Court Opinion

ID: 9558874
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:18:12.460378+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:38.887512
License: Public Domain

RICHARDSON, J., Dissenting.
I agree with section II of the majority opinion wherein my colleagues determine that Senate Bill No. 91 (S.B. *58091) does not constitute a “prebudget act appropriation.” I have concluded, however, that there is an irreconcilable conflict between S.B. 91 and article IV, section 17, of the California Constitution,- and, accordingly, respectfully dissent. Doubtless, the Legislature was well motivated and sought a fair solution in its adoption of S.B. 91. In my view, however, the act can be sustained only by impermissibly cutting constitutional corners in attempting to reach a benevolent result.
Article IV, section 17, provides in relevant part: “The Legislature has no power to grant... extra compensation... to a... public employee... after service has been rendered.... ”
S.B. 91, which became effective July 2, 1979, purported to provide a lump sum payment to certain designated state employees who worked as such between October 1, 1978, and June 30, 1979, and who were either retired or employed by the state on or after May 31, 1979. The payment to such employees is an amount “equivalent to that which they would have otherwise received from October 1, 1978, through June 30, 1979, had they received a 7 percent salary increase on October 1, 1978.”
Terming S.B. 91 a “retroactive adjustment” the majority professes to find constitutional support for the act primarily by analogy to two earlier cases, San Joaquin County Employees’ Assn., Inc. v. County of San Joaquin (1947) 39 Cal.App.3d 83 [113 Cal.Rptr. 912], and Goleta Educators Assn. v. Dall’Armi (1977) 68 Cal.App.3d 830 [137 Cal.Rptr. 324]. With due respect, I believe that neither case is comparable. In San Joaquin County a written agreement between county and its employees required annual negotiations and bargaining. The contract specifically contemplated the county’s obligation to pay retroactive pay increases “for services to be performed at a time when wage and salary' rates are not fixed and are indefinite” because the previous agreement had expired. Bargaining negotiations between the parties continued, during which period the county’s employees remained working, and the amounts of salaries were “undetermined.” When the negotiations culminated in a new agreement providing for retroactive pay increases, the appellate court reasoned: “County was required to bargain in good faith. If in so bargaining County reached the conclusion that pay raises should be retroactive to the expiration date of the last salary ordinance, good faith required it to implement the results of negotiations between itself and the Association by making pay raises retroactive to such date.” (39 Cal.App.3d at p. 89.) The San Joaquin County court *581stressed the “undetermined” nature and amount of salaries “while negotiations are going on.” Having bound itself by contract, the county was thus obligated both to negotiate in good faith and then to live up to its negotiated commitments.
Similarly, Goleta involved the conclusion of annual salary negotiations for public school teachers one month after the first day of the new school year. The Goleta court sustained the school board’s payment of the negotiated increased salary for the entire new year, including the one month which preceded completion of the negotiations. Again, as in San Joaquin County, the employees’ “salaries were indefinite since negotiations were being held.... If during these sessions the Board determined that the pay raises should be retroactive to the beginning of the school year, good faith required it to implement the results of these negotiations by making the pay raises retroactive.” (68 Cal.App.3d, at p. 834.)
It is readily apparent that neither San Joaquin County nor Goleta is analogous to, or helpful in, the resolution of the issue before us. In the instant case, as the majority must acknowledge, the involved state employees possessed no ability during the critical period to negotiate their salaries through a bargaining agent. “They therefpre cannot establish that their salary levels were uncertain by pointing to negotiation processes comparable to those in which the local employees were engaged.” (Ante, p. 572.) This absence of any continuing negotiation clearly distinguishes both of the cited cases from the present one. Moreover, there can be no reasonable doubt that (1) the payments authorized by S.B. 91 constitute “extra compensation” and (2) the services for which S.B. 91 authorized payment had already “been rendered.”
The majority attempts to salvage S.B. 91, however, by extracting from San Joaquin County and Goleta a general principle that even though there are no ongoing negotiations, if public employees in some way can show that “they are justifiably uncertain as to their precise salary level” a subsequent retroactive award of “extra compensation” is constitutionally permissible. The majority then purports to find the requisite “uncertainty” in this case resulting from the fiscal impact of Proposition 13, the Governor’s wage freeze of 1978, and other federal and state action.
