Opinion ID: 1224847
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: The Court of Appeal Dissent

Text: Justice Blease wrote a lengthy dissent. He preceded his analysis with this succinct, and we believe accurate, description of the private contracting restriction in article VII: History has shown that patronage hiring of public employees corrupts the political process, leads to waste, and depletes the quality of the public workforce. The People enacted article VII to avoid this. Early on the California Supreme Court recognized that the civil service provisions will not work if the merit appointment system can be circumvented by simply contracting out civil service jobs. The dissent reviewed the history of the proceedings in this case and observed that, [u]nable to make headway with the judicial branch's tiresome requirement that Caltrans produce evidence that contracting out was warranted as cheaper or more efficient, Caltrans sought a sanction from the Legislature for its practice of contracting out. The result is Chapter 433. In the dissent's view, the Court of Appeal majority relied exclusively and improperly on an implied legislative finding of cost-effectiveness to permit Caltrans to resume private contracting without requiring it to prove that contracting is more economical or efficient than using state civil service employees. The dissent observed that in reaffirming its 1990 injunction, the trial court found that Caltrans's `contracting activity during 1993-94 is contributing to the displacement of permanent, temporary and part-time civil service staff in the performance of project development work.' According to the dissent, Caltrans did not challenge this new finding, but has relied entirely on the provisions of Chapter 433. The dissent believed that [t]he majority would permit contracting out without adherence to any of the safeguard criteria developed in the case law. This total break with precedent is not warranted by Chapter 433. It is questionable whether a statute constitutionally could expressly bar the application of these safeguards.... [ถ] It would raise serious constitutional questions if we construed a statute to bar the safeguards against patronage developed in the case law, including the safeguard that the state be prepared to prove in a judicial forum that contracting out is warranted by considerations of economy or efficiency. The case law is grounded in a constitutional provision enacted to overcome a pernicious tendency inherently afflicting both of the political branches of the government. However, this question is not presented by Chapter 433. No provision of Chapter 433 alters the traditional burden of proof that the government show that contracting out is warranted by considerations of economy or efficiency. Accordingly, there is no valid basis for a claim that Chapter 433 conflicts with the injunction because it imposes this burden upon the state. (Fns. omitted.) The dissent next analyzed the four principal substantive changes in Chapter 433 on which the majority relied as allowing Caltrans to contract various work privately without proof of cost savings or added efficiency. In the dissent's view, each statutory change conflicts with the earlier findings and conclusions in the trial court's injunction and orders. As the dissent explained, The trial court had determined the rights and obligations of the parties to this litigation under contracts entered into under the law preceding Chapter 433. The state did not appeal and the decision is final. The conclusion is inescapable that the Legislature has encroached upon the judicial power because it seeks to undo a final judicial determination of those rights and obligations. The dissent next addressed the majority's claim that legislative findings in Chapter 433 included an implied finding that private contracting would permit Caltrans to operate more efficiently and cost-effectively than hiring state workers. The dissent disagreed, stating that We are bound by the trial court's factual determination that the necessity to contract out, if any, arises out of an artificial, political constraint on the hiring of new civil service staff. In the many proceedings which produced the injunction and enforcement, Caltrans, the administrative agency which is the necessary source of evidence that contracting out is cost-effective, has been unable to provide any such evidence. How then could we plausibly imply that the Legislature in enacting Chapter 433 made an implied finding that contracting out is cost-effective? If the Legislature predicated Chapter 433 on such a finding how could it fail to assert this among the plethora of cryptic, illogical, and untenable express findings and declarations?