Crowley v. City & County of San Francisco

Opinion

CHRISTIAN, J. Gerald A. Crowley appeals from a judgment denying a writ of mandate to restrain the City and County of San Francisco and its police commission and police chief from requiring appellant to respond to a departmental investigation.

Crowley holds tenure in the civil service of the city and county as a police sergeant, and is the president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association. For a time Crowley was assigned while on paid status as a [778]police officer to work full time as association president. This arrangement was ended late in 1975, and Crowley was assigned to normal duties at a police station. He then took unpaid leave of absence and continued to be active as president of the Police Officers Association.

On July 14, 1976, Crowley attended a meeting of the police commission, which had been convened for the purpose of meeting and conferring, at the request of the association, “on proposed rules for citizen contact and questioning of police officers while the officers were in the process of performing field investigations.” The commission indicated that the meeting would be open to the public. Crowley disapproved and left the room with his associates. Present at the meeting was Ron Landberg, alleged to be a member of an organization known as the “White Panthers.” Landberg later complained to the police department that before leaving the meeting room Crowley had threatened him, saying: “If you stay in this building much longer, you’ll stay in here for good.”

The Internal Affairs Division of the San Francisco Police Department commenced an investigation of Landberg’s complaint, and for that purpose Crowley was directed “to appear before Sgt. Bill R. Taylor of the Internal Affairs Division. . . .” The present litigation followed.

The incident in question occurred while Crowley was on unpaid leave of absence from the police department for the purpose of working full time “as an officer ... of an employee organization whose membership is limited to city employees . . . .” (Rule 22.08(a), San Francisco Civil Serv. Com.)1 Citing Government Code section 3502,2 Crowley argues in effect that because he was on leave of absence for the purpose of acting as president of the Police Officers Association he was not subject to the otherwise-applicable rule of the police department requiring officers to respond to internal investigations: “[A member of the police department] shall, when called upon by a superior officer or by one especially assigned