Court Opinion

ID: 9791042
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:04:15.492452+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:33.593330
License: Public Domain

GIBSON, C. J.
This is a proceeding in mandamus to compel the respondent commission to vacate its findings that certain students, the bookkeeper and the proprietor of the petitioning corporation are employees within the meaning of the Unemployment Insurance Act (Stats. 1935, p. 1226; 3 Deering’s Gen. Laws, Act 8780d, as amended) and to cancel the charges made against the petitioner by virtue of these findings. The trial court sustained a general demurrer to the petition without leave to amend, and the petitioner appeals from the judgment for the respondent.
The petition alleges that E. M. Robinson is the sole owner of the petitioning corporation, which has never issued any capital stock and has no directors, officers or assets, and that Robinson is operating a barber college “as if no corporation had ever been formed.” Students are admitted according to the requirements of the Board of Barber Examiners and can be dismissed only for violation of the board’s regulations. The students are not required to be present at regular hours but may attend as they please until the course of instruction is completed. After the students have reached a certain degree of proficiency they are allowed to practice on patrons who pay a small fee to the petitioner. Out of these fees a commission is paid to each student in the form of cash or as a credit against equipment which the student may purchase from the petitioner. The petitioner has obtained the services of a part-time bookkeeper who is obliged only to maintain various records but is not required to keep regular hours of employment. The petitioner challenges the respondents’ determination that E. M. Robinson, the students and the bookkeeper, are employees within the meaning of the act.
The question on this appeal, however, is not whether Robinson, the students and the bookkeeper are employees within the meaning of the act, but rather whether an action or proceeding for judicial review of a determination of the respondent board may be had prior to the payment of the contributions which the board claims to be due, the petitioner admitting in its petition that it has never paid any contributions under *723the act. Such judicial review in advance of payment is expressly prohibited by section 45.11(d) of the Unemployment Insurance Act, which provides in part as follows; “No injunction or writ of mandate or other legal or equitable process shall issue in any suit, action or proceeding, in any court against this State or against any officer thereof to prevent or enjoin under this act the collection of any contributions sought to be collected. ’ ’
Since the matter is before us on the petition and the commission’s general demurrer, the record in this case presents the single issue of the availability of the remedy of mandamus. Other questions of law or fact, and particularly the liability of petitioner for the contributions, are beyond the scope of this proceeding.
We may at the outset dispose of the suggestion by petitioner that this proceeding is not one to “prevent or enjoin” the collection of a contribution because the only relief prayed for is the vacation of the findings of the existence of the employer-employee relationship made by the commission. It is obvious that a judgment directing the commission to vacate its findings would in effect amount to a declaration by the court that the relationship did not exist; the commission after such a judgment could not “properly undertake to enforce a tax against plaintiff corporation as an employer in defiance of an adjudication that the latter [asserted employer] did not maintain that relationship with the other parties.” (Louis Eckert B. Co. v. Unemployment R. Com., 47 Cal.App.2d 844, 846 [119 P.2d 227].) The Eckert case held that because of the statute above quoted an action for declaratory relief cannot be maintained to determine the existence of the employer-employee relationship prior to the payment of the tax. Since the net result of the relief prayed for herein would be to restrain the collection of the tax allegedly due, the action must be treated as one having that purpose. (See Helms Bakeries v. State Bd. of Equalization, 53 Cal.App.2d 417, 422 [128 P.2d 167].)
It follows, therefore, that this proceeding in mandamus is prohibited by the statute, and, unless the statute is void, the writ must be denied. In this connection, it is appropriate to pass upon a minor contention of respondent.  It is argued that the statute is not the only bar to this action, for it is merely declaratory of section 15 of article XIII of the Constitution. That section provides: “No injunction or writ *724of mandate or other legal or equitable process shall ever issue in any suit, action or proceeding in any court against this State, or any officer thereof, to prevent or enjoin the collection of any tax levied under the provisions of this article.” It would seem, however, that contributions under the Unemployment Insurance Act, while in the nature of taxes, are not taxes levied under the provisions of article XIII. They are not specifically mentioned therein, and they do not appear to be included within the general provisions of article XIII relating to taxes for revenue. On the contrary, the act specifically provides (§19) that contributions shall be held in a specific fund, separate and apart from all public moneys or funds of the state, and shall be administered exclusively for the purposes of the act. The contributions therefore constitute special taxes for a special purpose distinct from the general revenues of the state. For this, as well as other reasons, we see no basis upon which the constitutional provision can apply to this case.
