Source: http://courts.mrsc.org/supreme/085wn2d/085wn2d0743.htm
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 01:11:00+00:00

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Administrative Law and Procedure - Judicial Review - Exhaustion of Administrative Remedies - Necessity. Exhaustion of administrative remedies prior to judicial relief is not necessary when such action would be futile, such as where the validity or applicability of the appeal procedure is challenged.
 Courts - Labor Relations - Collective Bargaining Act - Juvenile Court Employees. For purposes of the Public Employees' Collective Bargaining Act (RCW 41.56), which applies to county but not state employees, employees of a juvenile court are county employees insofar as wages and related matters are concerned, but are state employees as to matters controlled by the juvenile court judges, such as hiring, firing, and working conditions. The bargaining act applies to the extent that the juvenile court employees are employees of the county.
 Constitutional Law - Courts - Expenditures - Inherent Power. The doctrine of separation of powers prevents legislative action or inaction from interfering with the independent and effective functioning of the judicial branch of government. The judiciary has the inherent power to compel payment from the public treasury when necessary for the efficient administration of justice.
Act (RCW 41.56) to juvenile court employees does not affect the judiciary's power to control and administer the courts, including the power to require payment of public funds when essential to the efficient administration of justice.
FINLEY and UTTER, JJ., STAFFORD, C.J., and HUNTER, WRIGHT, and HOROWITZ, JJ., concur by separate opinions.
Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court for Pierce County, No. 221797, Gerry L. Alexander, J., entered March 18, 1974. Affirmed in part; reversed in part.
Action to determine the validity of a collective bargaining agreement. The appellants appeal from a judgment in favor of the plaintiffs.
Herbert Gelman (of Geiman & Couture), for appellants.
Jack G. Rosenow (of Comfort, Dolack, Hansler, Hulscher, Rosenow & Burrows), for respondents.
This appeal presents the question of whether the Public Employees' Collective Bargaining Act is applicable to employees in juvenile court facilities.
In 1972, a bargaining unit was organized at Remann Hall, the juvenile court facility in Pierce County, by the Washington State Council of County and City Employees, AFL-CIO, Local 120. The unit was organized pursuant to RCW 41.56 (Public Employees' Collective Bargaining Act). Remann Hall employees, represented by the union, negotiated a contract with Pierce County Commissioners which included provisions for hours, wages, and work conditions. After the contract became effective, a monthly deduction for union dues and insurance was made from the salaries of Remann Hall employees. Plaintiffs challenged this contract in Pierce County Superior Court, seeking a declaratory judgment holding the contract null and void because it was not authorized by RCW 41.56. Plaintiffs further sought injunctive relief and damages in the amount of dues paid to the union.
employees of the juvenile court are employees of the state and, therefore, under the doctrine of Roza Irrigation Dist. v. State, 80 Wn.2d 633, 497 P.2d 166 (1972), the bargaining act does not apply to them. The court therefore declared the contract void and awarded damages. Defendants appeal. We affirm in part and reverse in part.
 As a preliminary matter, we note that plaintiffs' failure to exhaust remedies under the bargaining act and under the union contract does not bar their access to the courts. Exhaustion of administrative remedies will not be required where resort to those procedures would be futile. See Washington Local 104, Boilermakers v. International Bhd. of Boilermakers, 33 Wn.2d 1, 203 P.2d 1019 (1949). Here, remedies prescribed by either the bargaining act or the contract in question would have been futile where the controversy centers on the applicability of the act and the validity of the contract.
(1) "Public employer" means any officer, board, commission, council, or other person or body acting on behalf of any public body governed by this chapter as designated by RCW 41.56.020, or any subdivision of such public body.
(2) "Public employee" means any employee of a public employer except any person (a) elected by popular vote, or (b) appointed to office pursuant to statute, ordinance or resolution for a specified term of office by the executive head or body of the public employer, or (c) whose duties as deputy, administrative assistant or secretary necessarily imply a confidential relationship to the executive head or body of the applicable bargaining unit, or any person elected by popular vote or appointed to office pursuant to statute, ordinance or resolution for a specified term of office by the executive head or body of the public employer. . . .
employees at the local level, since state employees are not referred to in RCW 41.56.020 . . .
 Plaintiffs' employment bears a substantial relationship to both Pierce County and the judicial branch. Under RCW 13.04.040,«1» compensation for juvenile court probation counselors and detention staff is to be fixed and paid by the county. Probation officers have been held to be county officers. In re Lewis, 51 Wn.2d 193, 316 P.2d 907 (1957); State ex rel. Richardson v. Clark County, 186 Wash. 79, 56 P.2d 1023 (1936).
