Opinion ID: 1156663
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The power to make restitutive money awards

Text: As we explain below, prior California cases provide no direct guidance on the propriety of administrative restitutive money awards. Cases dealing with administrative licensing agencies, however, suggest that such agencies may properly order reparations as a probationary condition of a licensee, and hence these cases shed some light on the issue posed here. Moreover, the decisions of our sister states provide helpful guidance. The out-of-state decisions unanimously hold that an administrative agency may  consistently with the judicial powers doctrine  make restitutive money awards provided (i) doing so is reasonably necessary to effectuate the administrative agency's primary, legitimate regulatory purposes, and (ii) the essential judicial power remains ultimately in the courts, through review of agency determinations. We will conclude that these limitations on agency adjudication provide a reasoned and workable test by which to measure challenges under our Constitution's judicial powers clause, and will adopt that test as our own.
Other than Jersey Maid, supra, 13 Cal.2d 620, we have found no California case addressing directly the authority of nonconstitutional agencies ( ante, p. 355) to make restitutive money awards. [7] There is, however, at least one statute that authorizes similar administrative relief. The Fair Employment and Housing Commission (FEHC) is authorized to order reinstatement of employment with ... backpay under Government Code section 12970, subdivision (a). [8] Additionally, another provision in the same act formerly allowed the FEHC to award actual ... damages for housing discrimination. (Former Gov. Code, § 12987, subd. (2), Stats. 1980, ch. 992, § 4.) Neither statute has faced a challenge based on the agency's constitutional authority to order such remedies, although our courts have affirmed administrative decisions imposing such damages. (See Stearns v. Fair Employment Practice Com. (1971) 6 Cal.3d 205, 211, 214 [98 Cal. Rptr. 467, 490 P.2d 1155] [$250 damage award]; Hess v. Fair Employment & Housing Com. (1982) 138 Cal. App.3d 232, 234 [187 Cal. Rptr. 712, 33 A.L.R.4th 958] [$1,000 damage awards].) Nor do our recent cases dealing with administrative authority to award compensatory or punitive damages shed significant light on the constitutional issue presented here. In Youst v. Longo (1987) 43 Cal.3d 64 [233 Cal. Rptr. 294, 729 P.2d 728], and Dyna-Med, Inc. v. Fair Employment & Housing Com. (1987) 43 Cal.3d 1379 [241 Cal. Rptr. 67, 743 P.2d 1323], we held the relevant statutes did not authorize awards of either compensatory or punitive damages by the California Horseracing Board, or punitive damages by the FEHC. Accordingly, we did not reach constitutional claims. [9] Some further understanding may be gleaned from the cases dealing with the remedial authority of administrative licensing agencies. It is well established, for example, that administrative agencies with licensing power also have the authority to revoke or suspend licenses. (See, e.g., Kolnick v. Board of Medical Quality Assurance (1980) 101 Cal. App.3d 80, 86-87.) We expressly conceded in Suckow v. Alderson, supra, 182 Cal. 247, a medical licensing case, that exercise of power to revoke a license is judicial in its nature, and quasi-judicial. ( Id. at pp. 249-250.) Nevertheless, we concluded that such power did not violate article VI, section 1, because administrative boards are not courts in the strict sense; they are not exercising `the judicial power of the state' as that phrase is used in the constitution conferring judicial power upon courts, and ... statutes creating such boards and conferring upon them such powers are constitutional. ( Id. at p. 250.) [10] In subsequent professional license revocation cases we rejected other judicial power challenges to administrative action. In so doing, we implied that so long as appropriate judicial review was available, the challenged administrative determination was not subject to attack on the ground of unlawful delegation of judicial power. (See, e.g., Drummey, supra, 13 Cal.2d 75, 84-85 [It is the essence of judicial action that finality is given to findings based on conflicting evidence. If the statute be so construed it would violate the state Constitution.... [¶] In view of these principles, it necessarily follows that the court ... must exercise an independent judgment on the facts.]; Laisne, supra, 19 Cal.2d 831, 840 [[A vested property right] cannot be finally destroyed by a nonjudicial body if the action of that body is questioned in a court of law in a mandate proceeding. [¶] [I]f finality were given to the action of an administrative agency, such would be an unconstitutional exercise of judicial power.]; see also Bixby, supra, 4 Cal.3d 130, 142-143.) These decisions recognized  as a limiting condition on administrative power  what Professor Davis has later termed