It will also assist in clarifying the issue before us to notice briefly at this time the contention that petitioner is entitled to mandamus solely on the ground that his remedy at law is allegedly inadequate. The cases cited for this proposition (see, e.g., Bodinson Mfg. Co. v. California E. Com., 17 Cal.2d 321 [109 P.2d 935]; Lockhart v. Wolden, 17 Cal.2d 628 [111 P.2d 319]; Dufton v. Daniels, 190 Cal. 577 [213 P. 949]) are merely declaratory of the general rule set forth in section 1086 of the Code of Civil Procedure and are clearly applicable to the normal situation where no specific statute bars the remedy of mandamus. We may concede, therefore, that were it not for section 45.11(d) of the Unemployment Insurance Act, mandamus might lie in the instant case, and that is the extent of the holding of the cases cited and of numerous others which might be cited.
This principle, however, has no application to the instant ease, in which the remedy of mandamus has been expressly prohibited, and the remedy of suit to recover taxes paid has expressly been made the exclusive means of obtaining a judicial review of the legality of the assessment. No decision has been called to our attention where it has been held that mandamus may be issued despite an express statutory prohibition merely because the court may deem the normal remedy less satisfactory than mandamus. Such a holding would, as stated above, be equivalent to declaring the statute *725unconstitutional; therefore, the ultimate inquiry in this case is whether the Legislature may constitutionally limit the use of mandamus as it has done in section 45.11(d) of the Unemployment Insurance Act. Unlike Revised Statutes, section 3224 (53 Stats. 446, 26 U.S.C.A., § 3653) (restricting the use of injunctions to prevent the collection of federal taxes), section 45.11(d) of the Unemployment Insurance Act is not merely declaratory of the traditional equity practice under which an injunction might be granted in various exceptional circumstances. As this court has just said in Eisley v. Mohan, ante, p. 637 [192 P.2d 5], in discussing Constitution article XIII, section 15, “The provision of the California Constitution is much more than a mere declaration of the rules generally applicable in proceedings for injunction, mandamus, or other legal or equitable relief.” The same is true of section 45.11(d) of the Unemployment Insurance Act which almost duplicates the language of article XIII, section 15. It follows that cases such as Miller v. Standard Nut Margarine Co., 284 U.S. 498 [52 S.Ct. 260, 76 L.Ed. 422], which discuss the various instances under which an injunction may be available according to the common-law rules of equity or under statutes restating them are not relevant here. Even under the federal statute, however, the financial hardship caused by remitting the taxpayer to his remedy by a suit to recover excess payments is not an exceptional circumstance warranting the issuance of an injunction (Kaus v. Huston, 120 F.2d 183), and financial distress is the principal ground of relief urged here.
