Herbert v. Department of Police

• Decision Date: 12 September 1978
• Docket Number: 9281,Nos. 9280,s. 9280
• Citation: Herbert v. Department of Police, 362 So.2d 1190 (La. App. 1978)
• Parties: James A. HERBERT v. DEPARTMENT OF POLICE. David C. HUBER v. DEPARTMENT OF POLICE.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Louisiana

Page 1190

362 So.2d 1190

James A. HERBERT v. DEPARTMENT OF POLICE.

David C. HUBER v. DEPARTMENT OF POLICE.

Nos. 9280, 9281.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.

Sept. 12, 1978.

James Burnett Aime, New Orleans, for appellants.

Philip S. Brooks, City Atty., Michael A. Starks, Asst. City Atty., for appellee.

Before SAMUEL, SCHOTT and GARRISON, JJ.

GARRISON, Judge.

These consolidated cases are on appeal from the Civil Service Commission of the City of New Orleans. The appellants, James Herbert and David Huber, members of the New Orleans Police Department, were dismissed from the N.O.P.D. effective November 29, 1976, as a result of numerous allegations of misconduct against them. Both appealed their dismissal to the Civil Service Commission and, upon their request, both cases were consolidated for trial because the allegations against both arose out of the same or similar incidents and events. After a hearing in front of a hearing examiner, the record was reviewed by the Commission, and the action of the Superintendent of Police in dismissing these officers was upheld.

Although numerous accusations were made against both Herbert and Huber, which were cited in the letter of dismissal from the Superintendent, clearly the most serious of these were the following:

(1) That Officer Herbert brutally beat Acosta Kittles while effecting an arrest, and that Officer Huber watched this brutality without trying to stop it:

(2) That Officer Herbert beat his former girlfriend and fiancee, Linda Long, and that Officer Huber was present during the beating and did nothing to stop it; and

(3) That Officer Herbert and Huber participated in the "blue flu" on Labor Day 1976, encouraging other officers to do so, and threatening other officers who did not so participate.

Other allegations include the following:

(1) That Officers Herbert and Huber used the police car assigned to Herbert for a social outing to Tangipahoa Parish;

(2) That they obtained employment as security guards at their apartment complex in return for rent-free accommodations without permission of the department; and

(3) That Huber authored an anonymous letter to the Department reporting a rule infraction by another officer. (This complaint was admitted by Huber.)

Aside from the serious substance of some of these complaints, they would constitute violations of various departmental regulations, as set forth in the Superintendent's letter of dismissal. Although technical or minor infractions of rules should not be the basis of dismissal from the police force, the cumulative effect of a variety of violations,...