the principle of check: In the organic arrangements that we have been making in recent decades in the establishment and control of administrative agencies, the principle that has guided us is the principle of check, not the principle of separation of powers. We have had little or no concern for avoiding a mixture of three or more kinds of power in the same agency; we have had much more concern for avoiding or minimizing unchecked power. The very identifying badge of the modern administrative agency has been the combination of judicial power (adjudication) with legislative power (rule making).... (1 Davis, Administrative Law Treatise (1958) § 1.09, pp. 68-69, italics added.) We have never held, however, that the mere availability of judicial review insulates all forms of administrative adjudication from constitutional challenge under the judicial powers clause. And, we note, none of our prior cases involved an administrative restitutive award. The question arises whether, even assuming appropriate judicial review is assured, an administrative agency may constitutionally adjudicate restitutive money claims. Once again, we derive some illumination from our licensing cases. Some commentators suggest that a licensing board's authority to revoke or suspend licenses stems from the inherent strength of the police power itself. Professor Brown, for example, reasons that the administrative board's authority to grant a license necessarily implies an authority to regulate license holders, and to take appropriate disciplinary action against those who violate licensing standards. (Brown, Administrative Commissions and Judicial Power (1935) 19 Minn.L.Rev. 261, 287-288; see also Jaffe, Judicial Control of Administrative Action (1966) p. 114.) But if an administrative board's exercise of judicial-like power is justified as a reasonable means of effectuating its regulatory goal, it is difficult to explain why a price control board may not order restitution in order to effectuate its own regulatory goal  unless an order for monetary recovery is itself of such a character that it is purely judicial, and may be imposed only by a court. The cases, however, have not suggested that an order for monetary recovery per se is of such character that it may be made only by a court. In practice, our administrative agencies commonly order money reparations, as when restitution is imposed as a probationary term on a licensee (e.g., Russell v. Miller (1943) 21 Cal.2d 817, 818 [136 P.2d 318] [electrical contractor's license suspended until defendant makes restitution to his client satisfactory to the Registrar of Contractors]; American Funeral Concepts v. Board of Funeral Directors & Embalmers (1982) 136 Cal. App.3d 303, 308 [186 Cal. Rptr. 196] [license conditionally revoked; licensee subject to 300-day suspension on condition it make restitution]), and we have referred to the exercise of such power with apparent approval. ( Youst v. Longo, supra, 43 Cal.3d 64, 82, fn. 15 [We do not mean to imply that the Board is without authority to require compensatory relief as a condition for reinstatement of licenses.].) [11] One recent Court of Appeal decision discussed the implications of administrative power to make restitutive money awards. McKee v. Bell-Carter Olive Co. (1986) 186 Cal. App.3d 1230 [231 Cal. Rptr. 304], involved an administrative body that regulates the conduct of its licensees  food processors  in relation to the processors' suppliers, food growers. [12] Among other things, the administrative board has authority to entertain a grower's complaint that a processor has failed to pay for products under a contract, and to suspend a processor's license until restitution is paid to the grower. [13] Addressing the grower's assertion that the administrative scheme failed to provide a remedy for recovery of his claimed damages (restitutive, compensatory and punitive), the McKee court stated: It is certainly true ... that despite this broad statutory framework, the Director has no authority to award damages directly.... [T]his apparently stems from the decision of the California Supreme Court in Jersey Maid. ... Nevertheless, [Food and Agriculture Code] sections 55749 and 55851 make clear that once the Director has determined a [grower] is entitled to payment from a licensed processor, the Director may indirectly compel compliance with such an order by conditioning suspension of the processor's license upon payment of the money due the [grower]. Setting aside for the moment plaintiff's claims for damages in excess of the contract price, resort to the statutory remedy would have sufficed to make plaintiff whole, i.e., to attain for him the properly computed contract price for his olives. Thus while the statutory procedure is facially punitive, its effect is to provide an administrative remedy clearly relevant to plaintiff's claim. Notwithstanding the Director's inability to directly order the payment of damages, the Director's power to conditionally suspend