Opinion ID: 1259865
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: interest on municipal court judicial salary claims

Text: Salaries of municipal court judges, unlike those of other courts of record, are paid solely out of county funds. (Gov. Code, § 71220.) The county-auditor defendants contend that therefore the increases in municipal court salaries ordered in Olson v. Cory I were county obligations on which the county need not pay prejudgment interest accruing before that decision was rendered because during that time they were prevented by law (Civ. Code, § 3287) from paying the increases. They rely on Sonoma County Organization of Public Employees v. County of Sonoma (1979) 23 Cal.3d 296 [152 Cal. Rptr. 903, 591 P.2d 1]. In Sonoma, this court held that a statute that purported to nullify wage increase agreements between local public entities (including counties) and their employees was an unconstitutional impairment of the obligation of contract, and we ordered the increases paid. The plaintiffs' claim to interest on those payments, however, was denied on the ground that the local entities were prevented by law ... from paying the debt (Civ. Code, § 3287) on account of the serious financial hardship, through withholding of state funds, provided by the unconstitutional statute as a penalty for exceeding its guidelines. The present case resembles Sonoma in that the counties were powerless to contravene an invalid statute in order to pay the debts in question before the statute's invalidity was judicially determined. But in Sonoma the debts were created by contracts independently entered into by the counties, whereas here the municipal court judges' salary claims were based wholly on state statutes (Gov. Code, §§ 68202-68203) enacted pursuant to the Legislature's sole constitutional power to prescribe the number and compensation of municipal court judges (Cal. Const., art. VI, §§ 5, 19). The increases in such compensation, on which interest is now claimed, were held owing in Olson v. Cory I because section 68202 prior to its 1976 amendment constituted a contract between municipal court judges and the state. A county is the largest political division of the State having corporate powers. (Gov. Code, § 23000.) Counties have corporate powers conferred by the Constitution (e.g., art. XI, §§ 1, subd. (b), 3, 4) and by statute (e.g., Gov. Code, § 23003 et seq.). Thus, in Sonoma the wage increase claims on which interest was denied emanated from the powers of the counties' governing bodies to provide for the compensation of county employees (Cal. Const., art. XI, § 1, subd. (b)) through collective bargaining contracts with employee organizations (Gov. Code, § 3500 et seq.; Sonoma, 23 Cal.3d at p. 304). With respect to municipal court judges' compensation, however, counties function solely as legal subdivisions of the State (Cal. Const., art. XI, § 1, subd. (a); Gov. Code, § 23002) having purely ministerial functions. The Legislature's power to fix that compensation (Cal. Const., art. VI, §§ 5, subd. (a), 19) is immune from any interference or modification by county boards of supervisors or county officials, who have no choice but to pay the compensation out of county funds as ordered by the Legislature (Gov. Code, § 71220). (16) Earlier in this opinion, we concluded that the liability for interest on state-paid judicial salary claims is not barred by any right or duty of the Controller to withhold payments that are clouded by legal uncertainty, and that such liability for interest on judicial pensioners' claims is not barred by the fact that the pensions are payable out of a special retirement fund. In light of those conclusions, we hold that the right to interest on municipal court judges' salary claims is barred neither by duties of county fiscal officers to withhold legally questionable payments until the uncertainties are judicially dispelled nor by the fact that the state has ordered the salaries paid out of county funds. Since the salaries are prescribed exclusively by the Legislature, the Legislature's 1976 amendment of section 68203, insofar as held inoperative in Olson v. Cory I, cannot be deemed a law that prevented counties from paying the municipal court judicial salary claims.