Court Opinion

ID: 9569862
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:18:07.921177+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:04:11.015550
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I concur in the reversal of the judgment, but I dissent from the directions given upon remand.
The majority make out a persuasive case for finding that a memorandum of understanding regarding municipal employee salaries was *347reached and that the city should in good conscience honor its agreement. From that moral reading, however, the majority leap to a legal conclusion which results in judicial invasion of the legislative process, and the matter is returned to the trial court for issuance of an order which cannot, or should not, be enforced.
The posture in which this case comes to us is of significance. First of all, the plaintiffs sued no ministerial officers; they sued the City of Glendale and five individuals identified as “the duly elected councilmen,” members of the “governing body” of the City of Glendale. No other persons, particularly none with ministerial as distinguished from legislative duties, appeared in the action at any time.
Secondly, the trial court issued a writ of mandate “directing the respondents and each of them [i.e., the city and the duly elected councilmen] to proceed at once to provide salary and wage increases to petitioners ....”
And finally, in their petition for hearing the petitioners seek mandate to enforce a memorandum “executed by the City of Glendale,” not mere performance of a duty by an identified ministerial public servant.
I
The majority have cited no authoritative cases in which a city and its legislative body have been mandated to adopt an ordinance, relating to salaries or to any other subject. The reason there are no such appellate cases is elementary: adoption or rejection of an ordinance has always been recognized as an act of legislative discretion and courts may not interfere with that legislative function. Each councilman has his electorally bestowed right to vote “aye” or “nay” on any proposal pending before the body. Perhaps, as here, the city and its governing legislators should have honored an obligation, but they cannot be compelled to do so by mandate of a court.
Let us review the cases cited by the majority to purportedly support their conclusion that a city and its councilmen "may be ordered to enact a specified ordinance. In Tevis v. City and County of San Francisco (1954) 43 Cal.2d 190, 194 [272 P.2d 757], members of a commission, the secretary of the civil service commission and the controller “were directed to certify and approve payrolls.” This was clearly a ministerial act, but, the court continued at page 200, city officials “may not be *348compelled to authorize the payment of compensation or issue a warrant when funds are lacking [i.e., unappropriated].” This court expressed the hope the city would make funds available, but there was no order for it to do so. Ross v. Board of Education (1912) 18 Cal.App. 222 [122 P. 967], involved an order directing members of a board to pay $100 due on an employment contract.
Flora Crane Service, Inc. v. Ross (1964) 61 Cal.2d 199 [37 Cal.Rptr. 425, 390 P.2d 193], concerned mandate against the city controller because he had failed to perform what the court found to be a ministerial duty (id. at p. 204). To the same effect is San Francisco v. Boyd (1941) 17 Cal.2d 606 [110 P.2d 1036]; involving an employment contract, the mandate suit was not directed to the city or its legislative body, but against the controller, a ministerial officer. Similarly in Ackerman v. Moody (1918) 38 Cal.App. 461 [176 P. 696], the city auditor, not the City of San Diego or its council, was ordered by mandate to certify a recall election.
The majority, in footnote 24, desperately attempt to find some authority for courts to mandate legislative bodies. They miss the target. Sanders v. City of Los Angeles (1970) 3 Cal.3d 252 [90 Cal.Rptr. 169, 475 P.2d 201], and Sanders v. City of Los Angeles (1967) 252 Cal.App.2d 488 [60 Cal.Rptr. 539], arose out of the same circumstances. The courts found that a ministerial officer had failed to perform his charter-required function. “As the adviser of the committees and the council and as the responsible official of the city, the City Administrative Officer failed utterly to perform his duties.” (Id. at p. 493 of 252 Cal.App.2d.) He, and several administrative departments—recreation and parks, library, retirement system, pensions—were then directed to perform their ministerial duties.
In Walker v. County of Los Angeles (1961) 55 Cal.2d 626, 632 [12 Cal.Rptr. 671], the court declared that the board of supervisors failed to perform its duty, but found only that the board has “a quasi-judicial, non-legislative, fact-finding function preceding the performance of the indicated legislative act.” (Italics added.) It was that nonlegislative function the board was mandated to perform.