a processor's license until payment of reparations is made is the practical equivalent of such power and, in fact, the most power which can constitutionally be afforded the Director in light of the decision in Jersey Maid .... The detailed procedure outlined by the statutes makes clear the Director's power is more than mere investigatory power without any procedural mechanism by which the person aggrieved can obtain relief.... (186 Cal. App.3d at p. 1238, italics added.) The court concluded that the statutes provided an administrative remedy for a grower who contends that ... a processor ... failed to compensate him in accordance with the terms of their contract. ( Id. at p. 1239.) [14] Plaintiff here appears to concede the exercise of this type of restitutive/remedial power by a licensing board does not violate article VI, section 1 of our Constitution. She does not attempt to explain, however, why the same remedial power offends the Constitution in the present context merely because it is exercised by a regulatory board that does not also exercise a licensing function. [15] As a practical matter, the administrative agency performs the same function in both instances: determining restitutive compensation, and ordering payment in furtherance of an underlying regulatory purpose. In conclusion, although we acknowledge the constitutional importance of ensuring judicial review of administrative determinations, our prior cases do not stand for the proposition that an administrative agency may exercise all manner of judicial-like power on the simple condition that judicial review of the administrative decision remains available. On the other hand, our prior licensing cases have accepted without constitutional debate the authority of licensing agencies to impose a restitutive award as a probationary term on a licensee, and these cases do not foreclose the possibility that, under appropriate circumstances, an agency without licensing power should likewise be allowed to make such restitutive awards. For additional guidance on this latter point, we turn to decisions of our sister states.
Our constitutional provision confining judicial powers to the courts (Cal. Const., art. VI, § 1) has counterparts in most other state constitutions, as well as the federal Constitution. (See post, fn. 24 [state constitutional provisions]; U.S. Const., art. III, § 1 [reservation of judicial powers to the courts].) Modern courts, however, have not rigidly construed these provisions. [17] Instead, a more tolerant approach to the delegation of judicial powers has emerged out of a perceived necessity to accommodate administrative adjudication of certain disputes and thereby to cope with increasing demands on our traditional judicial system. [18] The accommodating view of modern courts, however, generally has been conditioned by two limiting principles, one procedural and the other substantive. First, our sister-state cases, like our own ( ante at p. 361), universally recognize the constitutional necessity of the principle of check. They hold the availability of judicial review of administrative decisions is sufficient to satisfy the principle of check. [19] The substantive limitation is expressed in an opinion of the New Hampshire Supreme Court: As a rule which meets most situations, when an executive board has regulatory functions, it may hear and determine controversies which are incidental thereto, but if the duty is primarily to decide questions of legal right between private parties, the function belongs to the judiciary.... [¶] The creation of an executive board is justified if its service is to determine and maintain a public right or interest. To accomplish its purposes judicial powers may be necessarily exerted. But they must concern matters of an executive character. They are proper if it may fairly be said that there is need of them in order to produce an efficient and effective administrative enforcement of the public interest.... [¶] Whatever the borderland of doubt and interchange, argument seems unneeded to demonstrate that the function of trying and deciding litigation is strictly and exclusively for the judiciary when it is between private parties, neither of whom seeks to come under the protection of a public interest and to have it upheld and maintained for his benefit. ( In re Opinion of the Justices (1935) 87 N.H. 492 [179 A. 344, 345-347, 110 A.L.R. 819.) [20] With these two principles in mind, we review the decisions of our sister states. At least nine states, all of which have constitutional provisions substantially identical to California Constitution, article VI, section 1, have considered the propriety of administrative adjudication of restitutive and compensatory damages. The decisions unanimously hold such remedial power as is involved here does not constitute an impermissible exercise of judicial power. In order to provide more explicit illumination, we will discuss in detail two decisions which, in our view, best express the