Court Opinion

ID: 9613092
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:14:05.954986+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:25.158729
License: Public Domain

NEWMAN, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
Study of the appeals board brief filed here on February 2, 1981, and of the following excerpts from the majority opinion filed during December 1980 by Justice Compton of the Court of Appeal (Fleming, J. concurring) has persuaded me that I should dissent from part II of the Chief Justice’s opinion:
“Petitioner’s principal contention is that Labor Code section 4907 is unconstitutional insofar as it purports to grant the Board power to discipline licensed attorneys by way of contempt or otherwise. In this position he is joined by the State Bar of California, which has filed an amicus curiae brief. [¶] Labor Code section 4907 has its basis in California Constitution, article XIV, section 4, which grants to the Legislature plenary power, unlimited by any other provision of the Constitution, to create and enforce a system of workers’ compensation including the power to establish a mechanism for the administration of the system and for the expeditious and inexpensive resolution of disputes arising thereunder. [Fn. omitted.] [¶] The claim of unconstitutionality, although stated in various ways, i.e., that the statute exceeds the Legislature’s authority, contravenes the doctrine of separation of powers and does not harmonize with public policy, is simply that the authority *350to license and discipline attorneys is, and should remain, exclusively the province of the Supreme Court acting through its administrative arm, the State Bar of California. .. . [¶] The State Bar has favored us with a thorough and unassailable analysis of the history and parameters of the Supreme Court’s authority in the field of regulating the profession and its practitioners. The Supreme Court’s preeminence cannot be questioned. It is important to observe, however, that the Supreme Court, in imposing discipline does not order suspension or disbarment from a particular case, fiqld of practice, or particular court; rather it orders suspension or disbarment from all practice of law. (Smith v. Superior Court (1968) 68 Cal.2d 547 [68 Cal.Rptr. 1, 440 P.2d 65].) Thus the power exercised by the Supreme Court is infinitely more pervasive than that purported to be exercised by the Board. [¶] The issue presented by the instant petition is whether Labor Code section 4907, in granting to the Board the power to suspend or revoke the privilege of any person to appear before it in a representative capacity, as applied to attorneys, constitutes a regulation of the ‘practice of Law,’ which unconstitutionally impinges on the authority of the Supreme Court and invades the field preempted by the State Bar act. (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 6000 et seq.) [¶] The people in adopting the article XIV, section 4, have spoken in the most clear and comprehensive terms in describing the Legislature’s authority. Similarly, the Legislature has left no doubt of its intention in enacting Labor Code section 4907. The language of that statute is clear and unambiguous. [¶] The Legislature’s interpretation of the constitutional provision under which it purports to act is entitled to great weight for the reason that the California Constitution, unlike the United States Constitution, does not grant power to the Legislature but instead serves as a limitation on the inherent or residual power of the Legislature. (California Housing Finance Agency v. Patitucci (1978) 22 Cal.3d 171 [148 Cal.Rptr. 875, 583 P.2d 729].) [¶] ‘The purpose of the doctrine [of separation of powers] is to prevent one branch of the government from exercising the complete power constitutionally vested in another; it is not intended to prohibit one branch from taking action properly within its sphere that has the incidental effect of duplicating a function or procedure delegated to another branch.’ (Younger v. Superior Court (1978) 21 Cal.3d 102, at p. 117 [145 Cal.Rptr. 674, 577 P.2d 1014].) [¶] A statute should be upheld unless its unconstitutionality appears clearly and unmistakably. (Fox v. Federated Department Stores, Inc. (1979) 94 Cal.App.3d 867 [156 Cal.Rptr. 893]; L. B. Foster Co. v. County of Los Angeles (1968) 265 Cal.App.2d 24 [71 Cal.Rptr. 16].) Any doubt as to the Legislature’s authority to act in a given area must be resolved in favor of the legislative action and the en*351actment must not be construed to embrace matters not covered by the language of such enactment. (City and County of San Francisco v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. (1978) 22 Cal.3d 103 [148 Cal.Rptr. 626, 583 P.2d 151].) Legislative enactments must be construed in a manner that seeks to harmonize the statute and the Constitution. (Welton v. City of Los Angeles (1976) 18 Cal.3d 497 [134 Cal.Rptr. 668, 556 P.2d 1119].) [¶] The Legislature has provided that any party appearing before the Board may be represented by a person who is not an attorney. (Lab. Code, § 5700.) This is consistent with the constitutional mandate to provide an expeditious and inexpensive method of fairly resolving disputes. (Cal. Const., art. XIV, § 4.) [¶] That provision was upheld in Eagle Indem. Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com. (1933) 217 Cal. 244 [18 P.2d 341], where the Supreme Court in upholding the validity of then section 19a of the Workers’ Compensation Act (now Lab. Code, § 5700) also sanctions the power of the Industrial Accident Commission (now the Board) to award attorney’s fees to nonlawyer representatives. [¶] If the adjudicatory machinery of the Board is to operate effectively and expeditiously, it is essential that the Board have available to it reasonable means of regulating the conduct of persons who appear before it. [¶] The power of contempt is necessary for a tribunal to conduct orderly proceedings. (Smith v. Superior Court, supra, 68 Cal.2d 547.[)] By virtue of Labor Code sections 133 and 134, that power has been given to the Board. The petitioner does not seriously contend that the granting of contempt powers to the Board impinges on the power of the Supreme Court to discipline attorneys, so long as the sanction imposed does not take the form of suspending the privilege to appear before the Board. [¶] Labor Code section 4907 is modest in its scope. The power of the Board extends only to regulating those persons who may appear before it. It does not purport to reach beyond the confines of advocacy before the Board. It cannot be construed as empowering the Board to regulate any other activity or function that might be described as the ‘practice of law.’ [¶] This limitation is illuminated when we examine the converse of the Board’s authority. While the Legislature has authorized lay persons to appear before the Board in a representative capacity, it has not and could not authorize a lay person to represent another in processing and appearing on a petition for a writ of review to this court, where only duly licensed attorneys may practice. By the same token the Board could not exercise any authority over attorneys who undertake such representation. [¶] The California Supreme Court in Baron v. City of Los Angeles (1970) 2 Cal.3d 535 [86 Cal.Rptr. 673, 469 F.2d 353, 42 A.L.R.3d 1036], considered a challenge to the validity of an ordinance of the City of Los Angeles regulating the activities of lobbyists *352by a licensed attorney, who represented clients before the city council and various city commissions and boards. In establishing a test for whether legislative regulation of the activities of attorneys encroaches on the field preempted by the State Bar act, the court held at pages 543-544: ‘[T]he State Bar act preempts the field of regulation of attorneys only insofar as they are “practicing law” under the act—i.e., performing services in a representative capacity in a manner which would constitute the unauthorized practice of law if performed by a layman.... The act in its entirety constitutes an exclusive state regulatory scheme only insofar as it governs the activities which only licensed attorneys can lawfully perform.’ (Italics added.) [¶] We are not [un]mindful of the fact that a number of attorneys devote substantially all of their professional efforts to the field of workers’ compensation and that this area of the law is a recognized specialty. The fact remains, however, that the advocacy portion of that type of practice is open to laymen and lawyers alike. Since advocacy before the Board and its subordinate tribunals is not an activity restricted to licensed attorneys, under the test of Baron v. City of Los Angeles, supra, regulation of such advocacy is not preempted by the State Bar act or the inherent power of the Supreme Court to regulate the practice of law. [¶] An attorney who opts to appear as an advocate in workers’ compensation proceedings is subject to the same rules and regulations as any other person performing in the same role. If the problem is one which the profession feels is intolerable, the solution is legislative action by way of repeal of either Labor Code sections 4907 or 5700. We are of the opinion that the existing scheme does not offend the Constitution or the doctrine of separation of powers. It is well within the Legislature’s prerogative.”