Negrete

Defendant California State Personnel Board (Personnel Board) and real party in interest California Franchise Tax Board (Tax Board) appeal from the trial court’s decision to grant a writ of mandate in favor of plaintiff Fernando Negrete.

The Personnel Board affirmed an order of the Tax Board suspending Negrete for 90 days without pay because he was “inefficient” in failing to discover promptly that his supervisor had rescinded an order which directed the destruction of tax returns in violation of Tax Board rules. The trial court concluded that the Personnel Board abused its discretion in upholding the discipline because “inefficiency” was not alleged as a ground of *1162 discipline in the notice of adverse action. We agree and shall affirm the judgment.

Facts

In January 1986, Fernando Negrete worked as an auditor for the Tax Board. Negrete worked with a group of auditors supervised by Willie Crawford. That group audited three types of protestor returns. These three types of tax protestors included constitutional objectors, home churches, and family trusts.

Crawford’s auditors were divided according to types of returns audited. Generally, auditors in the group handled…