limiting principles mentioned above. The Maryland Constitution, like ours, provides that the judicial power of the state is vested in the state high court and lower courts. (Compare Md. Const., art. IV, § 1, [21] with Cal. Const., art. VI, § 1 [quoted ante, p. 355].) In Investors, supra, 312 A.2d 225, the Maryland high court considered a challenge under its constitution's judicial powers provision to the authority of a Fair Landlord-Tenant Relations board. The board was established by local government to comprehensively regulate the apartment rental business. (312 A.2d at p. 227.) Although the board did not have the authority to set rents, it was given the power to regulate and adjudicate all manner of landlord-tenant relations and disputes concerning defective tenancies, and to make various remedial orders to enforce its regulations and decisions. An assortment of remedial powers conferred on the landlord-tenant board were challenged: (1) to impose a civil penalty not exceeding $1,000; [¶] (2) to award money damages [to either party] not exceeding $1,000; [¶] (3) to award payments for temporary substitute housing; [¶] (4) to terminate leases; [¶] (5) to order repairs; [and] [¶] (6) to order the return of security deposits and rental moneys paid. (312 A.2d at p. 238.) The landlords asserted such remedial powers were judicial in nature, and therefore could not be exercised by the administrative agency. (312 A.2d at p. 243.) Rejecting that claim, the court first noted that the board did not make final, but merely initial decisions, because an aggrieved party could seek judicial review of the board's decision. Nor, the court reasoned, was the board's decision binding: the board had no power to enforce its orders; instead, court action was necessary to enforce the board's orders. Thus, the court concluded, the principle of check stressed by Professor Davis, ante, page 361, was not violated by the administrative adjudicatory scheme. ( Ibid. ) The court next specifically rejected the landlords' claims that the remedies entrusted to the [board's] discretion are remedies exclusively reserved to the courts (312 A.2d at p. 244), and instead found all of the above-listed remedial powers were proper. The court explained that the `pivotal point in determining the permissible extent of delegable adjudicatory functions is not merely their inherent nature but the context of the regulatory scheme and the enforcement procedure provided by the administrative process.' (312 A.2d at p. 245.) Considering the exercise of the listed remedial powers in the context of the regulatory scheme, the court approved the use of such powers as being reasonably necessary to the board's regulatory goals: We think it plain that the function of the [board] is primarily administrative and the power vested in it to hear and determine controversies involving landlords and tenants is granted only as an incident to its administrative duty; in other words, the [board's] function is not primarily to decide questions of legal rights between private parties, but [that remedial role] is merely incidental, although reasonably necessary, to its regulatory powers. ( Id., at pp. 245-246.) [22] The Missouri Constitution also provides that the state's judicial power resides in the state high court and the lower courts. (Compare Mo. Const., art. V, § 1, [23] with Cal. Const., art. VI, § 1 [quoted ante, p. 355].) In Percy Kent Bag Co., supra, 632 S.W.2d 480, the Missouri Supreme Court upheld, against a judicial powers challenge, the constitutionality of a statute that permitted a state antidiscrimination commission to exercise discretionary power to award backpay to complainant employees. The court distinguished a decades old prior opinion on the ground, inter alia, that its statement therein, that determination of money recovery is a judicial function reserved to the courts alone, was dictum. ( Id. at p. 483.) But the court noted a more important reason why the defendant's reliance on the prior opinion was misplaced: [I]t fails to recognize the enormous changes that have occurred in the area of administrative law in this state and nationally during the intervening years. As was stated in Sunshine Anthracite Coal Co. v. Adkins [(1940) 310 U.S. 381, 400] in overruling a similar delegation of powers argument, `To hold that there was [an unconstitutional delegation] would be to turn back the clock on at least a half a century of administrative law.' (632 S.W.2d at pp. 483-484.) The Missouri court acknowledged that in exercising its authority the commission necessarily determined factual questions, and exercised discretion, and that it thereby does exercise judicial functions. (632 S.W.2d at p. 484.) Nevertheless, the court reasoned, this did not constitute exercise of true judicial power. It defined such power as `the power to decide and pronounce a judgment and carry it into effect ...' ( ibid. ), and noted that the commission had no such final authority: It determines if the respondent