Donkin v. Director of Professional and Vocational Standards

BISHOP, J. pro tem.

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By administrative proceedings the license of petitioner Donkin as a private detective and the registration of petitioner Van Norman as an employee of a detective agency were revoked. Petitioners made an effort to secure a writ of mandate to compel the restoration of the status each had lost, but judgment was entered denying their petition. In order to reverse the judgment, from which the petitioners have appealed, we would have to conclude that the trial court should have set aside the respondent director’s order in the administrative proceeding because it was either without authority of law or without a basis in the evidence upon which it was grounded. As we are of the opinion that the trial judge could not properly have ruled other than as he did, we are affirming the judgment.

There is no dispute as to the procedural steps leading up to this point. On July 17, 1962, the Acting.Assistant Chief of the State Bureau of Private Investigators and Adjusters filed an accusation against the two petitioners in which it was alleged that, on February 7, petitioners had violated section 7538, subdivision (g) of the Business and Professions Code. This subdivision listed, among the acts that are prohibited, the entry into “any private building or portion thereof without the consent of the owner or' of the person in legal possession thereof.” On November 21 a hearing on the accusations was held before a hearing officer who submitted a proposed decision in which he found that on February 7, 1962, petitioners “during the course of an investigation, went to the

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home of Mrs. Jeanne M. May, . . . ; requested permission to enter . . . and, when permission was denied, forced their way into said home and gained entrance thereto by force, without the permission or consent of said Mrs. May.” This, the hearing officer determined, was a violation of section 7538, subdivision (g) of the Business and Professions Code and proposed a suspension for 60 days of Donkin’s license and of Van Norman’s registration.

The following allegations in the Petition for Writ of Mandate were virtually admitted by respondents’ answer: “. . . the Director of Professional and Vocational Standards declined to adopt the proposed decisions of the Hearing Officer and authorized the parties to file written arguments with the Director. . . . On June 17, 1963 the Director . . . adopted the entire decision of the Hearing Officer (a copy of which is attached hereto and marked Exhibit ‘A’) except that portion dealing with the proposed penalty and in that regard revoked the registration and license of Petitioners effective July 9, 1963.” The director’s decision declared that it should be effective July 9. On July 8 the petitioners filed their petition for a writ of mandate; an alternative writ was issued and the judgment appealed from, based on findings of fact and conclusions of law, followed in due course.