The opinion
SIXTH DIVISION
June 29, 2007
Nos. 1-05-3273 and 1-05-3453
SHARON SIWEK, ) Appeal from the
) Circuit Court of
Petitioner-Appellee and ) Cook County
Cross-Appellant, )
)
)
v. )
)
)
THE POLICE BOARD OF THE CITY OF )
CHICAGO; DEMETRIUS E. CARNEY; )
SCOTT J. DAVIS; PHYLLIS L. )
APPELBAUM; VICTOR GONZALEZ; ) No. 04 CH 21040
PATRICIA C. BOBB; WILLIAM C. )
KIRKLING, D.D.S; REV. JOHNNY L. )
MILLER; ART SMITH; GEORGE M. )
VELCICH; MARK IRIS, Executive )
Director of the Police Board of )
the City of Chicago; MICHAEL G. )
BERLAND, Hearing Officer; and )
PHILIP J. CLINE, Superintendent )
of Police, )
) Honorable
Respondent-Appellants and ) Bernetta D. Bush
Cross-Appellees. ) Judge Presiding
JUSTICE McNULTY delivered the opinion of the court:
Sharon Siwek, a Chicago police department officer, was
discharged by the Police Board of the City of Chicago for
violating department rules prohibiting other employment while on
paid medical leave. On administrative review, the circuit court
of Cook County reversed the termination and remanded her case to
the Board with instructions to impose a different sanction. The
Board imposed a five-year suspension, and now appeals. We
1-05-3273; 1-05-3453
reverse the order of the circuit court.
BACKGROUND
The parties to the instant appeal do not dispute any of the
facts material to our review. In June 2002, Officer Sharon
Siwek, then a veteran of more than 12 years' service with the
Chicago police department, was placed on the department's paid
medical disability roll due to back and foot injuries she
sustained in a car accident. (The record before this court does
not reveal details of the accident and the parties do not suggest
that they are relevant to the instant appeal.) Siwek received
full salary from the department until returning to work in April
2003. Though some of the period was covered by payments not
attributable to medical leave, such as accrued vacation, Siwek
received medical disability payments for more than eight months.
During that period, she provided the department with numerous
reports from doctors advising that she should not yet return to
work.
During that period, Siwek also found employment as a
security guard for the Chicago Board of Education. She generally
worked a four-hour shift at a Chicago elementary school, usually
sitting at a desk at the front entrance of the school. At the
time, Chicago police officers were subject to a general order
which prohibited "secondary employment," defined as "any extra-
Department activity for which any Department member is being
compensated in salary, wages or commissions or other things of
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1-05-3273; 1-05-3453
value for services performed for an employer or in a self-
employed status," while that officer was "on the Medical Roll for
any reason."
In June 2004, the superintendent of police brought charges
against Siwek to the Police Board of the City of Chicago, seeking
Siwek's dismissal. The superintendent alleged that Siwek had
maintained other employment while on medical leave, and in so
doing had violated department Rule 2, which prohibits "[a]ny
action or conduct which impedes the Department's efforts to
achieve its policy and goals or brings discredit upon the
Department"; Rule 6, which prohibits "[d]isobediance of an order
or directive, whether written or oral"; and Rule 23, which
prohibits "[f]ailure to obey Department orders concerning other
employment, occupation, or profession."
At the Police Board hearing, Siwek conceded that she had
committed the actions alleged by the superintendent, that those
actions violated department rules that had been in force since
the year she joined the department, and that it had been her
obligation to know and abide by those rules. In her defense,
Siwek argued that she had not been aware that her school
employment violated department rules. The Board was presented
with documentary evidence of Siwek's record as a police officer,
including the number of awards she received and the fact that she
had been suspended five times for incidents occurring in the
period from August 1998 to April 2000, including a three-day
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suspension in 2001 for an unspecified 1998 "medical roll"
violation and a 10-day suspension in 2001 for a 1999 incident of
insubordination. The Board determined that Siwek was guilty of
the alleged rules violations and ordered her termination.