employer has discriminated against the complainant, and it determines what orders to issue. But it cannot `pronounce a judgment and carry it into effect;' only a court can enforce the Commission's order. A party aggrieved by the Commission's order may obtain judicial review of that order. [Citation.] After review, there is a judgment from a court to be enforced. If a decision is not appealed, the Commission must obtain a court order to enforce the Commission's order. [Citation.] Of course, the respondent, against whom an order has been issued, may comply voluntarily with that order. ( Ibid., italics in original.) Decisions of New Jersey, Wisconsin, Oregon, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Florida  all of which have judicial powers provisions substantially identical to article VI, section 1 of our own Constitution [24]  are substantially in accord with the principles enunciated by the Maryland and Missouri courts. ( New Jersey : Jackson v. Concord Co., supra, 253 A.2d 793, 800 [[A]t this advanced date in the development of administrative law, we see no constitutional objection to legislative authorization to an administrative agency to award, as incidental relief in connection with a subject delegable to it, money damages, ultimate judicial review thereof being available.]; see also Zahorian, supra, 301 A.2d 754, 760-763 [permitting housing discrimination agency to award restitutory damages for economic loss, and minor or incidental damages for emotional distress]; see generally David v. Vesta Co., supra, 212 A.2d 345, 357 [`If the doctrine of the separation of powers were a doctrinaire concept to be made use of with pedantic rigor, the use of the modern administrative agency would have been an impossibility in our law.']; Wisconsin: General Drivers & Helpers U., supra, 124 N.W.2d 123, 127 [state employee relations board's order of money damages to cover backpay and vacation pay does not constitute the exercise of `judicial powers within the meaning of the Constitution']; [25] Oregon: Williams v. Joyce (Ore.Ct.App. 1971) 479 P.2d 513, 522 [There is no constitutional impediment which bars the legislature from authorizing an administrative agency to award damages.]; West Virginia: State Human Rights Commission v. Pauley (W. Va. 1975) 212 S.E.2d 77, 80 [agency awarded actual and punitive damages; court concluded there is no constitutional objection to legislative authorization of such an award by an administrative agency]; Pearlman, supra, 239 S.E.2d 145, 147-148 [extending Pauley to expressly allow administrative award of damages for humiliation, even if no monetary loss is proved]; Kentucky: Fraser, supra, 625 S.W.2d 852, 854 [discrimination commission's authority to award damages for humiliation and embarrassment does not constitute unconstitutional delegation or usurpation of judicial powers]; [26] Tennessee: Plasti-Line, supra, 746 S.W.2d 691, 692-693 [following Fraser, supra, 625 S.W.2d 852, and Percy Kent Bag Co., supra, 632 S.W.2d 480]; [27] Florida: Laborers' Intern., L. 478 v. Burroughs (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1987) 522 So.2d 852, 856 (opn. on rehg.) [upholding administrative imposition of back pay and front pay in employment discrimination case]. [28] ) [29] All of the foregoing sister-state decisions support an expansive view of constitutionally permissible administrative powers. Indeed, some contain broad statements that in our view may well accord too little consideration to the substantive limitations principle discussed above. We explain below the guiding principles we glean from these decisions.
Although many of these decisions  including Investors, supra, 312 A.2d 225  were discussed in the brief of amicus curiae for defendant, plaintiff has neglected to address them. We conclude, however, that the veritable tidal wave of decisions against plaintiff's view cannot be ignored, and that our sister states' decisions on this issue suggest a workable solution to the constitutional problem posed here. The better analyzed and more thoughtful decisions, as we read them, set out the following guidelines: An administrative agency may constitutionally hold hearings, determine facts, apply the law to those facts, and order relief  including certain types of monetary relief  so long as (i) such activities are authorized by statute or legislation and are reasonably necessary to effectuate the administrative agency's primary, legitimate regulatory purposes, and (ii) the essential judicial power (i.e., the power to make enforceable, binding judgments) remains ultimately in the courts, through review of agency determinations. As noted above, the procedural aspect of this test ( ante at p. 361) is entirely consistent with (and indeed, dictated by) established California law concerning administrative revocation of professional licenses ( ante at p. 361). We review below the merit, scope, and propriety of our sister states' substantive limitations on administrative remedial power.