Implicit in the contention that the statute is unconstitutional is the assumption that the petitioner has some constitutional right which can be protected only by mandamus. The petitioner relies strongly on Laisne v. State Board of Optometry, 19 Cal.2d 831 [123 P.2d 457]. That case held that under the due process clauses of the federal and California Constitutions, and under the doctrine of separation of powers in our Constitution, the petitioner was entitled to a type of review of administrative activity which, under our practice, mandate alone could provide. But in the present case it is clear that depriving the petitioner of the remedy of mandate would not deprive him of due process of law, and no other constitutional right under which he might claim this particular form of relief has been suggested.  The due process clause does not guarantee the right to judicial *726review of tax liability before payment. The power of a state to provide the remedy of suit to recover alleged overpayments as the exclusive means of judicial review of tax proceedings has long been unquestioned. (Cary v. Curtis, 3 IIow. (U.S.) 23 [11 L.Ed. 576]; Steinhagen Rice Milling Co. v. Scofield (C.C.A. 5th), 87 F.2d 804; Note 77 A.L.R. 629; see Plumb, Tax Refunds Suits v. Collectors of Internal Revenue, 60 Harv.L.Rev. 685.) This is also the law in this state: “The prompt payment of taxes is always important to the public welfare. It may be vital to the existence of a government. The idea that every tax-payer is entitled to the delays of litigation is unreason. If the laws here in question involved any wrong or unnecessary harshness, it was for Congress, or the people who make Congresses, to see that the evil was corrected. The remedy does not lie with the judicial branch of the government.” (Shenk, J., in People v. Skinner, 18 Cal.2d 349, 355 [115 P.2d 488, 149 A.L.R. 299], quoting approvingly from Springer v. United States, 102 U.S. 586 [26 L.Ed. 253].)
It is accordingly clear that unconstitutionality of the statute cannot be predicated on the violation of any fundamental right protected by either the state or federal Constitution, and we now proceed to consider the only other ground of attack on the statute, namely, that it purports to interfere with the jurisdiction of the courts of the state as outlined in the Constitution. The Constitution gives the superior courts power to issue mandate and other extraordinary legal remedies (art. VI, § 5), and it is argued that these remedies are always available in any case in which the court may deem them appropriate and that the Legislature has no power to define, curtail or enlarge the circumstances under which they may be issued.
The fallacy in this argument lies in the failure to distinguish between jurisdiction to grant the remedy and the right which is to be vindicated. Except as the Constitution otherwise provides, the Legislature has complete power to determine the rights of individuals. (See Delaney v. Lowery, 25 Cal.2d 561, 568 [154 P.2d 674].) It may create new rights or provide that rights which have previously existed shall no longer arise, and it has full power to regulate and circumscribe the methods and means of enjoying those rights, so long as there is no interference with constitutional guaranties. To reach the conclusion that the statute is invalid we would *727have to disapprove the course of decision for more than a century or hold that the power given to the courts to issue writs of mandate (Const., art. VI, §§ 4, 4b and 5) confers on the parties constitutional rights unrecognized elsewhere in the Constitution. The mere statement in the Constitution that a court has the power to grant certain remedies, however, does not mean that the rights which those remedies were intended to protect have been fixed in the Constitution as of the time of its adoption and are thereafter immune from legislative change or regulation. This reasoning is fortified, and the position of petitioner is seen to be wholly untenable, upon an examination of the authorities bearing on the analogous situations involving the right to civil relief generally, the right of appeal, the right- to injunctions and the right to habeas corpus.
The Constitution (art. VI, § 5) giants the superior court jurisdiction “in all civil cases,” except insofar as the Legislature or Constitution places jurisdiction in other courts. Notwithstanding this constitutional grant of jurisdiction over the remedies (“in all civil cases”), it has consistently been held, in accordance with the overwhelmingly majority view, that the Legislature has complete power over the rights involved in such actions and may either create or abolish particular causes of action. Thus, in Langdon v. Sayre, 74 Cal.App.2d 41 [168 P.2d 57], it was held that Civil Code, section 43.5, abolishing the cause of action for breach of promise to marry, was constitutional. And in Hanfgarn v. Mark, 274 N.Y. 22 [8 N.E.2d 47], the court upheld the constitutionality of a statute abolishing the cause of action for breach of promise, observing that a contrary decision “if carried to its logical conclusion, would result in a stagnation of law and be directly in conflict with many decisions of this court.” (274 N.Y. at p. 26.) (See also, note, 158 A.L.R. 617; 32 Ill.L.Rev. 738 [on the upholding of a similar statute in Indiana. “. . . to accept the argument advanced by those who seek to invalidate this legislation would result in leaving the only power to alter common law rights in the courts.”].)
