Court Opinion

ID: 9624393
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:01:50.701199+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:45.951933
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J.
I dissent.
These cases were.correctly decided by the District Court of Appeal, Third District (see Martin v. Lampton, (Cal.App.) 240 P.2d 21) and I adopt the views there expressed. However, I desire to comment on the position taken by the majority here.
The record discloses that the state employees here involved worked overtime at the express command of their superiors with the promise of time off for the overtime, yet the majority denies them compensation therefor on the grounds that there is no statutory authority for the payment of such overtime or promise to pay it, and that as to their claim for overtime since the enactment of section 150.5 of the State Civil Service Act (Stats. 1937, ch. 753) in 1943 expressly providing for overtime pay, it is barred by the statute of limitation.
The overtime pay here claimed must be allowed under Pohle v. Christian, 21 Cal.2d 83 [130 P.2d 417], In that case plaintiff sought to recover a lump sum for accumulated vacation pay after he was separated from his position. It was held that he was entitled to pay for the vacation accumulated prior to his severance on the ground that sections 359c and 359d of the Political Code then authorized vacations and the accumulation of vacation time. It made no provision, however, for payment of accumulated vacation time after separation from service, where the vacation was not taken prior to separation. That case has since been followed. (Clark v. State Personnel Board, 56 Cal.App.2d 499 [133 P.2d 11] ; Verry v. Eckel, 61 Cal.App.2d 595 [143 P.2d 394].) The majority seeks to escape the effect of that case by asserting that at common law there is no right to recover for overtime when a person is hired by the month, and there is no statute *595authorizing payment for overtime as there was authorizing a vacation in the Pohle case. In that reasoning the majority is in error. The statutes in force at the time the overtime service was rendered provided: “Eight hours of labor constitutes a day’s work, unless it is otherwise expressly stipulated by the parties to a contract.” (Lab. Code, § 510.) “Eight hours labor constitutes a legal day’s work in all eases where the same is performed under the authority of any law of this State, or under the direction, or control, or by the authority of any officer of this State acting in his official capacity, or under the direction, or control or by the authority of any municipal corporation, or of any officer thereof.” (Lab. Code, § 1810.) “Every person employed in any occupation of labor is entitled to one day’s rest therefrom in seven.” (Lab. Code, § 551.) “No employer of labor shall cause his employees to work more than six days in seven.” (Lab. Code, § 552.) While those provisions do not expressly state that they apply to the state as an employer, there is no reason why they should not inasmuch as they are not in derogation of the state’s sovereignty and there is no reason why we should suppose that the Legislature intended to require private employers to treat their employees in a more favorable manner than its own employees. There is, therefore, statutory authority which fixes the hours of labor like that in the Pohle ease which authorizes a vacation and an accumulation thereof for which pay may be recovered on separation from service. From such authority it follows that work beyond those hours is overtime and compensation therefor should be paid the same as in the Pohle case where it was held that from the establishment of the right to a vacation and to accumulate it, a right to be paid for the vacation when not taken ensued. Moreover, it should be noted that the heads of departments of the state “may arrange and classify the work of the department” and adopt rules and regulations “necessary to govern the activities of the department” and may “assign” to its “employees such duties as it sees fit.” (Gov. Code, § 11152.) Having that authority it could, as it did, require employees to work overtime and make a valid promise to give time off in lieu thereof. Having failed to give the time off before the separation of the employee from service, like an untaken vacation in the Pohle case, it is proper to award the employee money for the withheld time off as was done for untaken vacation time in the Pohle case. It is clear, therefore, that there was statutory *596authority for agreeing to give time off for overtime, and in lieu thereof compensation, and the Pohle case is controlling.
In addition, however, the state is estopped to assert that the department of motor vehicles through the chief of the highway patrol did not have authority to promise time off for overtime. The case of Boren v. State Personnel Board, 37 Cal.2d 634 [234 P.2d 981], is clearly distinguishable. In the Boren case there was positive statutory authority to transfer an employee from one part of the state to another (here we have no positive statutory provision that there shall be no pay for overtime; the statutes are to the contrary) and there was no showing in that ease of unjust enrichment by the state at the expense of the employee as we have here. Here the employee was promised time off to compensate for overtime. In reliance thereon he gave extra time to the state. If the state may take that extra labor without paying for it as the majority holds, the state is being unjustly enriched at the expense of the employee. We have, therefore, a clear case of estoppel. There are many cases where estoppel may run against the government. (See eases cited, Farrell v. County of Placer, 23 Cal.2d 624, 628 [145 P.2d 570, 153 A.L.R. 323].) A few instances may be pointed out in which the justice of invoking estoppel is present as much or even less than here. In Times-Mirror Co. v. Superior Court, 3 Cal.2d 309 [44 P.2d 547], the city of Los Angeles was held estopped to abandon eminent domain proceedings where, in reliance thereon, defendant property owner had acquired other property and constructed a building thereon. It was there said (p. 330), “If the city had expressly agreed by its officers with defendants’ grantors, even in parol, that a certain line should constitute the boundary line between the street and the grantor’s property, and upon the faith of such agreement the grantors had erected a block of buildings flush with the line of the street as agreed upon by all parties, it would be a hard law that would allow the city to repudiate that agreement, and destroy the grantor’s property. No court should countenance such a thing, and an estoppel in pais will rise up in the pathway of a city to bar it and its principal, the people, from the commission of such a grievous wrong; and to give the acts of this city a very limited meaning we think its conduct in the present case at least equivalent to an oral agreement as to the location of the true boundary line of the street.” (To the same effect, see McGee v. City of Los Angeles, 6 Cal.2d 390 [57 P.2d 925].) In City of Los Angeles v. Cohn, 101 Cal. *597373 [35 P. 1002], the city was estopped to claim property which it owned but said it did not and in reliance thereon the person who had been in possession thereof built a building on it. The same situation, except it was a canal through a city, was involved in Fresno v. Fresno C. & I. Co., 98 Cal. 179 [32 P. 943], Land claimed by the city as streets was considered in Sacramento v. Clunie 120 Cal. 29 [52 P. 44]. In City of Los Angeles v. County of Los Angeles, 9 Cal.2d 624 [72 P.2d 138, 113 A.L.R. 370], a county was held estopped to collect from a railroad company additional payments for use of its land when it had been accepting certain payments for 15 years. In Contra Costa Water Co. v. Breed, 139 Cal. 432 [73 P. 189], the city was held liable for water it received and was estopped to deny liability on the claim that its ordinance providing for payment was invalid. In Tyra v. Board of Police etc. Commrs., 32 Cal.2d 666 [197 P.2d 710], it was held that the city was estopped to plead the statute of limitation in an action by an employee for a pension where the pension commissioners had erroneously told him he could not receive a pension while he was receiving workmen’s compensation. Baird v. City of Fresno, 97 Cal.App.2d 336 [217 P.2d 681], is particularly applicable. It was there held that the city was estopped, when a pension was claimed, to rely on the invalidity of its determination made many years before that its employees should be credited with 9 years of service with the city. Mention is made in some of these cases that where there is general power authorizing action by a governmental body in a particular field, the government may be estopped to assert irregularity in the exercise of that power. Here we have the general power in the department (Gov. Code, § 11152, supra) and it has been so recognized by this court (Nelson v. Dean, 27 Cal.2d 873 [168 P.2d 16, 168 A.L.R. 467]). None of the foregoing authorities presents a clearer case for estoppel than the case at bar.
I would, therefore, affirm the judgment.