Siwek filed a petition for administrative review of the
Board's decision in the circuit court of Cook County; the circuit
court, commenting that termination was "too severe" a sanction
for Siwek's conduct, reversed the Board decision and remanded the
case to the Board with directions to impose a penalty other than
termination. The Board stated that it had "again considered the
evidence in this case, including the testimony, exhibits, and the
Respondent's complimentary and disciplinary history," and that it
remained "convinced that Police Officer Sharon Siwek's conduct
renders her unfit for employment as a Police Officer with the
Department of Police of the City of Chicago." Explicitly noting
that its sanction on remand was solely to comply with the circuit
court's order, and encouraging the superintendent to seek
appellate review of that order, the Board suspended Siwek for
five years. The circuit court confirmed its approval of the
five-year suspension, and the superintendent and the Board
brought the instant appeal. Siwek also filed a notice of appeal,
announcing her intent to seek review of the suspension, and we
consolidated the two appeals.
ANALYSIS
Appellate review of an administrative agency's
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1-05-3273; 1-05-3453
discharge decision generally requires a two-stage analysis: a
determination of whether the agency's factual findings are
contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence and a
determination of whether those findings provide a sufficient
basis for the agency's conclusion that cause for termination does
or does not exist. Sangirardi v. Village of Stickney, 342 Ill.
App. 3d 1, 17 (2003); Kappel v. Police Board of the City of
Chicago, 220 Ill. App. 3d 580, 588 (1991). Since the propriety
of the Board's findings is not at issue in the instant case, our
focus here is on the findings' sufficiency as a basis for the
termination decision.
In our review of an administrative discharge decision, "we
may not consider whether we would have imposed a more lenient
disciplinary sentence"; instead, our review "is limited to a
determination of whether the Board acted unreasonably or
arbitrarily by selecting a type of discipline that was
inappropriate or unrelated to the needs of the service." Krocka
v. Police Board of the City of Chicago, 327 Ill. App. 3d 36, 48
(2001), citing Wilson v. Board of Fire & Police Commissioners,
205 Ill. App. 3d 984, 992 (1990).
Illinois courts have recognized that police departments, as
paramilitary organizations, require disciplined officers to
function effectively, and have accordingly held that the
promotion of discipline through sanctions for disobedience of
rules, regulations and orders is neither inappropriate nor
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unrelated to the needs of a police force. Sangirardi v. Village
of Stickney, 342 Ill. App. 3d 1, 17 (2003); Haynes v. Police
Board of the City of Chicago, 293 Ill. App. 3d 508, 512-13
(1997). An officer's violation of a single rule has long been
held to be a sufficient basis for termination. Kinter v. Board
of Fire & Police Commissioners, 194 Ill. App. 3d 126, 134 (1990);
King v. City of Chicago, 60 Ill. App. 3d 504, 508 (1978);
Moriarty v. Police Board of the City of Chicago, 7 Ill. App. 3d
978, 982 (1972).
Siwek contends that the Board's decision to terminate her
was arbitrary and unreasonable, and seeks to support that
contention with citations to Illinois precedents in which police
officers whose conduct was arguably worse than hers received less
severe sanctions. However, the fact that different individuals
have been disciplined differently is not a basis for concluding
that an agency's disciplinary decision is unreasonable; such
conclusions are appropriate when individuals receive different
discipline in a single, identical, "completely related" case.
Launius v. Board of Fire & Police Commissioners, 151 Ill. 2d 419,
441-42 (1992). Siwek concedes that no completely related case
exists as a basis for comparison to the discipline she received
for her conduct. We are therefore unpersuaded by her assertion
that sanctions imposed in other cases show the Board's initial
termination decision to be arbitrary or unreasonable.
Siwek also contends that the Board acted arbitrarily in
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failing to find that evidence of her good character and conduct
was sufficient to mitigate against imposition of the extreme
sanction of termination. We disagree. An administrative agency
need not give mitigating evidence sufficient weight to overcome a
termination decision, and a discharge decision made despite the
presentation of such evidence is not, without more, arbitrary or
otherwise erroneous. Kappel v. Police Board of Chicago, 220 Ill.
App. 3d 580, 596-97 (1991).
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the Board's
initial termination decision was not erroneous. The order of the
circuit court of Cook County vacating that termination and
mandating imposition of a different sanction is accordingly
reversed, and the cause is hereby remanded to that court with
directions to reinstate the Board's initial order. In light of
that disposition, Siwek's appeal regarding the propriety of the
five-year suspension imposed by the Board on remand is dismissed
as moot.
No. 1-05-3273, Reversed and remanded with directions.
No. 1-05-3453, Appeal dismissed.
JOSEPH GORDON and O'MALLEY, JJ., concur.
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