Parrish v. Civil Service Commission

In the present case an Alameda County social worker, discharged for “insubordination” for declining to participate in a mass morning raid upon the homes of the county’s welfare recipients, seeks reinstatement with back pay on the ground that such participation would have involved him in multiple violations of rights secured by the federal and state Constitutions. He urges that his superiors could not properly direct him to participate in an illegal activity and that he could not, therefore, be dismissed for declining to follow such directions.

The county acknowledges that it has subsequently…