MURPHY v. RETIREMENT BOARD OF SAN FRANCISCO CITY EMPLOYEES RETIREMENT SYSTEM ET AL (1941)

The petitioner sued for a writ of mandate requiring respondents to grant her a pension as the widow of a former member of the municipal police department. Trial was had upon the record of the proceedings of the respondent board which resulted in a denial of a pension upon the ground that the death of the police officer did not result from an injury received while in the performance of his duties.

The trial court found that, on February 10, 1936, the police officer, while climbing the stairs of the central police station, fell and was unconscious for about five minutes; that, on March 23, 1938, he died of a heart occlusion, or heart thrombosis; that the evidence before the respondent board did not show that the exertion of walking up the stairs of the police station caused the disease resulting in death; that the expert evidence affirmatively showed that, at the time of the fall, the symptoms of the disease were not present, but that there was some conflict in that evidence; and that the evidence as a whole showed that the disease which caused the death of the officer had no connection with any injury suffered by him while performing his duties as a member of the police department.

In appealing from the judgment adverse to her the petitioner rests her case upon the theory that, since the evidence was in conflict as to when the heart occlusion took place, the respondent board was bound to conclude that it was the result of the fall two years prior to the death. She relies upon Buckley v. Roche, 214 Cal. 241, 4 P.2d 929; Peters v. Sacramento City E. R. System, 27 Cal.App.2d 10, 80 P.2d 179, and Naughton v. Retirement Board of San Francisco, 43 Cal.App.2d 254, 110 P.2d 714. The cases are really not authority for the proposition advanced by the appellant. They held that where the evidence is all one way (or where it is stipulated to as in the Buckley case) the administrative board cannot justify a finding based wholly upon conjectures contrary to such evidence. Here the evidence is in conflict––it was so found by the trial court, and appellant concedes this to be so. When that situation arises and the board is required to decide what of the evidence should be believed and what should be rejected the question before the trial court is limited to the inquiry whether the administrative board has acted arbitrarily, capriciously or fraudulently, or whether, in some other respect, the proceedings were conducted without due regard for the rights of the petitioner. McColgan v. Board of Police Com'rs, 130 Cal.App. 66, 68, 19 P.2d 815; Mogan v. Board of Police Com'rs, 100 Cal.App. 270, 276, 279 P. 1080; Hogan v. Retirement Board, etc., 13 Cal.App.2d 676, 57 P.2d 520.

The authority of these cases clearly defines the scope of the inquiry by the trial court in mandamus proceedings, and the appellant does not contend that the trial court departed from this rule in any particular. Her contention that the court should have required the respondents to disregard some of the expert evidence taken and should have put more weight upon that evidence favorable to her may not be sustained.

The judgment is affirmed.

NOURSE, Presiding Justice.

STURTEVANT and SPENCE, JJ., concurred.