Court Opinion

ID: 9557807
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 16:57:55.531452+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:07:14.168747
License: Public Domain

RICHARDSON, J.
I respectfully dissent. In my view, the maxims of legislative construction cited by the majority undermine, rather than support, its ultimate conclusions. The 1969 amendments to Education Code section 13506 (now § 45028), reasonably interpreted, do not overturn the well settled principles that the statutory requirement of “uniform” experience ratings is subject to “reasonable classification” (e.g., Rible v. Hughes (1944) 24 Cal.2d 437, 444 [150 P.2d 455, 154 A.L.R. 137]; Fry v. Board of Education (1941) 17 Cal.2d 753, 757-758 [112 P.2d 229]) and that a school district need not recompute the experience ratings of veteran teachers each time it applies a new experience-rating policy to incoming employees (Sayre v. Board of Trustees (1970) 9 Cal.App.3d 488, 496 [88 Cal.Rptr. 355]).
The majority reasons as follows: since the prior statutory language provided only that “[ujniform allowance may be made” for years of training and years of experience, “uniformity” was not mandatory, but only permissible; this, in turn, permitted the courts to construct a “reasonable classification” gloss over the statute. By changing the word “may” to “shall,” the 1969 amendments imposed absolute uniformity in classification for the first time and thereby removed any basis for a “reasonable classification” doctrine.
The flaw in the argument lies in its first major premise. Even under prior law, “uniformity” was a mandatory feature of any training-experience classification system covered by the statute; the “reasonable classification” exception was imposed despite that fact. The 1969 amendments, while serving an important purpose which I will describe, therefore could not have had the effect urged by the majority.
As the majority properly observes, we begin any analysis of legislative change by assessing the prior law as judicially interpreted. Examination of former section 13506 is best accomplished by analyzing its component *667parts. Thus, the lead sentence provided: “In cities, teachers of beginners shall be ranked in the salary schedule with the highest salaried teachers in the elementary grades of equal training and experience.” This sentence, by its plain meaning, established the general principle that elementary-level teachers would not suffer salary discrimination solely because they taught the very lowest grades, but must be classified for salary purposes with other elementary teachers of equal experience and training.
Section 13506 next declared: “Uniform allowance may be made in any schedule of salaries for years of training and for years of service.” (Italics added.) By its use of the word “may,” this sentence authorized districts to set up salary classifications for all teachers based on differences in education and experience, but did not require them to do so. If, however, a district chose to establish such classifications, they must be “uniform.” That both the “equal ranking” and “uniformity” provisions were mandatory is shown by the third sentence of the section, which prohibited the drawing of any teacher salary warrant in violation of the statutory directives.
The cases interpreting former section 13506 so construed the statute. Thus, in Fry v. Board of Education, supra, 17 Cal.2d 753, after noting a school board’s general discretion to fix salaries, we said, “However, it must ... be conceded that the legislature had enjoined on [school] . . . Boards, within reasonable limits, the principle of uniformity of treatment as to salary for those performing like services with like experience .... This limitation, however, does not prevent the Board from making reasonable classifications.” (Id., at pp. 757-758, italics added.)
We spoke even more clearly in Rible v. Hughes, supra, 24 Cal.2d 437, where we observed, “Although it would appear that, as [plaintiff] . . . asserts, section 5.734 of the School Code [the similarly worded predecessor of § 13506] requires uniformity in any schedule of salaries making allowance for years of training and service, nevertheless, uniformity is not violated by a reasonable classification. [Citing Fry, supra.]” (Id., at p. 445, italics added.) Subsequent cases interpreting former section 13506 consistently reaffirmed this general principle that any allowance made for training and experience must be “uniform,” but might nonetheless be subject to “reasonable classification.” (See San Diego Federation of Teachers v. Board of Education (1963) 216 Cal.App.2d 758, 762 [31 Cal.Rptr. 146]; Lawe v. El Monte School Dist. (1968) 267 Cal.App.2d 20, 22 [72 Cal.Rptr. 554]; Shoban v. Board of Trustees (1969) 276 Cal.App.2d *668534, 541 [81 Cal.Rptr. 112]; Sayre v. Board of Trustees, supra, 9 Cal.App.3d 488, 491.)
Thus, the “reasonable classification” doctrine did not develop, as the majority suggests, from a notion that, under prior law, experience-training classifications need not be “uniform.” Rather, it flowed from a realization that literal interpretation of the “uniformity” requirement would lead to unrealistic, inequitable, even absurd, results.
As the majority notes for its own purposes, the Legislature must be presumed to be aware of the judicial history of section 13506 and its predecessors when it enacted the 1969 amendments. These several changes are examined.
