Fear Not Law Articles: Pinto v. City of Visalia Part II

Pinto v

Pinto v. City of Visalia

Filed 5/25/06

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIFTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

BRYAN PINTO,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

CITY OF VISALIA, et al.,

Defendants and Appellants.

F048094

(Super. Ct. No. 05-214342)

OPINION

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Tulare County. Paul A. Vortmann, Judge.

Dooley Herr & Peltzer, Leonard C. Herr and Kris B. Pederson for Defendants and Appellants.

Phillip J. Cline, District Attorney (Tulare), Don Gallian and Carol B. Turner, Assistant District Attorneys, and Barbara J. Greaver, Deputy District Attorney; Kathleen Bales-Lange, County Counsel (Tulare), and Crystal E. Sullivan, Deputy County Counsel, for District Attorney's Office and County Counsel's Office as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendants and Appellants.

Joseph M. Arnold for Plaintiff and Respondent.

-ooOoo-

Story Continue from Part I â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦..

Standard of review
Code of Civil Procedure section 1094.5 provides the basic framework for judicial review of any final order or decision rendered by a state or local agency. (Bixby v. Pierno (1971) 4 Cal.3d 130, 137.) Where, as here, the administrative decision substantially affects a fundamental right, the trial court conducting such a review not only examines the administrative record for errors of law, but also exercises its independent judgment to determine whether the findings are supported by the evidence. (Id. at p. 143; Skelly v. State Personnel Bd. (1975) 15 Cal.3d 194, 206.) The trial court resolves evidentiary conflicts and assesses witnesses' credibility to arrive at its own independent findings of fact. (Deegan v. City of Mountain View (1999) 72 Cal.App.4th 37, 45 (Deegan).) If the trial court concludes the agency's findings of misconduct are not supported by the weight of the evidence, it is required to find that the agency abused its discretion. (Kazensky v. City of Merced (1998) 65 Cal.App.4th 44, 51 (Kazensky).)
After the trial court has independently reviewed an administrative agency's factual findings, however, a different standard of review applies to the appellate court. (Davis v. Civil Service Com. (1997) 55 Cal.App.4th 677, 686.) An appellate court must sustain the trial court's findings if substantial evidence supports them. (Kazensky, supra, 65 Cal.App.4th at p. 52.) Thus, the appellate court must resolve all evidentiary conflicts in favor of the party prevailing in the trial court and must give that party the benefit of every reasonable inference in support of the judgment. (Ibid.) Moreover, where more than one inference reasonably can be deduced from the facts, the appellate court cannot substitute its deductions for those of the trial court. (Ibid.)

While we review a trial court's ruling on a petition for writ of mandate under the substantial evidence test, this standard does not apply to resolution of questions of law where the facts are undisputed. In such cases, we are not bound by the trial court's decision but may make our own determination. (Lomeli v. Department of Corrections (2003) 108 Cal.App.4th 788, 794; Alba v. Los Angeles Unified School Dist. (1983) 140 Cal.App.3d 997, 1005 [â€

Description	In reviewing city's termination of police officer for failing to report sexual abuse of minor, trial court correctly treated officer's duty under department policy to be coextensive with statutory duty to report such abuse if he learned of it while on duty or otherwise acting in a professional capacity, absent showing that department intended its policy to apply more broadly. Evidence that officer, after learning in private capacity of sexual relationship between adult and minor, gave advice to minor as to how to handle relationship did not establish that officer was acting in a professional capacity when he gave that advice and thus did not undermine trial court's finding that officer was not obligated to report relationship to department. Termination of officer was an abuse of discretion where only finding of misconduct sustained by trial court after independent review of the evidence was that officer lied during course of a criminal investigation, department policy did not mandate termination for lying, officer had no prior disciplinary record, officer retracted false statement and told truth before conclusion of interview in which he initially lied, department never relied on false statement for any purpose, and it was unlikely--based on police chief's testimony--that department would have terminated officer had it not made the additional findings of misconduct that were rejected by trial court. Award of attorney fees to terminated peace officer under Government Code Sec. 800 need not be accompanied by factual findings to support trial court's determination that termination was arbitrary or capricious unless employer requests statement of decision, and where officer awarded fees under that section prevails on appeal, fees should normally be awarded for the appeal.
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