Wilson v. Andrews

• Decision Date: 12 October 1999
• Docket Number: No. 98-0216,98-0216
• Parties: (Tex. 1999) Eric Wilson and John Cornyn, Attorney General OF Texas, Petitioners v. Mary Andrews, in her official capacity as Civil Service Director of the City of Lubbock, Texas, and as Managing Director of Human Resources for the City of Lubbock, Texas, et al., Respondents
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 663

10 S.W.3d 663 (Tex. 1999)

Eric Wilson and John Cornyn, Attorney General OF Texas, Petitioners v. Mary Andrews, in her official capacity as Civil Service Director of the City of Lubbock, Texas, and as Managing Director of Human Resources for the City of Lubbock, Texas, et al., Respondents

No. 98-0216

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF TEXAS

Argued on October 12, 1999

Opinion delivered: December 23, 1999

On Petition for Review from the Court of Appeals for the Seventh District of Texas

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Justice Enoch delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Phillips, Justice Owen, Justice Baker, Justice Abbott, Justice Hankinson, Justice O'Neill, and Justice Gonzales join.

This case presents issues similar to those presented in Proctor v. Andrews.¹ In Proctor, we held that subsection 143.057(d) of the Texas Civil Service Act,² which authorizes arbitration of police officer and firefighter disciplinary disputes by a private "neutral qualified arbitrator," neither unconstitutionally delegates authority to a private entity under article III, section 1 of the Texas Constitution nor violates the home rule provision in article XI, section 5 of the Texas Constitution.³ In this case, which was decided by the court of appeals before we issued Proctor, the City of Lubbock asks whether its Firemen's and Policemen's Civil Service Ordinance 862 or subsection 143.057(d) governs its civil services. The answer to this question determines whether Lubbock's civil service employees can use the arbitration procedures subsection 143.057(d) provides. Because we conclude that the Civil Service Act and the subsequent amendments control, we agree with the court of appeals' holding that subsection 143.057(d) governs Lubbock's civil service disciplinary matters.⁴

Lubbock also asserts that subsection 143.057(d) unconstitutionally delegates legislative authority to a private entity because it provides no guidelines to the entities that determine whether arbitrators are "qualified" and "neutral." Additionally, Lubbock asserted in the court of appeals that subsection 143.057(d) unconstitutionally infringes upon the home rule powers guaranteed under article XI, section 5. Although the court of appeals agreed with Lubbock,⁵ we upheld subsection 143.057(d)'s constitutionality against these exact challenges in Proctor, which controls. Consequently, we reverse the court of appeals' judgment and reinstate the trial court's judgment for Wilson.

Lubbock Police Chief Ken Walker suspended officer Eric Wilson for ten days without pay for allegedly using excessive force on a prisoner. Chapter 143 of the Local Government Code allows a police officer to appeal a suspension to (1) the local service commission or (2) an independent third-party hearing examiner selected either by agreement or by alternate strikes from a list of seven "qualified neutral arbitrators" submitted by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) or the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS).⁶ Wilson selected the statutory arbitration procedures and elected to have his appeal heard by a neutral third-party hearing examiner.

Chief Walker, Mary Andrews, Lubbock's Civil Service Director and Human Resources Managing Director, and the City of Lubbock, (collectively "Lubbock"), filed this suit, seeking a declaration that Lubbock was under no obligation to comply with subsection 143.057(d). Unlike subsection 143.057(d), Ordinance 862 does not allow a disciplinary appeal to a "qualified neutral arbitrator" selected by the AAA or the FMCS. Instead, the ordinance provides for a hearing before the civil service commission, and an appeal of the commission's decision to the district court for de novo review. Thus, along with its constitutional challenges, Lubbock argues that Ordinance 862, not subsection 143.057(d), governs its civil services because its citizens never voted to adopt any of the legislative amendments to the Civil Service Act.

The Attorney General intervened to defend the statute's constitutionality.⁷ All parties moved for summary judgment. The trial court denied Lubbock's motion and granted the motions the Attorney General and Wilson filed, declaring the statute constitutional. The court of appeals reversed, holding that: (1) subsection 143.057(d), not Ordinance 862, governs Lubbock's civil services; and (2) Lubbock had no standing to challenge the statute on due process or equal protection grounds, but (3) concluding that contrary to article III, section 1 of the Texas Constitution, subsection 143.057(d) unconstitutionally delegates legislative authority to a private entity because it provides inadequate guidelines to the AAA or the FMCS to determine whether arbitrators are "qualified" and "neutral"; and (4) subsection 143.057(d) unconstitutionally infringes upon Lubbock's home rule powers under article XI, section 5 of the Texas Constitution.⁸ Wilson, the Attorney General, and Lubbock each filed petitions for review.