However, RCW 13.04.040 also provides that juvenile court employees are to be hired, controlled, and discharged by the judges of the court. The traditional test of employer-employee relationship in Washington is the right of control. James v. Ellis, 44 Wn.2d 599, 269 P.2d 573 (1954).
«1» The court shall, in any county or judicial district in the state, appoint or designate one or more persons of good character to serve as probation counselors during the pleasure of the court. In case a probation counselor shall be appointed by any court, the clerk of the court, if practicable, shall notify him in advance when a child is to be brought before said court. The probation counselor shall make such investigations as may be required by the court. The probation counselor shall inquire into the antecedents, character, family history, environments and cause of dependency or delinquency of every alleged dependent or delinquent child brought before the juvenile court and shall make his report in writing to the judge thereof. He shall be present in order to represent the interests of the child when the case is heard; he shall furnish the court such information and assistance as it may require, and shall take charge of the child before and after the trial as may be directed by the court.
"All probation counselors shall possess all the powers conferred upon sheriffs and police officers to serve process and make arrests for the violation of any state law or county or city ordinance, relative to the care, custody, and control of delinquent and dependent children.
"The court may, in any county or judicial district in the state, appoint one or more persons who shall have charge of detention rooms or house of detention.
"The probation counselors and persons appointed to have charge of detention facilities shall each receive compensation which shall be fixed by the board of county commissioners, or [in] cases of joint counties, judicial districts of more than one county, or joint judicial districts such sums as shall be agreed upon by the boards of county commissioners of the counties affected, and such persons shall be paid as other county officers are paid." RCW 13.04.040.
Thus, plaintiffs are hired and fired by the juvenile court judges, and are compensated by the county. We conclude that, for the purposes of the applicability of the collective bargaining act, plaintiffs may be classed as having a dual status: They are employees of the county for purposes of negotiating matters relating to wages, including benefits relating directly to wages such as medical insurance. Thus, wage negotiations with the Board of County Commissioners are appropriately controlled by the provisions of the bargaining act. However, for purposes of hiring, firing, working conditions, and other matters necessarily within the statutory responsibility of the juvenile court judges, plaintiffs are employees of the court and thus of the State's judicial branch. Adhering to the doctrine of Roza Irrigation Dist. v. State, supra, these matters do not fall within the purview of the bargaining act.
. . . Leahey v. Farrell, supra at 57-58. See also Inherent Power of Court to Compel Appropriation or Expenditure of Funds for Judicial Purposes, Annot., 59 A.L.R.3d 569, 573 (1974).
courts clearly rests with the judiciary. This does not make of the court a final arbiter in the collective bargaining process; it but recognizes the undiminished role of the judiciary as an independent and equal coordinate branch of government.
The doctrine of separation of powers does not create exclusive spheres of competence in each branch.
But the doctrine of the separation of powers was never intended to create, and certainly never did create, utterly exclusive spheres of competence. The compartmentalization of governmental powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches has never been watertight. In re Salaries for Probation Officers of Bergen County, 58 N.J. 422, 425, 278 A.2d 417 (1971).
Harmonious cooperation among the three branches is fundamental to our system of government. Only if this cooperation breaks down is it necessary for the judiciary to exercise inherent power to sustain its separate integrity. Commonwealth ex rel. Carroll v. Tate, supra. Cooperation among all three branches is involved in permitting these employees to bargain in relation to wages. The question to be asked is not whether two branches of government engage in coinciding activities, but rather whether the activity of one branch threatens the independence or integrity or invades the prerogatives of another. We can find no such encroachment, actual or threatened, in permitting these employees to bargain on the question of wages.
«2» The effect of partial invalidity upon the continuing effectiveness of the existing contract has not been briefed or argued; hence, we express no view upon any question related thereto.
invalidates the contract as to hiring, firing, and working conditions and denies defendant Piva attorney fees is affirmed. The parties will bear their own costs.
FINLEY, ROSELLINI, HUNTER, and BRACHTENBACH, JJ., concur.
employees are to be hired, controlled, and discharged by the judges of the court. From the foregoing, it follows, as emphasized by the majority, that probation officers or counselors and other personnel have a dual status. As to wages and other benefits they are employees of the county and the collective bargaining act is applicable. As to hiring, firing, working conditions and related matters, they are employees of the juvenile court and of the state's judicial branch of government, and the act is not applicable.
For the reasons stated, I concur in the majority opinion.
