adverse comment entered in his personnel file. Such written response shall be attached to, and shall accompany, the adverse comment.” (Gov. Code, § 3306.) Officer Fullerton contends that he was never given an opportunity to read or sign documents containing Mrs. Fullerton’s prior complaints and did not have 30 days to respond to them.
Officer Fullerton’s appellate briefs cite nothing in the record that would show whether or not he was given an opportunity to read and sign any documents containing Mrs. Fullerton’s allegations. For the sake of argument, we will assume he was not. Even under this assumption, the record demonstrates that there was no impairment of Officer Fullerton’s interest in being notified of the allegations and being given an opportunity to respond. At the hearing in the trial court, Officer Fullerton’s counsel told the court the reports containing Mrs. Fullerton’s allegations were “part of the [Skelly] package that [he] was served with” before the hearing. In other words, the department gave Officer Fullerton pretermination notice of its intention to consider the prior allegations, and he had a pretermination opportunity to respond to them at the Skelly hearing. If the documents were received less than 30 days before the Skelly hearing, there is no indication that Officer Fullerton raised any objection to the timing of the hearing or requested more time to respond. Further, the documents themselves show that Officer Fullerton had an opportunity to respond to the allegations at the times they were made, for each report contains statements the investigating officers obtained from him. In Miller v. Chico Unified School Dist. (1979) 24 Cal.3d 703, on which Officer Fullerton relies, the employee obtained reversal of the trial court’s denial of a writ of mandamus where the employer notified the employee of a demotion in a letter to which the employer attached, in addition to documents of which the employee was already aware, 20 confidential memoranda criticizing the employee which the employee had never seen or heard of before. (Id. at p. 709.) The present case involves nothing similar, as Officer Fullerton had opportunities to respond to the prior allegations both when they were made and prior to the Skelly hearing. Officer Fullerton’s claim, then, boils down to an assertion that his rights prejudicially were violated and the termination decision must be reversed because he was never given an opportunity to sign or refuse to sign the documents. He has cited, and we have found, no authority to support that claim.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed. Respondents shall recover their costs on appeal.
WE CONCUR: Vartabedian, Acting P.J., Hill, J.