The Texas Constitution allows a home rule city such as Lubbock to be governed, generally, by ordinances adopted pursuant to its municipal charter.⁹ But the Legislature can limit or augment a city's self-governance.¹⁰ In this case, for example, the Legislature conferred upon Lubbock's citizens the power to determine whether the Civil Service Act would govern Lubbock's civil services.¹¹

It is undisputed that Lubbock's citizens, in 1947, voted to adopt the Civil Service Act. It is also undisputed that at the time of the vote, article 1269m¹² was the governing statute and that the procedures for disciplinary-action appeals only provided for appeals to the Civil Service Commission.¹³ And it is undisputed that in 1948, Lubbock adopted Firemen's and Policemen's Civil Service Ordinance 862, tracking the language of article 1269m.¹⁴

By 1983, the Legislature had amended the Civil Service Act a number of times, including adding the Act's arbitration provision.¹⁵ In 1987, the Legislature codified the Civil Service Act in substantially the same form as the 1983 version of article 1269m.¹⁶ The arbitration provision authorizing arbitration before a private hearing examiner was, as a result, codified in Texas Local Government Code, Chapter 143, subsection 143.057(d).

Lubbock argues that because its citizens did not specifically vote to adopt succeeding amendments to the Civil Service Act, including the amendment now codified in subsection 143.057(d), its Ordinance 862, reflecting the original Civil Service Act still governs -- meaning that the arbitration process Wilson requested is not part of Lubbock's civil service system. Wilson responds that subsection 143.057(d) did not require an additional vote to adopt and apply it to Lubbock's civil services. He reasons that legislative amendments to local-adoption statutes must apply to cities that adopted the statute before the amendments were added, otherwise the amendments would be meaningless. Consequently, he is entitled to arbitration before a private hearing examiner.

In holding that subsection 143.057(d) applies to Lubbock's civil services, the court of appeals stated that the vote to approve the 1947 Civil Service Act constituted a vote adopting Chapter 143 of the Texas Local Government Code because Chapter 143 merely codified former article 1269m, and was intended to be a continuation of the previously existing law. But resolving that issue does not address Lubbock's contention that its voters adopted the Civil Service Act only as it existed in 1947, devoid of the hearing examiner provision, and that the subsequent amendment to the Act was therefore ineffective to alter the civil service procedures set out in Lubbock's ordinance 862.

Although no case answers the precise question, several cases that have addressed the effect of amendments to the Civil Service Act assume that amendments to the Act govern in cities that have adopted it. For example, in Patton v. City of Grand Prairie,¹⁷ we held that the Grand Prairie Civil Service Commission's decision reducing a police officer's indefinite suspension was appealable to the district court under amendments to the Civil Service Act. Implicit in that decision is that legislative amendments to the Act govern in cities that have adopted it. That the amendments apply is further bolstered by our decision in Patton that Firemen's and Policemen's Civil Service Commission of the City of Fort Worth v. Blanchard,¹⁸ and a number of courts of appeals' decisions, were no longer controlling due to legislative amendments in the Civil Service Act.¹⁹

In City of San Antonio v. Wallace,²⁰ we analyzed a San Antonio ordinance that abolished classified positions established by the state's Civil Service Act. We stated there that "where state imposed civil service . . . laws are involved, there are two legislative actions to consider, i.e., the state enactment and the city ordinance . . . ."²¹ Relying on the Texas Constitution to strike down the ordinance, we said "no . . . charter or any ordinance passed under said charter shall contain any provision inconsistent with the Constitution of the State, or of the general laws enacted by the Legislature of this State."²²

The Fourth Court of Appeals explicitly recognized that after the city adopted the Civil Service Act for its firefighters, the "Act, with its amendments, became a part of the contract of employment between the firemen and the City of San Antonio."²³ When a City of San Antonio rule, adopted under the original Civil Service Act, conflicted with the Act after it was amended in 1957, the court of appeals held that the city's rule "was superseded by the statute and became ineffective."²⁴ In Crawford v. City of Houston,²⁵ the court of appeals also recognized that amendments to the Act are controlling. In analyzing this Court's decision in Blanchard, the court held that "[s]ince all appeals in Blanchard occurred subsequent to the effective date of the 1977 amendment of Section 18 [of the...