The amendments deleted the first two sentences of the prior version and replaced them with the following: “Effective July 1, 1970, each person employed by a district [as a teacher] . . . shall be classified ... on the basis of uniform allowance for years of training and years of experience. Employees shall not be placed in different classifications on the schedule, nor paid different salaries, solely on the basis of the respective grade levels in which such employees serve.” (Italics added.) Read in the context of prior law, the first sentence of the amended statute simply extends the required use of education-experience classifications to secondary teachers, for whom such classifications had previously been optional, as well as elementary teachers. The rule that any such classification established under the section be “uniform,” however, is not changed, since, as we have seen, such “uniformity” was also mandatory under prior law. Finally, by the second sentence of the amendment, the Legislature dealt with a related but distinct issue—salary classifications based on grade level taught—and extended protection against that particular brand of discrimination to junior high and high school teachers.
Contrary to the majority’s contention, this construction is not undermined by the rule against surplusage (Select Base Materials v. Board of Equal. (1959) 51 Cal.2d 640, 645 [335 P.2d 627]; Watkins v. Real Estate Commissioner (1960) 182 Cal.App.2d 397, 400 [6 Cal.Rptr. 191]), since each sentence of the amendment serves a separate function. Nor does the “statement of purpose” enacted by the Legislature in amending section 13506 (Stats. 1969, ch. 1314, § 3, p. 2651) support the majority position. This statement declares that the legislative intent, is “to establish a uniform base salary schedule in each school district” (italics added) while *669not discouraging the use of “pay incentive programs.” However, despite a judicial history which had engrafted a “reasonable classification” interpretation on the term “uniform” as previously used in section 13506, the declaration, like amended section 13506 itself, continues to employ that term without explanation or qualification. Where a word has been the subject of frequent judicial construction, its use in a subsequent legislative enactment is almost irrebuttably presumed to import the “precise and technical” meaning previously given by the courts. (People v. Curtis (1969) 70 Cal.2d 347, 355 [74 Cal.Rptr. 713, 450 P.2d 33]; City of Long Beach v. Marshall (1938) 11 Cal.2d 609, 620 [82 P.2d 362].) I must therefore conclude that the “uniform” salary structure imposed by the Legislature in 1969 is, as under prior law, subject to “reasonable classification.”
I would therefore hold that the 1969 amendments to section 13506 had no effect on prior judicial authority permitting “reasonable” variations from strict “uniformity” in training-experience classifications. As our courts have recognized for nearly 40 years, such an interpretation comports with common sense, for any other would lead to results the Legislature cannot have intended. (See People v. Barksdale (1972) 8 Cal.3d 320, 334 [105 Cal.Rptr. 1, 503 P.2d 257].) To require rerating of all teachers in the district each time the experience-credit policy for new teachers is changed would obviously discourage the district from exercising its undoubted authority to set and alter its salary practices to conform to current needs. (See Ed. Code, § 13502 [now §§ 45022, 87801].) “ ‘Obviously, any time there is a change of policy, it creates a lack of uniformity in the sense that teachers who become members of the department while one policy is in effect are treated differently from teachers who become members of the department while a new policy is in effect. Such lack of “uniformity” is inevitable as a school board progresses with the needs of various periods and accordingly changes its policy.’ ” (Sayre v. Board of Trustees, supra, 9 Cal.App.3d at p. 491, quoting Aebli v. Board of Education (1944) 62 Cal.App.2d 706, 757 [145 P.2d 601].) It seems to me that the majority’s vague allusions to “equitable treatment,” while appealing, do not overcome this problem.
Moreover, literal application of the majority’s position would force downward revision of existing experience credits to conform to a subsequent, more stringent credit policy. The majority dismisses this problem by saying it is not now before us. However, in these days of declining enrollments and teacher surpluses, such circumstances seem *670bound to arise and, perhaps, to prevail. In any event, the court in Aebli v. Board of Education, supra, did face the question 34 years ago. The Aebli court rejected the interpretation now adopted by the majority, in large part because it found that an inequitable downward rerating could be the inescapable result of a literal “uniformity” requirement (62 Cal.App.2d 706, 757-758.)
We could conclude, of course, as the Aebli court did in effect, that veteran teachers acquire “vested rights” in their experience credit ratings, such that downward rerating is not permissible, despite the statutory requirement of “uniform” classification. Accordingly, veteran teachers would obtain the advantage of all more liberal policies subsequently adopted by the district, but would be insulated from the effects of more stringent ones. Such a result would, of course, inevitably discriminate against newer teachers despite a statute which, in the majority’s view, seeks to establish absolute “uniformity.”
I believe the majority, by misapplying the principles of legislative construction, has erred in its interpretation of amended section 13506. In my view, the statutory requirement that salary distinctions based on training and experience be “uniform” remains subject to “reasonable classification”; I further conclude that the distinction between new and veteran teachers employed by respondent district in this case is “reasonable.” (Sayre, supra, 9 Cal.App.3d at p. 491.) I would therefore reverse the judgment.
Clark, J., concurred.