A similar development has taken place with respect to injunctions. The Constitution (art. VI, § 5) formerly provided that the superior court should have “original jurisdiction in all cases in equity.” Nevertheless, it has been consistently held that the Legislature has power to determine what are grounds for equitable relief and when and under what cir*728cumstances injunctions may be granted. A typical example is -the provision of the Civil Code, restated in the Code of Civil Procedure, forbidding injunctions to restrain public officers, held constitutional in a number of cases. (See Loftis v. Superior Court, 25 Cal.App.2d 346 [77 P.2d 491].) As was said in Spreckels v. Hawaiian Com. s& Sugar Co., 117 Cal. 377 [49 P. 353]:
“Statutory changes are almost perpetual. New rights are created under which new equities arise. These make new cases in equity, of which the courts at once take cognizance. The jurisdiction of courts of equity is not thereby enlarged. Neither is it diminished when by statutory changes some rights cease to exist and certain cases which courts of equity once entertained can no longer arise. The grant of power [to the court in equity cases] is not confined to cases in equity which could exist under the law as it stood when the constitution was adopted. It includes all cases in equity at all times. It was not intended as a limitation upon the power to legislate upon the rights of persons.” (117 Cal. at p. 381.)
On the other hand, if the right to be vindicated is one granted by the Constitution, an injunction may be granted regardless of the statute if injunction is an appropriate remedy, because the right is one which the Legislature cannot abridge. (See 14 Cal.Jur., p. 202.)
The fallacy of petitioner’s position is again exposed when we consider the law governing appeals. The Constitution (art. VI, §§ 4, 4b) provides that the Supreme Court and the District Courts of Appeal “shall have appellate jurisdiction on appeal from the Superior Court. . . In interpreting this provision, the courts have held that the Legislature has the power to declare by statute what orders are appealable, and, unless a statute does so declare, the order is not appeal-able. (Gale v. Tuolumne County Water Co., 169 Cal. 46 [145 P. 532]; see Trede v. Superior Court, 21 Cal.2d 630, 634 [134 P.2d 745]; cf. Byers v. Smith, 4 Cal.2d 209 [47 P.2d 705] [express constitutional right of appeal in cases involving removal from public office]; In re Sutter-Butte By-Pass Assessment, 190 Cal. 532 [213 P. 974] [express constitutional right of appeal in cases involving legality of tax assessments].)
A similar result has been reached under Penal Code section 1506 which gives the state the right of appeal in certain situations where a person is discharged from confinement on habeas corpus and provides that the confinement may continue pend*729ing the appeal. Under the Constitution the superior courts, the District Courts of Appeal and the Supreme Court have the power to issue writs of habeas corpus. Prior to enactment of section 1506 of the Penal Code, if a District Court of Appeal or a superior court discharged a person on habeas corpus, the discharge, no matter how patently erroneous, could not be reviewed by any higher court. In other words, the superior courts and the District Courts of Appeal had the final and conclusive power to discharge a prisoner; or, conversely, a prisoner had the right to obtain a discharge from either of these courts without being subjected to the harassment and further confinement attending upon an appeal. (Matter of Hughes, 159 Cal. 360 [113 P. 684]; Matter of Zany, 164 Cal. 724 [130 P. 710].) Section 1506, providing for an appeal, was enacted in 1927, and it has been applied in a number of cases decided by this court. (See In re Alpine, 203 Cal. 731 [265 P. 941, 58 A.L.R. 1500]; In re Murdock, 5 Cal.2d 644 [55 P.2d 843]; In re Marquez, 3 Cal.2d 625 [45 P.2d 342].) Its constitutionality has never been questioned even though it clearly changes the effect of a writ of habeas corpus as it was formerly used in this state.
