Court Opinion

ID: 9797825
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:30:04.047014+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:57:58.575669
License: Public Domain

WERDEGAR, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I concur in the majority’s conclusion that, on the unusual facts of this case, real party in interest Xavier Martin Madrigal, though employed by petitioner County of Riverside (County) as only a probationary deputy sheriff, was nevertheless protected *808by the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights Act (Gov. Code, § 3300 et seq. (the Act)) generally. More specifically, Madrigal was entitled to the protection of Government Code section 3305, which states in pertinent part that “[n]o public safety officer shall have any comment adverse to his interest entered in his personnel file, or any other file used for any personnel purposes by his employer, without the public safety officer having first read and signed the instrument containing the adverse comment indicating he is aware of such comment. . . .” Because the County used negative information to discharge Madrigal from his position without first allowing him to read the information, I agree the County violated Madrigal’s rights under the Act. (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 795, 803.)
I further agree with the majority’s conclusion that the protections of the Act are not waivable generally because those protections were established for the protection of the public. (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 804-805.) As the majority notes, Civil Code section 3513 provides: “Any one may waive the advantage of a law intended solely for his benefit. But a law established for a public reason cannot be contravened by a private agreement.” Thus, to cite but two examples, a temporary teacher may not waive his or her tenure rights because such rights are “elaborately regulated by the Education Code [and] reflect the public policy of the state” (Covino v. Governing Board (1977) 76 Cal.App.3d 314, 322 [142 Cal.Rptr. 812]), and a worker may not waive the seven-year limit on personal service contracts because that limit “is calculated to confer direct or indirect benefits upon the people as a whole [and] must be presumed to have been enacted for a public reason and as an expression of public policy in the field” (De Haviland v. Warner Bros. Pictures (1944) 67 Cal.App.2d 225, 235 [153 P.2d 983]).
The protections of the Act unquestionably are “established for a public reason” and thus by virtue of Civil Code section 3513 are unwaivable by private agreement. Government Code section 3301 expressly sets forth the Legislature’s intent that the Act’s protections are for a public, not private, benefit: “The Legislature hereby finds and declares that the rights and protections provided to peace officers under this chapter constitute a matter of statewide concern. The Legislature further finds and declares that effective law enforcement depends upon the maintenance of stable employer-employee relations, between public safety employees and their employers. In order to assure that stable relations are continued throughout the state and to further assure that effective services are provided to all people of the state, it is necessary that this chapter be applicable to all public safety officers, as defined in this section, wherever situated within the State of California.”
We recognized the public benefit underlying the Act in Burden v. Snowden (1992) 2 Cal.4th 556 [7 Cal.Rptr.2d 531, 828 P.2d 672]: “ ‘[I]t can hardly be *809disputed that the maintenance of stable employment relations between police officers and their employers is a matter of statewide concern. The consequences of a breakdown in such relations are not confined to a city’s borders. These employees provide an essential service. Its absence would create a clear and present threat not only to the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of the city, but also to the hundreds, if not thousands, of nonresidents who daily visit there. Its effect would also be felt by the many nonresident owners of property and businesses located within the city’s borders. . . . The inevitable result is that labor unrest and strikes produce consequences which extend far beyond local boundaries.’ ” (Id. at p. 567, quoting Baggett v. Gates (1982) 32 Cal.3d 128, 139-140 [185 Cal.Rptr. 232, 649 P.2d 874].)
I thus find that Civil Code section 3513 compels the conclusion the procedural protections our Legislature has provided to public safety officers may not be waived. It is here I part company with the majority, which finds that, as to matters arising before his employment, Madrigal may be held to have waived his rights under the Act. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 806.) The majority’s attempt to carve out a narrow exception tailored to fit the facts of this case—a waiver by new peace officers transferring from other agencies as to matters that arose prior to their current employment—is supported by neither law nor logic. At the outset, the majority’s reasoning finds a waiver is permissible here because allowing Madrigal to waive his rights under the Act “would not particularly undermine the public purpose of the Act.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 806.) By so reasoning, the majority answers the wrong question. The question is not whether Madrigal’s or any other particular waiver would undermine the Act’s purpose; the question, rather, is whether the Act is supported by a public purpose. If so, Civil Code section 3513 instructs that waivers are prohibited. That on the particular facts of the case a waiver would or would not undermine the public purpose underlying the statutory scheme is irrelevant. We are not at liberty to second-guess the wisdom of the Legislature’s blanket prohibition of waivers of rights granted for a public benefit and provide freewheeling, ad hoc judicial review of the overall fairness or effectiveness of the Act under the circumstances of a particular case.
That the majority sees fit to recognize a one-year limit to the exception it creates is an indication that it has surpassed the limits of judicial authority. No such limitation appears in the Act itself. Yet, the Legislature knows how both to include a one-year time limit for rights under the Act (see Gov. Code, § 3304, subd. (d) [investigations into misconduct limited to one year]) and to provide for waiver of those limits (id., subd. (d)(2) [authorizing written waiver of the one-year time period]). Because the Act expressly *810provides for specific time limits and waivers in other circumstances, we must assume the Legislature did not intend any additional, unstated time limits or waivers for which there is no express statutory authorization. (See, e.g., Murillo v. Fleetwood Enterprises, Inc. (1998) 17 Cal.4th 985, 999 [73 Cal.Rptr.2d 682, 953 P.2d 858]; In re Chantal S. (1996) 13 Cal.4th 196, 206-207 [51 Cal.Rptr.2d 866, 913 P.2d 1075].)
Nor is the majority persuasive in reasoning that recognition of an officer’s right to waive statutory protections under the Act would serve the Act’s purpose of fostering stable employee-employer relations between peace officers and their employers by “facilitating an earlier hiring date for new peace officers who are transferring from other agencies.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 806.) The determination of how best to serve the Act’s purpose is for the Legislature, not this court. Moreover, if the County wished to achieve the benefit of an earlier hiring date while still maintaining the confidentiality of its sources, it was not without lawful means to do so: it could either have commenced its background investigations at an earlier date or postponed the merger to a later one, in either case concluding its investigations before extending offers of employment. As the Court of Appeal opined below: “Instead, probably to effect a seamless transfer of authority and uninterrupted service, the County simply accepted the Penis officers as probationary, but fully active, law enforcement personnel. By doing so, the County avoided the necessity of recruiting and training new deputies and was able promptly to assume its contractual duties. Having chosen to proceed in this manner, the County must accept the burden with the benefit and recognize Madrigal’s . . . rights [under the Act].” (Fn. omitted.)
Although I concur to the extent the majority finds Madrigal protected by the Act, I dissent from its further holding that Madrigal effectively waived his rights under the Act. Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
Kennard, J., and Moreno, J., concurred.