The view of the judicial powers doctrine embraced by our sister states has the advantage of avoiding meaningless, wooden distinctions (used in a number of older cases) between quasijudicial and judicial powers, [30] and at the same time remaining true to the fundamental teaching of the various constitutional judicial powers clauses. The decisions forthrightly recognize that administrative agencies do indeed exercise judicial-like powers, and accept the need for broad administrative powers in our increasingly complex government. At the same time, the view espoused by our sister states includes a crucial and workable limiting principle: The agency may exercise only those powers that are reasonably necessary to effectuate the agency's primary, legitimate regulatory purposes. Thus, contrary to plaintiff's suggestions, we perceive no danger that the view of judicial power embraced by our sister states will lead to a proliferation of agencies created to adjudicate specialized private disputes, thereby undermining the traditional role of the courts. Plaintiff's fears have not materialized in other states, and many of the decisions expressly caution against any such intrusion. [31] Practical considerations also militate against a less accommodating view of the judicial powers doctrine. If nonconstitutional administrative agencies were barred from adjudicating all money claims between private individuals who are subject to administrative regulation, such agencies would be precluded from exercising powers routinely employed, and not previously challenged. [32] For example, the authority of the FEHC to award backpay might thereby be called in doubt (see ante, fn. 8), and the authority of licensing agencies to adjudicate and conditionally order restitution ( ante, pp. 362-364) might also be questioned.
In addition to placing reasoned and workable substantive limitations on the remedial powers of administrative agencies, the view of the judicial powers doctrine embraced by our sister states also reserves to the courts the true judicial power. Consistently with our prior cases dealing with administrative revocation of professional licenses, the decisions uphold an agency's authority to exercise a challenged remedial power only if the administrative scheme also respects the principle of check by providing for judicial review of administrative determinations. It remains, of course, to resolve in different categories of cases, the procedures for and scope of judicial review necessary to fulfill the goal of reserving to the courts this essential attribute of judicial power. [33]
As observed above, there is no modern decision of this state addressing the precise administrative remedial power challenged here. With the exception of Jersey Maid  which, for the reasons discussed above, we do not believe should be viewed as controlling  our prior cases do not conflict with the approach taken by our sister states, and indeed they recognize the constitutional necessity of the principle of check. We believe our sister states' approach (i.e., embracing substantive as well as procedural limitations on administrative power) reflects a practical and reasoned understanding of the judicial powers doctrine. With the following considerations and concerns in mind, we, like our sister states, conclude that administrative adjudication and awarding of restitution does not offend our Constitution's judicial powers clause when these substantive and procedural limitations are respected. We too will carefully apply the reasonable necessity/legitimate regulatory purpose requirements in order to guard against unjustified delegation of authority to decide disputes that otherwise belong in the courts. [34] Specifically, we will inquire whether the challenged remedial power is authorized by legislation, [35] and reasonably necessary to accomplish the administrative agency's regulatory purposes. Furthermore, we will closely scrutinize the agency's asserted regulatory purposes in order to ascertain whether the challenged remedial power is merely incidental to a proper, primary regulatory purpose, or whether it is in reality an attempt to transfer determination of traditional common law claims from the courts to a specialized agency whose primary purpose is the processing of such claims. Thus, for example, we would not approve the Board's adjudication of a landlord's common law counterclaims (extraneous to the Board's regulatory functions) against a tenant. Such adjudication would (i) not reasonably effectuate the Board's regulatory purposes  ensuring enforcement of rent levels  and (ii) it would shift the Board's primary purpose from one of ensuring the enforcement of rent levels, to adjudicating a broad range of landlord-tenant disputes traditionally resolved in the courts. Finally, we will continue to apply the principle of check in order to reserve to the courts the true judicial power. [36]

