Court Opinion

ID: 9612351
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:07:35.752458+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:38:05.319033
License: Public Domain

EDMONDS, J., Dissenting.
The charter provision of the City and County of San Francisco which is attacked in the present proceeding provides, in effect, for compulsory health insurance of municipal employees. It allows the Health Service Board, a private organization over which the city has no control, to' order the city controller to deduct an amount to be determined by it from the compensation of each employee of the city and deposit such sum “with the treasurer of the City and County to the credit and for the use of the system”. Certain persons shall be and others may be exempted from this requirement. The money taken from the employees’ salaries may be paid out by the treasurer only upon “audit by the controller and the controller shall have and exercise the accounting and auditing powers over the funds of the system which are vested in him by this charter with respect to all other municipal boards, officers and commissions”.
*154The city attorney contends that the amendment grants unlawful delegation of power to the Health Service Board. He relies upon section 13 of article XI of the Constitution of California, which provides, in part, that “the legislature shall not delegate to any special commission, private corporation, company, association, or individual any power to make, control, appropriate, supervise or in any way interfere with any county, city, town or municipal improvement, money, property or effects. ...” The legislature in approving the charter amendment, in effect delegated to an association of individuals the power to make, control, appropriate and supervise certain property interfering with the operation of the municipality. This association,, created neither by election of the city’s voters nor appointment by its officers is given the authority to determine the amount of money to be taken by the controller from the salaries of the employees for the purpose of carrying on a non-public engagement, and further permits the use of the facilities of the offices of the registrar and treasurer for the purpose of administering that which is unquestionably not of a general public character.
If, notwithstanding the constitutional provision, the Health Service Board can lawfully carry out the plans it has undertaken, then innumerable organizations can be created for the purpose of carrying on cooperative enterprises of various kinds. It is said that the successful operation of the health service will increase the employees’ peace of mind. Undoubtedly many municipal employees would feel that they had more social security if they could purchase groceries through a cooperative organization. Their economic status would be improved if they could secure housing through group purchasing power. But to set up such organizations with funds compulsorily taken from each employee’s salary through the machinery of the city government constitutes, in my opinion, a violation of the constitutional provision.
The city attorney also claims that the health service plan is not a municipal affair but, on the contrary, is nothing more than a private engagement affording an opportunity for certain employees of the city and county to procure stated kinds of medical care for an amount to be fixed by the board selected by the employees to run the system. Such a program, he says, does not concern the government of the muni*155cipality. In Bank v. Bell, 62 Cal. App. 320 [217 Pac. 538], the court defined “a municipal affair” as follows: “In defining a ‘municipal affair’ it has been said that ‘the true test is that which requires that the work should be essentially public and for the general good of all of the inhabitants of the city. It must not be undertaken merely for gain or for private objects. Gain or loss may incidentally follow, but the purpose must be primarily to satisfy the need, or contribute to the convenience of the people of the city at large. 'Within that sphere of action, novelty should impose no veto’ Sun Printing etc. Assn. v. New York, 8 App. Div. 230 [40 N. Y. Supp. 607].” In Fragley v. Phelan, 126 Cal. 383, 387 [58 Pac. 923], it was held that “ ‘municipal affairs’ as those words are used in the organic law, refer to the internal business affairs of a municipality”. See, also, In re Hitchcock, 34 Cal. App. 111, 114 [166 Pac. 849].
All of the decisions construing the phrase “municipal affair” define it as referring to those things which are so intimately connected with the government of a municipality as to affect all of its people, or as including a city’s right to compensate employees in addition to the amount of wages paid. But the health service plan neither affects all of the inhabitants of the city nor is it limited to employees. It includes dependents of employees related by consanguinity or marriage, retired city employees, retired school teachers, members of the board of education and employees of the public school system. Medical care is to be given by private physicians having no contractual relation with the city but acting solely for the Health Service Board, over which the city has no control. “Members of the system shall have and possess no claim or recourse against any of the funds of the municipality by virtue of the adoption or operation of any plan for rendering medical care . . . but the claim and recourse of any such member shall be limited solely to the funds of the system. ’ ’ It is, therefore, obvious that the plan has nothing to do with the public health, security, or general welfare. It is simply social health insurance for a restricted group of individuals who are compelled to participate in it.
For another reason, at least a portion of the charter provision is invalid. Section 172.1 of the charter requires all teachers to become members of the system. Membership in *156the system is made compulsory. School teachers are not employees of the city and county of San Francisco but of a school district, a governmental entity entirely separate from .the city and county. The teachers derive their credentials from the state, and their compensation from funds of the school district and the state. Under sections 8 and &/% of article XI of the Constitution, a municipality is strictly limited to the enactment of laws in respect to “municipal affairs”. The courts have frequently declared that the public school system of the state is not a “municipal affair” but a “state affair”, a matter of general and not local concern. (People v. Martz, 2 Cal. (2d) 136, 138 [39 Pac. (2d) 422]; Gerth v. Dominguez, 1 Cal. (2d) 239, 242 [34 Pac. (2d) 135].)
I am of the opinion that the writ should be denied.