Court Opinion

ID: 9566798
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:43:16.671142+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:41:59.800513
License: Public Domain

SHENK, J.
Appeal from a judgment entered on an order sustaining the respondents’ demurrer to the fourth amended petition without leave to amend.
The petitioners, Alexander and Sturzenacker, applied to the Superior Court in Los Angeles County for the writ of *199mandate directing the State Personnel Board and the State Land Commission to reinstate them respectively as Petroleum Production Inspector for the Division of State Lands, and Chief of the Division of State Lands, Department of Finance, from which it was alleged they were wrongfully dismissed, and to pay to them back salary from the date of suspension.
Complaints charging the petitioners with incompeteney and misconduct were filed with the State Personnel Board on July 12, 1938. Suspension occurred on August 23, 1938. Hearings were commenced on September 26, 1938. A copy of the board’s findings, conclusions and decision dismissing the petitioners was mailed to their counsel on April 8, 1939, and was received two days later. The decision was entered on the roster of state employees on April 11, 1939, and in the minutes of the board on April 21. The petition for the writ of mandate was filed on July 5, 1939. On September 11, 1939, the petitioners filed with the board a petition for rehearing which was denied.
The petitioners allege that the conduct of the proceedings was irregular; that the members of the board were disqualified by bias, and that by certain utterances one member had prejudged the petitioners’ causes.
The trial court sustained the demurrer on the sole ground that the petitioners could not state a cause for relief because application for rehearing by the board had not been made within the time prescribed by the State Civil Service Act and prior to the filing of the petition for relief in the courts.
Section 173(c) of the Civil Service Act (Stats. 1937, p. 2085; Deering’s Gen. Laws, 1937, Act 1404) provides that within thirty days from and after receipt by him of a copy of the board’s decision, the employee or the appointing power may apply for a rehearing.
The time within which the petitioners could have applied for a rehearing' expired before the petition for the writ of mandate was filed in the superior court, and the belated application for a rehearing made in September following was ineffective. The petition for the writ of mandate was otherwise filed within the time prescribed by the Civil Service Act.
The rule that administrative remedies must be exhausted before redress may be had in the courts is established in this state. (Abelleira v. District Court of Appeal, 17 Cal. 2d 280 [109 P.2d 942, 132 A.L.R. 715], and cases cited at *200pages 292, 293, 302.) The provision for a rehearing is unquestionably such a remedy. As to the general rule, it is stated in Vandalia Railroad Co. v. Public Service Commission of Indiana, 242 U.S. 255 [37 S.Ct. 93, 61 L.Ed. 276], at page 261, that one aggrieved by the rulings of an administrative board may not complain that he has been deprived of constitutional rights if he has not availed himself of the remedies prescribed for a rectification of such rulings.
The petitioners ask this court to distinguish between a provision in a statute which requires the filing of a petition for rehearing before an administrative board as a condition precedent to commencing proceedings in the courts (see Carlson v. Railroad Commission, 216 Cal. 653 [15 P.2d 859]; Albin v. Railroad Commission, 216 Cal. 655 [15 P.2d 860]; Palermo Land & Water Co. v. Railroad Commission of California, 227 F. 708), and a provision such as in the present act which it is claimed is permissive only. The distinction is of no assistance to the petitioners under the rule. If a rehearing is available it is an administrative remedy to which the petitioners must first resort in order to give the board an opportunity to correct any mistakes it may have made. As noted in the Abelleira case, supra, at page 293, the rule must be enforced uniformly by the courts. Its enforcement is not a matter of judicial discretion. It is true, the Civil Service Act does not expressly require that application for a rehearing be made as a condition precedent to redress in the courts. But neither does the act expressly designate a specific remedy in the courts. So that where, as here, the act provides for a rehearing, but makes no provision for specific redress in the courts and resort to rehearing as a condition precedent, the rule of exhaustion of administrative remedies supplies the omission. The facts here alleged do not bring the case within any possible exception to the enforcement of the rule. Adherence to the rule is not excused in this case because of the bare probability, asserted long after the time had expired, that timely application for rehearing would have been denied. As suggested in Red River Broadcasting Co. v. Federal Communications Com., 98 F.2d 282, the petitioners cannot be heard to urge that there was danger of refusal of their application when they did not make the effort within the time prescribed.
We conclude that the trial court correctly determined that the petitioners were not entitled to prosecute the present pro*201eeeding because they had not first exhausted the available remedies before the State Personnel Board.
The judgment is affirmed.
Curtis, J., Edmonds, J., and Spence, J. pro tern., concurred.
Gibson, C. J., did not participate herein.