It is true that we ordered the board of supervisors to redistrict supervisorial districts in Griffin v. Board of Supervisors (1963) 60 Cal.2d 318 [33 Cal.Rptr. 101, 384 P.2d 421]. Í point out, however, that this court obviously has had second thoughts about the propriety of such an order, *349for it was not repeated in subsequent reapportionment cases. We never again mandated a legislative body to pass a reapportionment act; we indicated that if it did not do so by a specified time, the court would undertake the task. And we did. (Silver v. Brown (1965) 63 Cal.2d 270, 281 [46 Cal.Rptr. 308, 405 P.2d 132]; Legislature v. Reinecke (1972) 6 Cal.3d 595, 603 [99 Cal.Rptr. 481, 492 P.2d 385]; Legislature v. Reinecke (1972) 7 Cal.3d 92, 93 [101 Cal.Rptr. 552, 496 P.2d 464]; Legislature v. Reinecke (1973) 10 Cal.3d 396 [110 Cal.Rptr. 718, 516 P.2d 6].)
Thus it is abundantly clear that appellate courts do not order a political subdivision as an entity, or its legislative body, to act or to refrain from acting in any specified manner.
Tandy v. City of Oakland (1962) 208 Cal.App.2d 609 [25 Cal.Rptr. 429], is a case in point. Plaintiffs sought to mandate the city council to rezone their property on a theory that the current zoning ordinances were unconstitutional as applied. The court held that such ordinances “are entirely within the discretion of the municipal legislative body” and that “a court cannot substitute its judgment for that of the municipality” (id. at p. 612). To the identical effect is Johanson v. City Council (1963) 222 Cal.App.2d 68, 72 [34 Cal.Rptr. 798],
II
The majority seem to assume that a mere ministerial act, performed by unidentified “appropriate city officials” (ante, p. 346), will provide the petitioners with the remedy they seek. The assumption is unjustified.
As alleged in the complaint and as found by the trial judge, on September 29, 1970, the city council adopted salary ordinance No. 3921, which, said the trial court, “did not provide increases in salaries and wages” based upon the purported formula. The adoption of that ordinance was clearly a legislative act, as, indeed, is the passage or rejection of any ordinance. If there are to be any other or different salary provisions, ordinance No. 3921 must be repealed by the city council and another ordinance adopted in its stead. Such action will also be strictly legislative in character.
That brings us back to square one: there is no authority for this court, or any court, to direct how the city councilmen, individually or collectively, are to vote on any measure proposed to repeal ordinance No. 3921. Pursuant to a bargained understanding, the councilmen may *350be under a moral obligation to adopt a new salary ordinance. However, the question before us is not the existence of a prior commitment, but whether a court may compel a legislative result.
The procedure employed by the Court of Appeal in Martin v. County of Contra Costa (1970) 8 Cal.App.3d 856 [87 Cal.Rptr. 886], and adopted by the majority here, is untenable. The court there conceded “the general principle that the courts have no power to compel the performance of a legislative act” and that the petitioners asked for mandate to compel the city “to enact a county ordinance which compensates and provides benefits for petitioners” (id. at p. 865). It then proceeded to direct joinder of ministerial officers. How, it must be asked, can the ministerial officers secure enactment of a county ordinance as prayed? The Martin court gives us no clue, nor do the majority advise us here how the unidentified ministerial officers, at this late date to be amended into the case, are to undertake the legislative task of repealing ordinance No. 3921 and adopting another measure in its place.
Ill
Finally, I am compelled to make an embarrassing inquiry. How do my learned colleagues propose to enforce their order?
Naturally it is to be hoped that all good citizens will accept a final judicial determination of their rights and duties. But let us assume arguendo that the Glendale City Councilmen are intransigent, that they steadfastly refuse to vote to repeal ordinance No. 3921 and to adopt another salary ordinance in its stead. Are my colleagues prepared to cite the entire legislative body for contempt of their order? (See, e.g., City of Vernon v. Superior Court (1952) 38 Cal.2d 509, 519-520 [241 P.2d 243].) I would hope not. Yet the potential need to do so demonstrates one of the pitfalls when the judiciary attempts in any manner to dictate how the legislative process is to function.
In the final analysis, this is not a labor or'salary case nor is it litigation over a contract. This is purely and simply an issue of separation of powers. I, for one, am unwilling to embark upon a murky project of ordering legislative members to adopt an ordinance, no matter how desirable I may believe the ordinance to be.
The petition of defendants and appellants for a rehearing was denied October 30, 1975. Mosk, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.