Campbell v. Personnel Board of Kansas City

666 S.W.2d 806, 1984 Mo. App. LEXIS 3553
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJanuary 17, 1984
DocketNo. WD 34462
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 666 S.W.2d 806 (Campbell v. Personnel Board of Kansas City) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Campbell v. Personnel Board of Kansas City, 666 S.W.2d 806, 1984 Mo. App. LEXIS 3553 (Mo. Ct. App. 1984).

Opinion

MANFORD, Judge.

This appeal follows a judgment affirming the decision of the Personnel Board of the City of Kansas City, Missouri, which resulted in the termination of two city employees. The judgment is affirmed.

Appellants present a singular point, which charges that the trial court erred in affirming the prior decision of the Personnel Board of the City of Kansas City, Missouri, because, “The decision of the Personnel Board of Kansas City, Missouri and the decision of the City Manager of Kansas City, Missouri, dated respectively December 23, 1981 and February 2, 1982 upholding the earlier discharge of appellants by the City of Kansas City, Missouri, because they had refused to submit to a polygraphic examination, were arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable, involved an abuse of discretion and were unsupported by competent and substantial evidence upon the whole record.”

From the rather short record and documentary evidence submitted to this court, the following applicable facts are to be found.

Appellants (hereinafter referred to as Campbell and Hayes), along with a third employee, were, on August 24, 1981, assigned to Water Department Truck No. 8536 for purposes of job performance with and on behalf of respondent, the City of Kansas City, Missouri (hereinafter referred to as the City). Between the hours of 5:30 and 6:00 p.m. on August 24, 1981, the trio returned the truck to its designated parking area. Although part of their duties included locking the truck, they neglected to do so. A short time later, two other employees, Thatcher and Quinn, assigned to the Store Keeping Section of the City’s Water and Pollution Control Department, observed that the truck was unlocked. These two employees took an inventory of the truck and taped the doors shut. The inventory revealed that there was missing a ball-peen hammer, a 60-foot reel of one-inch copper pipe, and a reel of three-quarter-inch copper pipe.

Campbell, Hayes, and the third employee were called before supervisors relative to an investigation concerning the property loss. The third employee agreed to and did take a polygraphic examination. Hayes refused to cooperate in the investigation under the advice of the union, including the refusal to take a polygraphic examination. Initially, Campbell agreed to take such an examination. He appeared for the exami[808]*808nation and advised the examiner that he was suffering from numerous physical ailments.

The City ordered a physical examination for Campbell, upon the completion of which the examining physician could find no medical or physical problems. On his report, the examining physician noted, “I find no reason why he cannot take [a] polygraph test.” The record includes testimony of one Harold Schneider, the Assistant Director of the City’s Water and Pollution Department. Schneider testified that Hayes and Campbell refused to cooperate in the investigation. He also testified that Campbell admitted to him that his (Campbell’s) claims of medical and physical disabilities were false. The net result was that Hayes and Campbell both refused to take the polygraphic examination. Upon cross-examination, Schneider admitted that the extent of cooperation in such an investigation is measured by the willingness or refusal to take a polygraphic examination.

The Personnel Board decided that Campbell and Hayes had refused to cooperate in a lawful investigation and affirmed their termination of employment. This action was followed by a like decision by the City Manager. Appellants filed their petition for review in the circuit court. Without a hearing, the circuit court affirmed the previous decisions. This appeal followed.

Reduced to its simplest form, appellants’ contention on appeal is that they were terminated “solely and singularity” because they refused to submit to polygraphic examinations and not because of any alleged “failure to cooperate in a lawful investigation” as contended by the City. Thus, appellants make it absolutely clear that their attack is upon the use of polygraphic examinations by the City. The City meanwhile expressed, through counsel, that appellants refused to cooperate. Neither party offered up any evidence of any other activity concerning Campbell and Hayes relative to the investigation. Stated another way, the City offered no evidence other than the refusal to take the polygraphic examination to show a lack of cooperation. On the same note, Campbell and Hayes offered no evidence revealing any cooperation in the investigation. Thus, on this appeal, we have appellants directly challenging the City’s right to use polygraphic examinations, contending that it has no such right, and concluding therefrom that the City failed to prove a lack of cooperation. In contrast, we have the City maintaining its right to make use of polygraphic examinations, and upon the refusal of Campbell and Hayes to take such examination, the City’s conclusion that Campbell and Hayes refused to cooperate in a lawful investigation.

Appellants would have this court rule that the use of polygraphic examinations are not permissible, and thus it could not follow that Campbell and Hayes refused to cooperate. In order to persuade this court to reach the conclusion suggested by appellants, they cite State v. Biddle, 599 S.W.2d 182 (Mo. banc 1980). From Biddle, appellants broaden their assertion by urging that the rule in Biddle is applicable to the instant proceedings in multiple fashion. First, it is suggested that Biddle, because of the doctrines of res judicata, collateral estoppel, and stare decisis, prohibits the use of polygraphs. It is then suggested that since Biddle prohibits the admission of polygraphic examination or test results in criminal cases, whether agreed to or not, that such tests are also not admissible in all other proceedings, including administrative hearings. It is then suggested that since the prohibitory rule in Biddle is applicable to administrative proceedings, appellants cannot have been property discharged because to have agreed to the examination would have been a useless act which they were not required to perform.

Biddle was a split en banc decision of the Missouri Supreme Court, in which it was ruled that the results of polygraphic examinations, whether agreed to or not between the prosecution and the accused, are not admissible in criminal proceedings. What appellants seek in the instant proceedings is an interpretation of Biddle to include a prohibition of the use of polygraphic examinations in any and all proceedings and at [809]*809any and all phases of any proceeding, whether at the investigatory level or at the hearing level.

While the rule announced in Biddle includes the condemnation of the use and results of polygraphic examination, it does so on the premise that the scientific reliability thereof goes wanting to the extent that such examination or test results are not acceptable or properly admissible evidence in a criminal trial. Biddle does not address or rule the issue or question of whether such examinations are a permissible investigatory method, and that case certainly does not address the question presented herein as to whether anyone [i.e., employers, governmental agency, etc.] has the right to utilize or employ the use of such examinations in the course of an investigation or for other purposes relative to an employee. The net result is that Biddle does not control the instant case.

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Bluebook (online)
666 S.W.2d 806, 1984 Mo. App. LEXIS 3553, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/campbell-v-personnel-board-of-kansas-city-moctapp-1984.