There is no inconsistency between the foregoing authorities and decisions which declare, in substance, that the Legislature cannot alter the jurisdiction over extraordinary writs which is prescribed by the Constitution. The controlling distinction between an unconstitutional enlargement of the jurisdiction of a court and a mere regulation of private rights and remedies, or the substitution of one remedy for another, becomes obvious upon an examination of these decisions. Mauer v. Mitchell, 53 Cal. 289, is apparently the leading case, and is typical of the group. The petitioner applied for a writ of prohibition to prevent the respondent tax collector (a nonjudicial officer) from selling petitioner’s property for nonpayment of delinquent taxes. Petitioner’s theory was that section 1102 of the Code of Civil Procedure made prohibition the “counterpart” of mandamus, and that since mandamus could be used to compel action by a nonjudicial officer, prohibition, its counterpart, would similarly lie to restrain action by a nonjudicial officer. The court rejected this interpretation of the code as untenable and also unconstitutional, pointing out that the writ of prohibition mentioned in the Constitution is the writ known to the common law, and that its “office” or function was to restrain subordinate judicial tribunals. *730Thus, the opinion stands for the incontrovertible propositions that the jurisdiction to issue a writ of prohibition is a particular kind of jurisdiction, the meaning of which was long established at the time the Constitution was adopted; that, in using the term "prohibition” in the Constitution, the framers conferred this particular ldnd of jurisdiction on certain courts; and that this particular kind of jurisdiction consisted of the power to restrain the acts of a lower judicial tribunal.
The matter becomes even clearer when we understand that the petitioner in the Mauer case, in seeking to restrain the acts of a nonjudicial officer, was really asking for another traditionally established and constitutionally defined remedy, namely, an injunction. The difficulty is, however, that the Constitution does not give the appellate courts the jurisdiction to issue an injunction, and that to issue an injunction in the guise of some other writ, e. g., supersedeas (see McCann v. Union Bank & Trust Co., 4 Cal.2d 24 [47 P.2d 283]) or prohibition (Mauer v. Mitchell, 53 Cal. 289), would constitute an unconstitutional interference with the jurisdiction granted to the trial courts, as well as an unconstitutional enlargement of the jurisdiction of the appellate courts.
Mauer v. Mitchell, 53 Cal. 289, was followed and reinforced by Camron v. Kenfield, 57 Cal. 550, where prohibition was sought to prevent the State Controller, another nonjudicial officer, from drawing warrants in payment of certain claims. Again it was declared that if section 1102 were interpreted to authorize the issuance of a writ of prohibition in such a situation, the statute would be an unconstitutional enlargement of the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Later cases, too remote in their facts to justify discussion, repeat the basic proposition that the Legislature cannot enlarge the constitutional jurisdiction of the Supreme Court (see Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Eshleman, 166 Cal. 640, 648, 652, 694 [137 P. 1119, Ann. Cas. 1915C 822, 50 L.R.A.N.S. 652], [dealing with writ of certiorari, but finding no unconstitutional enlargement]; Saxton v. Board of Education, 206 Cal. 758, 768 [276 P. 998], [dealing with writ of mandate, but holding that no such enlargement was attempted]). Finally, in Standard Oil Co. v. State Board of Equal., 6 Cal.2d 557, 562 [59 P.2d 119], the principle was again declared in a situation similar to that presented in the Mauer case; a statutory provision for review of the acts of a nonjudieial administrative board by writ of certiorari was held invalid on the ground that the writ lies only to review the *731acts of judicial tribunals, and that the statute malting it applicable to nonjudicial bodies was an attempt to enlarge the constitutional jurisdiction of the court.
It is therefore clear that in the various pronouncements of our courts condemning attempts by the Legislature to interfere with the constitutional power to issue extraordinary writs, the matter involved was the jurisdiction of the court; and the cases held that such jurisdiction could not be enlarged, and occasionally added by way of dictum that it could not be curtailed (see Standard Oil Co. v. State Board of Equal., supra, 6 Cal.2d 562). So here, if the Legislature had sought to provide that the writ of mandate might lie to compel a judicial act of a court, such as a particular decision on the merits in a particular litigated action, this would manifestly be an unconstitutional enlargement of the nature, function and scope of mandamus; and if the Legislature repealed section 1102 of the Code of Civil Procedure and the other statutes dealing with mandamus, and substituted a statute providing that no ministerial action by officers of any court could be compelled, this legislation would necessarily fall as an unconstitutional curtailment of the constitutional power to issue mandamus to compel performance of ministerial duty. But where the Legislature has not sought either to enlarge or curtail the jurisdiction to issue the writ, nor to change its nature or function, there is nothing unconstitutional in its regulation either of the procedure for invoking the writs or of the substantive rights of parties and the remedies available for their enforcement. The legislative enactment of reasonable procedural conditions precedent to invoking a particular remedy, or the substitution of one remedy (such as an action at law in the superior court) for another (such as a proceeding in mandamus), cannot be considered an interference with the jurisdiction over such remedies vested in courts by the Constitution.