To permit these random public fiscal developments to create a legal “uncertainty” thus authorizing a retroactive pay raise is, I suggest, judi*582cial sleight of hand. The simple fact is that there was no cognizable or real “uncertainty” about the salaries of state employees during the period in question. Notwithstanding Proposition 13, inflation, and wage freezes, to my knowledge there is not a single state employee, new or old, who could not by reference to his own classification and the pertinent salary schedule of the State Personnel Board have ascertained to the precise penny what his or her salary was. (See Gov. Code, § 18850, subd. (a).) Any “uncertainties” that surrounded state employee salaries in the critical period were those of the general citizenry, namely, the unpredictable, unknown, unfolding of daily events colored, in their economic and fiscal aspects, by the ebb and flow of a severe inflationary cycle, fueled by an international trade deficit, manifest in a severely declining dollar value and motivating, as to state employees, increasing pressure for some form of legislative relief. There may have been “uncertainty” as to what the response to this political "pressure might be. There was no “uncertainty,” however, about the amount of salaries of the affected employees during the period of their previous services. Those salary levels were fixed and readily ascertainable. Nor were there any ongoing negotiations to change them. The employees might, and doubtless did, wish for a deserved increase. Indeed, this desire might have ripened into a hopeful expectancy. But, with due respect, I suggest that it is pure fiction to conclude that in any legal sense “their salaries were not fixed and certain during the time they rendered service.... ” {Ante, p. 572.)
Sonoma County Organization of Public Employees v. County of Sonoma (1979) 23 Cal.3d 296 [152 Cal.Rptr. 903, 591 P.2d 1], affords no support for the majority’s thesis. Interestingly, in Sonoma last year we examined the same “fiscal crisis” occasioned by Proposition 13 within the context of a local entity’s written memorandum of understanding with its employees, ratified by ordinance, which provided for a wage increase. Rejecting, on impairment of contract grounds, the county’s attempt to evade its agreement, we were much more restrained than the present majority in our evaluation of the impact of Proposition 13. We unanimously concluded there that the county had “not demonstrated that Proposition 13 created an emergency warranting the invalidation of salary increases called for in petitioners’ contracts” (23 Cal.3d at p. 313, italics added), and indeed had failed to establish “that an emergency existed.” (P. 312).
There is no evidence that our Sonoma decision prompted the adoption of S.B. 91. Although the statute was adopted after Sonoma, S.B. *58391 was introduced before that case was decided. More significantly, as noted, the successful Sonoma plaintiffs demonstrated a clear binding contract for added compensation which was constitutionally protected from impairment. Sonoma was a very narrow holding incapable of any reasonable expansion to cover the present case which lacks both a prior binding contract and ongoing negotiations.
The constitutional command is clear: The Legislature has no power to award extra pay to state employees for their work after it has been performed. Where the challenged meaning and words are plain, explicit and certain, there is no occasion for the extended, historical analysis advanced by the majority and which is a permissible judicial technique when interpreting vague or ambiguous constitutional or statutory language.
I also find rather startling the suggestion of the majority that public employees may render their own salary levels legally “uncertain” by the mere expedient of seeking a “raise” pursuant to statutory procedures. So viewed, every salary in state service, of course, may be considered “uncertain.” Until the request is acted upon, the possibility of a favorable official response creates in that sense an “uncertainty.” This, of course, is “bootstrapping” in its purest form. If accepted it would mean the speedy and complete frustration of the people’s clear mandate in article IV, section 17. One might as readily rely upon the “uncertainty” of life itself.
To summarize, the majority has reached afar seeking to establish extraneous events and circumstances supporting its “conclusion that state employee salary levels were not fixed with certainty during the 1978-1979 fiscal year...” (ante, p. 577) or, in some manner, “remain imprecise” (ante, p. 579). I do not find them so.
Rather, I fully agree with the following thoughtful reasoning and analysis of Justice Janes, writing for a unanimous Court of Appeal in this case: “[W]e have analyzed S.B. 91 with the view, if possible, ‘to effectuate the purpose of the law’ (Select Base Materials v. Board of Equal. (1959) 51 Cal.2d 640, 645 [335 P.2d 672]), and find that the purpose of S.B. 91 is to grant extra compensation or extra allowance to public officers and employees after service has been rendered. Therefore, we cannot effectuate the expressed purpose of the statute in the face of article IV, section 17.
