Gervais v. New Orleans Police Dept.

• Decision Date: 13 December 1954
• Docket Number: No. 41509,41509
• Citation: Gervais v. New Orleans Police Dept., 226 La. 782, 77 So.2d 393 (La. 1954)
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: Pershing O. GERVAIS v. NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT.

Page 393

77 So.2d 393

226 La. 782

Pershing O. GERVAIS v. NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT.

No. 41509.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Dec. 13, 1954.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 10, 1955.

Matthew S. Braniff, New Orleans, for plaintiff-appellant.

Henry B. Curtis, City Atty., Beuker F. Amann, Asst. City Atty., New Orleans, for defendant-appellee.

McCALEB, Justice.

Appellant, formerly a detective of the New Orleans Police Department, seeks a reversal of a ruling of the Civil Service Commission of the City of New Orleans, which upheld his removal from office on May 29, 1953, by the Superintendent of Police. The dismissal was founded on four causes, stated in writing by the Superintendent in conformity with law: (1) that appellant had become engaged in the business of selling jewelry, an allegedly unauthorized employment outside of his police duties; (2) that, during June, 1952, he traveled via airplane to New York under an assumed name, subsequently registering and occupying a room in the Hotel New Yorker from June 14th to June 28th under an assumed name; (3) that, during his visit, he shared the hotel room with a woman who was not his wife, but who registered as such under the name assumed by appellant and (4) his admitted association and companionship with this woman, who was a known police character.

Appellant admits the verity of all of the charges upon which the action of the Superintendent of Police was based, but he denies that any one of these acts furnishes legal cause for his removal from the police force. His primary contention is that, since the stated acts were committed during the summer of 1952, before Section 15 of Article XIV of the Constitution, LSA, was adopted, this amendment, which embodies civil service in our Constitution, cannot govern these acts. Conceiving that these civil service provisions are penal in nature, he maintains that it would be improper to construe them to be retrospective in operation.

The point is without substance. This is not a case in which the dismissal of the employee is grounded on acts committed prior to the time the civil service law was in effect forasmuch as appellant was a classified employee in civil service during 1952 under the provisions of 'the City Civil Service Law', LSA-R.S. 33:2391-2433, formerly Act No. 171 of 1940, which has been in force in the city of New Orleans since 1943.

The amendment adopted by the people in 1952, by which civil service for State employees and employees of cities having a population of over 250,000 was inserted in our Constitution as Section 15 of Article XIV, did not repeal or supersede LSA-R.S. 33:2391-2433. On the contrary, that statute and all other civil service laws were continued in force by specific stipulation of the constitutional amendment except insofar as they were in conflict therewith. See Section 15(p)(6) of Article XIV. ¹ Hence, it matters not that appellant's acts upon which his dismissal was founded occurred prior to the adoption of the constitutional amendment.

It is also plain that the civil service provisions are not penal as contended by counsel for appellant. Civil service laws are...