(2b) As noted above, the Board held hearings, heard testimony, and determined that plaintiff charged excess rents of $1,068 to tenant Plevka, and $600.50 to tenant Smith. [37] We conclude that such actions, although judicial in nature, are both authorized by the Charter Amendment and reasonably necessary to accomplish the administrative agency's primary, legitimate regulatory purposes, i.e., setting and regulating maximum rents in the local housing market. The Board's legitimate regulatory authority, and hence its incidental remedial authority, is circumscribed. It may not, and does not, hear and adjudicate all manner of disputes between landlords and tenants. Its authority is derived from the local police powers ( Fisher v. City of Berkeley (1984) 37 Cal.3d 644, 655 [209 Cal. Rptr. 682, 693 P.2d 261]; Birkenfeld v. City of Berkeley (1976) 17 Cal.3d 129, 140-142 [130 Cal. Rptr. 465, 550 P.2d 1001]), and extends only so far as necessary to set and regulate rents. Incidental to that legitimate primary purpose  and in order to produce an efficient and effective administrative enforcement of the public interest ( Opinion of the Justices, supra, 179 A. 344, 346), the Board may review the rents actually charged, and order necessary adjustments to assure compliance with its price control regulations. The trial court erred therefore in concluding that the Board exercised judicial powers in violation of the Constitution by adjudicating (subject to judicial review) tenants' claims for excess rents, and ordering restitution of the excess amounts. [38] We conclude, however, that the administrative orders in this case violated the principle of check.
(5) The Board authorized tenant Plevka to withhold[] his entire month's rent in the first month following the Board's decision ... and the remaining monies in the months thereafter. The withheld amounts shall not form the basis for an unlawful detainer proceeding based upon nonpayment of rent. [39] Plaintiff asserts that by allowing such withholding, and by setting up the Board's decision as a defense to any unlawful detainer action based on nonpayment of rent, the Board in practical effect issued a self-enforceable judgment, thereby violating the judicial powers clause. [40] Plaintiff's concern is significant. Under present procedures, the Board possesses the ability to make an order that, although not final or self-enforcing in the typical sense of those terms, is in fact immediately enforceable in a real sense at the discretion of a private party. By its own regulations, the Board's decision becomes final at the time of Board action, i.e., immediately after the Board renders its decision. Thereafter a tenant may withhold rent up to the amount specified by the Board. In this fashion the Board's order is given immediate practical effect: before the landlord has even the opportunity to obtain judicial review by petition for writ of mandate [41] (Code Civ. Proc., § 1094.5, subd. (a)) and a stay of the Board's order ( id., subd. (g)), the tenant is allowed to withhold rent money otherwise due. In addition, the Board's order is also thereby given legal effect: the order, pursuant to the Charter Amendment, is an affirmative defense to an unlawful detainer action based on the tenant's nonpayment of rent. ( Fisher, supra, 37 Cal.3d 644, 705-707.) Although the trial court eventually issued temporary stays limiting somewhat the Board's orders in this case, [42] the principle of check was not respected here. Before there was an opportunity for the court to pass on whether to stay temporarily the Board's rent withholding order, tenant Plevka immediately withheld rent, and continued to do so for three months thereafter. Moreover, during that time, any unlawful detainer action based on Plevka's nonpayment of rent would have been met with the defense that the Board's order authorized such nonpayment  thereby giving the Board's order legal effect. [43] An administrative order of this nature is unlike any other of which we are aware. And, in our view, for the reasons set out above it represents an unwarranted intrusion into the power of the courts to check administrative adjudications. We thus conclude that the rent withholding order in this case violated the judicial powers provision of our Constitution (art. VI, § 1). [44] Having reached this determination, we agree with the trial court insofar as it found the administrative orders in this case violated the judicial powers clause. The court erred, however, insofar as it held that Board adjudication of excess rent claims under section 1809 of the Charter Amendment in and of itself violates the judicial powers clause, and enjoined future adjudication under that provision.