*584“By the specific terms of S.B. 91, the amount of the extra compensation is to be determined solely as a function of the length of already completed employment time between October 1, 1978, and June 30, 1979. The payments to be made are not in consideration of any bilateral contract or agreement to perform services in the future or in consideration of any unilateral contract or promise to perform a requested service in the future. Notwithstanding the bill’s recital that the ‘adjustments’ provided are ‘for continued services rendered on or after [July 2, 1979] to the extent any such services may be rendered,’ S.B. 91 does not require any ‘current employee’ or any ‘academic year employee’ to do any service or to perform any act whatever in consideration of the lump sum payment. All that the employee need plead and prove is that he worked as a state employee between October 1, 1978, and June 30, 1979, and that he was either retired or employed by the state on or after May 31, 1979.
“S.B. 91 was not filed with the Secretary of State until 8 p.m. on July 2, 1979. Thus no ‘current employee’ performed any services on that date because of, in reliance upon, or before the bill’s effectiveness. No work was required on July 3, 1979, or thereafter, by the bill. If hypothetical employee A commenced work on July 2, 1979, he would receive no payment under the bill. If employee B had held his position since on or before October 1, 1978, he would get a lump sum payment based upon his work from October 1, 1978, through June 30, 1979. If employee C likewise commenced work on or before October 1, 1978, but retired sometime between that date and May 31, 1979, he also would receive a lump sum, but in a lesser amount than employee B, since employee C would not have as much past service during the critical period October 1, 1978, through June 30, 1979.
“The above hypotheses illustrate the fact that S.B. 91 provides payment for past services, or, in the words of article IV, section 17, ‘extra compensation... after service has been rendered’....
“We are mindful of the decreasing purchasing power of the dollar and of the ravages of inflation upon all employees. However, we cannot avoid the plain language and meaning of either article IV, section 17 or S.B. 91. Both the Constitution and the statutory language are clear, and *585the intent can be ascertained therefrom without ambiguity. We are thus left with no room for construction and interpretation. (See Stockton Sav. & Loan Bank v. Massanet (1941) 18 Cal.2d 200, 207 [114 P.2d 592]; see also 45 Cal.Jur.2d, Statutes, § 121, pp. 629-630.) The two measures are irreconcilable.”
I would reaffirm the sound principle unanimously expressed by us last year in Longshore v. County of Ventura (1979) 25 Cal.3d 14, 22-23 [157 Cal.Rptr. 706, 598 P.2d 866]: “A public employee is entitled only to such compensation as is expressly and specifically provided by law.... [If] [T]he employee’s rights are set by the law applicable at the time compensable services are rendered. The Constitution forbids state or local enactments which retroactively grant compensation for work already performed.” (Italics added.)
The California Constitution was meant to be enforced even when the result may be unpopular. It contains no exceptions to combat the erosion of inflation. I am fully sensitive to the appeal which favors the just and fair treatment of public employees obviously intended by the people’s representatives in the Legislature. Nonetheless, as I view it, there is an even higher call: namely, the clear and express will of the people themselves embodied in their own Constitution which it is our function to interpret. The Constitution itself in its first article provides that its provisions are mandatory and prohibitory unless expressly declared otherwise. (Art. I, § 26.) Referring to this section, almost 100 years ago we held that “This rule is an admonition placed in this the highest of laws in this State, that its requirements are not meaningless, but that what is said is meant, in brief, ‘we mean what we say.’ Such is the declaration and command of the highest sovereignty among us, the people of this State....” (Matter of Maguire (1881) 57 Cal. 604, 609.) Shortly thereafter, we reaffirmed the rule in Oakland Paving Co. v. Hilton (1886) 69 Cal. 479, 512 [11 P. 3], saying, “Under the stress of this rule, it is the duty of this court to give effect to every clause and word of the constitution, and to take care that it shall not be frittered away by subtle or refined or ingenious speculation. The people used plain language in their organic law to express their intent in language which cannot be misunderstood, and we must hold that they meant what they said.” (See, State Board of Education v. Levit (1959) 52 Cal.2d 441, 460 [343 P.2d 8]; People v. County of Santa Clara (1951) 37 Cal.2d 335, 341 [231 P.2d 826]; People v. City of San Buenaventura (1931) 213 Cal. 637, 639-640 [3 P.2d 3].)
*586In my view, the hard, unpalatable but inescapable truth is that S.B. 91 is invalid because it conflicts with article IV, section 17, of the Constitution.
I would grant petitioners the relief sought.
Files, J.,* concurred.
Petitioners’ application for a rehearing was denied February 17, 1981. Bird, C. J., and Tobriner, J., did not participate therein. Files, J.,* and Brown (Gerald), J.,* participated therein. Richardson, J., and Files, J.,* were of the opinion that the application should be granted.

Assigned by the Acting Chairperson of the Judicial Council.