Baird v. City of Los Angeles

Opinion

COBEY, J. The sole issue on this appeal in a mandamus proceeding by four police officers (hereafter called petitioners) is whether the respondent police chief could properly demote them within their civil service classification of police officer for a nondisciplinary reason from police officer III to police officer II without complying with the formal board of rights procedures provided in section 202 of the Charter of respondent City of Los Angeles (hereafter City).1 The trial court, in the minute order it entered preliminary to its making and entering the judgment under appeal denying petitioners relief in mandamus, determined that respondent police chief could so demote them because section 202 of the charter applies only to disciplinary cases. We agree that the charter section does not apply to the nondisciplinary demotions before us and we will therefore affirm.

[122]Section 202, subdivision (I), in pertinent part provides that: “No officer or employee of the Police Department shall be suspended, removed, deprived of his office or position, or otherwise separated from the service of the Police Department (other than by resignation), except for good and sufficient cause shown upon a finding of ‘guilty’ of the specific charge or charges assigned as cause or causes therefor after a full, fair and impartial hearing before the Board of Rights . . . .” (Italics added.)

Petitioners contend that their nondisciplinary demotions involve removals of them from their positions as police officer III and could therefore properly be accomplished only pursuant to section 202 of the city charter. According to them, any reduction of a police officer in either rank or salary for any reason necessitates, as a preliminary thereto, a resort to the formal protective procedures provided in section 202.

The City contends, on the other hand, that section 202 did not apply to the demotions at issue for two separate and independent reasons. First, the section applies only to separations from the service of the police department and, second, it covers only cases of discipline for misconduct.

The parties also dispute whether police officer III is a position within the meaning of section 202. Petitioners claim that it is and the City asserts that it is not. To us it appears to be primarily a pay grade within the civil service classification of police officer that the city council established by ordinance pursuant to the Jacobs Plan calling for a more refined classification for pay purposes of various positions in the City’s police and fire departments. (See Melendres v. City of Los Angeles, 40 Cal.App.3d 718, 724 [115 Cal.Rptr. 409]; see also Los Angeles City Admin. Code, §§ 4.140, subds. (c), (f), (i), (m), (n), 4.142, 4.157, 4.158, subd. (a).) It is a subclassification for salary purposes only of the civil service classification of police officer and one made by the city council under its charter power (Los Angeles Charter, § 33) to fix salaries generally of City officers and employees..