WRIGHT, J., concurs with FINLEY, J.
When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person or body, there can be no liberty, because apprehension might arise lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
Again, there is no liberty, if the judiciary power be not separate from the legislative and executive. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control; for the judge would be then the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with violence and oppression.
followed there since that time. That act provided for tenure during good behavior and established the foundation of the modem English judicial system. Ervin, Separation of Powers: Judicial Independence, 35 Law & Contemp. Prob. 108, at 111 (1970).
To what expedient, then, shall we finally resort, for maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments as laid down in the Constitution? . . . . . . [T]he great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. . . .
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.
Six of the original states explicitly affirmed the doctrine of the separation of powers. Today the theory is formally announced in about forty state constitutions.
The other states make no such formal declaration; nor does the Constitution of the United States. Yet the same result is reached because these other states' constitutions, as the federal constitution, create three departments of government, vesting the executive power in one, the legislative power in another, and the judicial power in a third. Washington is among those states which recognize the separation of powers theory by vesting in its constitution the "judicial power of the state" in a separate branch of government. Const. art. 4, § 1. Having been given this power, the judicial branch is further entrusted with the duty to insure that "[j]ustice in all cases shall be administered openly, and without unnecessary delay." Const. art. 1, § 10. We have recognized and applied the doctrine of separation of powers in Besselman v. Moses Lake, 46 Wn.2d 279, 280 P.2d 689 (1955), and Tacoma v. O'Brien, 85 Wn.2d 266, 534 P.2d 114 (1975). In furtherance of the principle of separation of powers we have refused to interfere with the executive branch of the government (State v. International Typographical Union, 57 Wn.2d 151, 356 P.2d 6 (1960); State v. Fair, 35 Wash. 127, 76 P. 731 (1904)), or with the legislative branch (Hoppe v. State, 78 Wn.2d 164, 469 P.2d 909 (1970); Seattle v. Hill, 72 Wn.2d 786, 435 P.2d 692 (1967)), and insisted that those branches do not usurp the functions of this one. Tacoma v. O'Brien, supra.
control the decision making and the adjudicatory process, but also the ancillary functions which are subordinate to the decision making Process.
It is simply impossible for a judge to do nothing but judge; a legislator to do nothing but legislate; a governor to do nothing but execute the laws. The proper exercise of each of these three great powers of government necessarily includes some ancillary inherent capacity to do things which are normally done by the other departments.
Thus, both the legislative department and the judicial department have certain housekeeping chores which are prerequisite to the exercise of legislative and judicial power. And, to accomplish these housekeeping chores both departments have inherently a measure of administrative authority not unlike that primarily and exclusively vested in the executive department.
The inherent power of the judiciary is a judicial power, but only in the sense that it is a natural necessary concomitant to the judicial power.
The inherent power of the Court is non-adjudicatory.
It does not deal with justiciable matters. It relates to the administration of the business of the Court. Wayne Circuit Judges v. Wayne County, 383 Mich. 10, 20-21, 172 N.W.2d 436 (1969), modified on other grounds, 386 Mich. 1, 190 N.W.2d 228 (1971).
reasonable and necessary to carry out their mandate and duty to administer justice if they are to be in reality a coequal independent branch of our government. Commonwealth ex rel. Carroll v. Tate, 442 Pa. 45, 52, 274 A.2d 193, 197 (1971).
It may be conceded that the appointment of probation officers and the fixing of their salaries are not, at least in the purest sense, judicial acts. But the doctrine of the separation of powers was never intended to create, and certainly never did create, utterly exclusive spheres of competence. The compartmentalization of governmental powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches has never been watertight.
These mandates [constitutional mandates to administer justice completely, speedily and without delay] necessarily carry with them the right to quarters appropriate to the office and personnel adequate to perform the functions thereof. The right to appoint a necessary staff of personnel necessarily carries with it the right to have such appointees paid a salary commensurate with their responsibilities. The right cannot be made amenable to and/or denied by a county council or the legislature itself.
For these reasons I believe the courts clearly possess the power necessary to properly insure they can function efficiently as a separate branch of government. I can concur in the majority opinion because there is no contention that the salaries established by the collective bargaining process are inadequate to attract competent personnel, and the court's approval of the salary structure may be implied. Without this approval, express or implied, there would be a violation of the separation of powers doctrine inasmuch as inadequate staffing can cripple the ability of the courts to perform their established functions.
STAFFORD, C.J., and HUNTER and HOROWITZ, JJ., concur with UTTER, J.

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