The validity of section of 45.11(d) of the Unemployment Insurance Act is supported not only by these authorities, but also by what has long been accepted as the public policy of the federal, state and local governments. The fear that persistent interference with the collection of public revenues, for whatever reason, will destroy the effectiveness of government has been expressed in many judicial opinions. (See People v. Skinner, supra, (18 Cal.2d 349, 355 [115 P.2d 488, 149 A.L.R. 299].) As was said by Mr. Justice Field in Dows *732v. City of Chicago, 11 Wall. (78 U.S.) 108,110 [20 L.Ed. 65], “Any delay in the proceedings of the officer, upon whom the duty is devolved of collecting the taxes, may derange the operations of government, and thereby cause serious detriment to the public.” This policy is carried out in article XIII, section 15, of our Constitution, applying to nearly all of the important state taxes, and again in section 45.11(d) of the Unemployment Insurance Act, which repeats the constitutional prohibition against mandamus.
This policy, applicable to taxation generally, is even more vital in connection with the administration of the system of unemployment insurance. The Unemployment Insurance Act expressly provides for the creation, from the deposits of individual contributions, of a specific fund which is to be the source of benefits thereafter paid. (See §§ 19, 20, 25.) If proceedings which halt the collection of the tax were allowed to be brought before the payments are made, the power would be placed in the hands of employers to so delay the creation of the fund as to frustrate the purposes of the act. It has been expressly declared by this court that these purposes are of great public importance, and that procedural obstacles which would delay or prevent their fulfillment are to be avoided. (Abelleira v. District Court of Appeal, 17 Cal.2d 280, 298 [109 P.2d 942, 132 A.L.R. 715].)
The petitioner’s allegation that payment of the claims asserted against it will render it insolvent is one which could be made against any tax and can have no relevancy in a situation where this court, by express legislative provision, is prohibited from interfering in advance of payment of the tax. The argument that compliance with the statute may cause hardship in some instances is one which can be addressed only to the Legislature. Furthermore, the allegations show that petitioner never paid any of the sums required under the act although it was financially able to do so when the contributions should have been paid. It would be strange indeed if this court were to sanction a practice whereby a taxpayer could regularly refrain from paying taxes, the obligation of which he disputes, and then urge that, by reason of his large delinquency, the ordinary remedies provided for reviewing his liability are inadequate in his particular case.
It should be emphasized, in conclusion, that to accept the position of petitioner would not only result in impeding the collection of these contributions and in jeopardizing the state’s *733system of social security benefits; it would also have a far-reaching and destructive effect on the administration of justice. It would mean that every right which now, formerly or in the future might be enforceable by mandate or by the extraordinary writs would be a constitutional right beyond the reach of the Legislature and solely in the control of the courts. This prospect is made more alarming by the fact that the scope of the extraordinary writs was not clearly defined at common law. (See Gordon, Certiorari to An Ecclesiastical Court, 68 L.Q.Rev. 208, 212; note, 14 U.Chi.L.Rev. 270; Freund, Administrative Power Over Persons and Property, p. 261.)
Since it appears that the petitioner has no right under the federal or California Constitutions to obtain judicial review of his tax liability before he had paid the amount allegedly due, the Legislature can constitutionally provide that his only remedy is the suit to recover alleged overpayments, and it can prohibit the use of mandamus in advance of payment.
It follows that the judgment must be, and it is hereby, affirmed.
Shenk, J., Edmonds, J., Traynor, J., and Spence, J., concurred.