Henry C. Hicks v. City of Los Angeles, a Corporation Board of Civil Service Commissioners, Etc.

Henry C. Hicks, plaintiff-appellant, is a building operating engineer who in 1951 was discharged from his position with the City of Los Angeles. He held his position under the city’s classified civil service which had the usual safeguards against arbitrary dismissals.

On the night of October 12-13, 1951, plaintiff was on duty as an engineer at the Lincoln Heights jail in Los Angeles. “Boiler trouble” developed. (We do not here reach the question of whether there was a little trouble or much trouble or whose fault it was.) The Los Angeles Board of Public Works, under whose jurisdiction Hicks and the boiler came, on November 30, 1951, discharged him for “Unsatisfactory performance of duties” on the aforementioned night of October 12-13.

Hicks administratively denied the charges, all of which concerned the boiler. The Los Angeles Civil Service Commission accorded Hicks a hearing before a hearing examiner on January 22, 1952, and February 7, 1952. The hearing examiner made a report which was acted upon on April 15, 1952, by the Civil Service Commission. The commission upheld the discharge. There is some variance between the hearing examiner’s report to the commission and its…