Hatfield v. Board of Firemen, Policemen & Fire Alarm Operators Pension Fund

472 S.W.2d 319, 1971 Tex. App. LEXIS 2206
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedSeptember 22, 1971
DocketNo. 6178
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 472 S.W.2d 319 (Hatfield v. Board of Firemen, Policemen & Fire Alarm Operators Pension Fund) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hatfield v. Board of Firemen, Policemen & Fire Alarm Operators Pension Fund, 472 S.W.2d 319, 1971 Tex. App. LEXIS 2206 (Tex. Ct. App. 1971).

Opinion

OPINION

WARD, Justice.

The Appellant has appealed from a judgment which upheld an order of the Board of Firemen, Policemen and Fire Alarm Operators Pension Fund, Trustees of El Paso, Texas, denying to him a pension for permanent disability benefits alleged to be due to him by virtue of the provisions of Art. 6243b Vernon’s Annotated Civil Statutes and in particular, under its Sec. 8. We affirm the judgment of the trial Court.

The claim or right to the disability pension accrues to the policeman according to this section who “ * * * shall become so permanently disabled through injury received, or disease contracted, in the line of duty, as to incapacitate him for the performance of duty, or shall for any cause, through no fault of his own, become so permanently disabled as to incapacitate him for the performance of duty * * * No claim is made by the Appellant that he qualifies under the first of the two situations provided by the statute; that is, that it is in any way duty connected. He urges that he does qualify under the last portion and is a person who has become so permanently disabled, through no fault of his own, that he cannot perform his duties.

The parties agree that his right to relief from the decision of the board is governed by the substantial evidence rule with its all important limitation on the power of the Court to overturn the decision of the administrative agency. He is not entitled to trial de novo in Court but must assume the burden of satisfying the Court that the administrative decision is illegal, arbitrary, or capricious; that is that it is not reasonably supported by substantial evidence. The test is whether the administrative decision finds reasonable support in substantial evidence from a consideration of the entire record in the case as that record has been made in the trial Court. Board of Firemen’s Relief and Retirement Fund Trustees of Houston v. Marks, 150 Tex, 433, 242 S.W.2d 181, 27 A.L.R.2d 965 (1951). The right to a pension depends upon whether or not the officer or employee is within the terms of the applicable pension law. McQuillin Municipal Corporations, Vol. 3, Sec. 12:147. Under that portion of the section of the statute where the Appellant seeks to find shelter, the burden is on him to satisfy the board that he had a permanent disability as to incapacitate him from the performance of his duties and that his disability was not caused through his own fault. Board, etc. v. Marks, supra.

Evaluating the evidence in its entirety in this case, we find the Appellant had been a police officer for some eighteen years and had advanced to the rank of Detective in the burglary and theft detail with a good work record. In the early part of 1968, the Chief of Police received information that the Appellant might be involved in some sort of illegal activity, and a regrettable story began to unfold. A sporadic check was made of the activities of that officer during the year 1968 and on January 10, 1969, he was summoned to the Chief's office where he was confronted by two F.B.I. agents who were investigating the alleged criminal activities of one William Rogers and an ex-police officer by the name of William Crawford. After being duly warned of his rights, Officer Hatfield answered some questions and after the agents had left, the Chief instructed Officer Hatfield not to see or contact either Rogers or Crawford. When Hatfield [321]*321then left, two police Captains were instructed to follow him. The Appellant having telephoned Rogers, was next found at the Red Dog saloon in the company of William Rogers where the two remained for some three hours. After this, the appellant was called before the Chief and discharged from the police department effective January 13, 1969.

The record before us is undisputed and stands unchallenged by the Appellant in his presentation before us, that justifiable grounds existed for his discharge under the then existing rules and regulations of the El Paso Police Department for violating lawful orders of superiors, filing false official reports of investigations, and for actually committing felony offences. When the Appellant was called on to testify by the Appellee, his 5th Amendment privileges were claimed when he was questioned on his participating in the commission of some eight or nine felony offences in the last part of 1967 and during 1968 with either William Rogers or William Crawford. When asked about various acts of taking property, or joining with the other men in taking property or participating in various burglaries, or acting as a lookout or in disposing of the property in El Paso and in Mexico, the Appellant responded that he could not answer because of incriminating himself. Some seven or eight indictments were later returned against the Appellant.

In October of 1968, the Appellant was hospitalized complaining of a gradual weight loss for a period of a year and a half. The final diagnosis of his physician at the time of his discharge was that he suffered from a duodenal ulcer and depression. While in the hospital, he was seen on several occasions by a psychiatrist, Dr. Hernandez, who treated him with certain tranquilizers and who reported on November 3rd that he was psychiatrically improved and ready for discharge. At that time, there was no limitation on his returning to work, and he did work until his firing took place. After leaving the hospital and until April, 1969, the Appellant was seen by the psychiatrist on some seven more occasions. On May 20, 1969, the Appellant made written application to the Ap-pellee Board requesting that he be retired from service because of total disability. The board in turn referred the Appellant to two additional psychiatrists.

One of these, Dr. Postlewaite, after his one examination, testified on direct examination that the Appellant was permanently and totally disabled from the standpoint of returning to his activities as a police officer by virtue of his psychiatric condition, that his depression was both acute and chronic, he was unstable and had been in this state for many years. Upon cross examination, he further admitted that if a person in a position of public responsibility such as a police officer, had participated in various criminal acts, a very heavy burden would be placed on the man’s conscience and cause a depression. Dr. Raskin, after an examination in July of 1969, testified that the Appellant was sort of a paranoid character with a chronic depression. His diagnosis was that he had a psychotic depressive reaction, improved at the time of the examination but not completely cured. He was not in a condition to perform his duties as a police officer, but the doctor would not say that his condition was permanent. Dr. Hernandez diagnosed the Appellant’s condition as that of a psycho-neurosis which had pre-dated his October, 1968, treatments by at least a one to two year period and which had been triggered by a startling event such as his Father’s hospitalization in a mental institution. It was his further opinion that the Appellant could never work as a policeman again.

In the face of the record before us, argument could be advanced that at the time the application for retirement disability was made, that the Appellant was not a “duly appointed and enrolled” member of the Police Department under the provisions of Sec. 6, Art. 6243b, Vernon’s Annotated Civil Statutes. The administrative order of discharge or firing had apparently not [322]*322been challenged and as stated before, is not challenged here.

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Bluebook (online)
472 S.W.2d 319, 1971 Tex. App. LEXIS 2206, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hatfield-v-board-of-firemen-policemen-fire-alarm-operators-pension-fund-texapp-1971.