Court Opinion

ID: 9546575
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:32:18.125806+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:38.259392
License: Public Domain

*707SCHAUER, J., Dissenting.
I did not concur in the reasoning or the result in the preceding mandate proceeding (Housing Authority v. City of Los Angeles (1952), 38 Cal.2d 853 [243 P.2d 515]) and I do not agree with any implication therein or in either the majority opinion or Justice Shenk’s dissent herein that the people (whether by direct vote, or through their governmental representatives, the city councilmen) may by contract irrevocably bargain away their legislative prerogatives. The right of the people to legislate whether by initiative or through elected representatives is the right of self-government. It means freedom instead of subservience to a master. The right to legislate must include the right to augment, to repeal and to amend as well as to enact. And the right of a city as a legal entity to contract should, as in the ease of any other individual, natural or corporate, include the right to rescind on equitable grounds, or to breach and be subject to a suit-for specific performance or to an action for ensuing damage liability.
The city of Los Angeles and the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles are, respectively,- separate corporate entities. They entered into a contract and a dispute has arisen between them as to the performance of that contract. Their reciprocal rights and obligations and liabilities should be determined by the same judicial processes and by the same general laws as are applicable to other contracting parties.
The holding in the preceding mandate proceeding is in my view inherently contrary to sound public policy and in some respects I think it trenches on our most fundamental governmental and political institutions. I think that inevitably, if the theory that the people can by contract irrevocably surrender to an entity their right to legislate or otherwise govern themselves is persisted in and expanded (as politicians and sometimes courts are wont to do with attractively garbed theories) this seemingly isolated departure from accepted standards and procedures can prove to be a sorry breach in our constitutional dike.1 But since the judgment in that case has become final, whether I like it or not, if it has any *708validity at all, it must be accepted and dealt with insofar as it clearly controls. However, assuming some area óf validity and no disposition on the part of any of the justices to sap fundamentals, the judgment definitely should not be extended in implications or to ends which appear to be obnoxious to constitutional enterprise or which would transgress both democratic and republican concepts of the permissible functions of government.
If I assume for the prior judgment the full scope of validity, and give it all the virtue which its learned and respected author attributes to it, then I agree with that author as he dissents today in protest against the monstrosity which has been made of his opinion. That the mandamus opinion as construed and applied by the majority here seems monstrous to its author is evidenced by his dissent. That it should be so regarded by any lover and defender of our traditional constitutional processes is to me made apparent by the majority and concurring opinions. Such opinions, directly or impliedly, hold that:
a. The members of the council of the city of Los Angeles, although elected by the citizens as their representatives, have by contract with a corporation abdicated all legislative power within the field of the contract. •
b. Within the contractual field the couneilmen are bound to consider not the interests or will of the people but instead to obey implicitly the command of the contracting corporation.
c. The contract is irrevocable on the part of the citizens. Hence, the corporate dynasty has perpetual power.
d. The territory affected is not confined to the city of Los Angeles. The contracting and subservient city may be compelled to annex territory from other jurisdictions. (Whether the area of annexation may extend beyond county or state or national lines is not stated.)
e. If the couneilmen dare to respect the will of the people who elected them, and disobey the orders of the corporate master, they shall be fined or imprisoned.
f. Within the field of contract the city must perpetually “co-operate” with the contracting corporation. And “cooperate,” as used by the majority, means implicitly obey.
It is regrettable that in the affairs of men good ends are sometimes sought by unwise means. Here, no one questions *709the desirability of better housing in. place of poorer housing; certainly, better housing is a desirable end. But to alert defenders of the hard won constitutional freedoms no betterment of housing can justify a means which exchanges a city’s —or a person’s—freedom for subservience in a substantial area of government.
Whether we agree with the original mandate judgment or not, this proceeding should be dismissed.

That the theory is already being expanded is made evident by the fact that the majority today, over the formal dissent of Mr. Justice Shenlt who authored the mandamus opinion, are construing and applying the basic opinion to enforce acts not contemplated by its author and believed by him to be unlawful because related to property beyond the territorial jurisdiction of either of the contracting parties.