Court Opinion

ID: 9603139
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:03:39.457442+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:08.893609
License: Public Domain

RICHARDSON, J.,
Concurring and Dissenting. — I concur in the judgments, but for reasons quite different from those of the majority. Under the Berkeley City Charter, as currently worded, nonjudicial limitations on *454the city manager’s absolute power and discretion to discharge public employees are governed exclusively by the established civil service ordinance, rules and regulations adopted by authority of the charter. Hence, that power cannot be further delegated or circumscribed in a negotiated memorandum of understanding which provides an arbitration process directly contrary to governing law.
Article VII, section 28, of the charter vests the city manager with the “power and duty” to “appoint, discipline and remove” subordinate city employees, without interference by the city council or its agents, and “subject to the civil service provisions of this Charter.” As the majority concedes, these “civil service provisions” (now art. XVI, § 119) authorize establishment of a “personnel system” to be “administer[ed]” by a “personnel board” under “rules and regulations to be made by the council.”
Fairly read together, these charter provisions give the city manager sole authority over hiring and firing, subject only to action by a personnel board (board) which supervises the civil service system under the council’s rules and regulations. The council’s power to delegate or circumscribe the city manager’s disciplinary authority is thus limited by the terms of the charter, the “supreme” law of the city. (See Harman v. City and County of San Francisco (1972) 7 Cal.3d 150, 161 [101 Cal.Rptr. 880, 496 P.2d 1248]; Bagley v. City of Manhattan Beach (1976) 18 Cal.3d 22, 26 [132 Cal.Rptr. 668, 553 P.2d 1140].)
From the foregoing it seems apparent that the charter may not prevent the council from establishing, through properly adopted ordinances and rules, a board-supervised grievance procedure utilizing arbitration. The council, however, has chosen to implement the charter in another way. The city’s personnel ordinance (Ord. No. 2342-NS, hereafter ordinance) confirms the city manager’s authority over “transfers, promotions, demotions, reinstatements, layoffs,” suspensions and dismissals of covered employees, “subject to” the provisions of the ordinance and subordinate rules arid regulations (rules). (§ 4.) In turn, the rules (Res. No. 34,480-NS) state that employees may be discharged “at any time by the City Manager” for cause. (Rule XV, § 1.) Considered together, the Ordinance and rules invest the board with power to investigate and hear employee disciplinary matters. (Ord., §§ 12, 13(a); rules XV, § 1, XVI.) The ordinance clearly provides that the rules are to “govern” dismissal of employees (§ 6(h)) and “shall set forth the procedure for the hearing of *455complaints made by employees in the competitive service.” (§ 13(a), italics added.) Nowhere in the charter, ordinance or rules is provision made for binding arbitration of employee grievances.
The charter, ordinance and rules thus clearly establish that the city manager’s sole disciplinary authority is reviewable only by the board. The memorandum of understanding, on the other hand, routes grievances by members of appellant association through a separate “adjustment board” and ultimately to binding arbitration. The personnel board is nowhere involved. Thus, as the majority concedes, the memorandum agreement completely bypasses the disciplinary procedures provided under the civil service system.
Official acts which conflict with a city’s charter are void. (City and County of San Francisco v. Cooper (1975) 13 Cal.3d 898, 923-924 [120 Cal.Rptr. 707, 534 P.2d 403]; Brown v. City of Berkeley (1976) 57 Cal.App.3d 223, 230-233 [129 Cal.Rptr. 1].) A public agency or officer may not delegate discretionary functions in the absence of appropriate legislative authorization. (Bagley v. City of Manhattan Beach, supra, 18 Cal.3d at pp. 24-25; California Sch. Employees Assn. v. Personnel Commission (1970) 3 Cal.3d 139, 144 [89 Cal.Rptr. 620, 474 P.2d 436].) A public employer may not negotiate employee benefits which directly conflict with a statute (Miller v. State of California (1977) 18 Cal.3d 808, 814 [135 Cal.Rptr. 386, 557 P.2d 970]) or charter (City and County of San Francisco v. Cooper, supra, at pp. 919-924) even where, as here, the negotiations take place under “meet and confer” provisions of a state law governing public sector labor relations (id., at p. 922). In fact, the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act, under which the instant memorandum agreement was negotiated, expressly provides that it does not supersede local charters, ordinances and rules governing merit of civil service systems. (Gov. Code, § 3500.)
The majority stresses the fact that the city manager himself negotiated and approved both the original memorandum of understanding and the submission agreement under which this case was subjected to arbitration. However, as the foregoing cases explain, the no-delegation doctrine applies with as much force to the improper allocation by a public executive of his administrative powers, as to the surrender by a governing body of its legislative control. (Ibid.)
The majority insists that the charter invests only “initial” discretion over discipline in the city manager, and does not expressly preclude the *456council or city manager from ratifying arbitration as a means of reviewing that discretion, which would in any event be subject to judicial scrutiny. This interpretation must be adopted, the majority declares, in deference to the policy favoring arbitration.
I cannot agree. The charter does indeed vest initial discretion in the city manager. However, contrary to the majority’s view, that document, together with its implementing ordinance and rules, unambiguously limits the ways in which that discretion may be delegated or circumscribed. Though a public entity may normally agree to binding arbitration in lieu of judicial review (see Code Civ. Proc., § 1281; Viola, Inc. v. Santa Barbara High Sch. Dist. (1969) 276 Cal.App.2d 425, 427-428 [80 Cal.Rptr. 784]), here the exclusive procedures for nonjudicial appeal are set forth in the city’s laws and arbitration is not included. (Bagley, supra, 18 Cal.3d at p. 26.) There may be, as the majority contends, valid policy reasons for compulsory arbitration, and the people of Berkeley may be well advised to authorize it. But they have not done so yet.
The majority asserts that the memorandum of understanding simply creates an “alternate method” of grievance resolution applicable only to association members. The problem presented by the argument, however, is that the city’s personnel ordinance expressly includes police officers among the employees covered by its provisions. (§ 7.)
Appellants do not suggest that the ratification of the memorandum of understanding substantially conformed to the requirements for any amendment of governing law. (See City and County of San Francisco v. Cooper, supra, 13 Cal.3d 898, 931; Walker v. County of Los Angeles (1961) 55 Cal.2d 626, 639 [12 Cal.Rptr. 671, 361 P.2d 247]; City and County of S.F. v. Boyd (1943) 22 Cal.2d 685, 692 [140 P.2d 666].) Indeed, the ordinance, besides establishing the board’s sole jurisdiction over grievances, requires the board’s participation in any amendment of the civil service rules. (§§ 5(c), 6.) The charter, of course, may only be amended by vote of the people. (Gov. Code, § 34459.)
The majority emphasizes the city’s “concession” that preliminary fact-finding, constituting a ministerial task, may properly be delegated to an arbitrator. (See, e.g., California Sch. Employees Assn., supra, 3 Cal.3d at p. 144.) However, where the charter so explicitly provides a different means of grievance resolution, the rule permitting ministerial delegation does not apply. In any event, at issue here is an agreement under which the entire issue of proper discipline is submitted to arbitration. The *457majority’s reasoning, that any concession of partial arbitrability validates this entire proceeding, is manifestly improper.
The majority describes arbitration as a promising means of resolving public sector labor disputes. However, the citizens of Berkeley have chosen another method of administering their civil service system. They have opted for a procedure in which the lines of disciplinary authority are clear and grievances are fairly and efficiently resolved by a single expert agency applying uniform standards. These goals may also represent desirable public policy. (See, e.g., Boren v. State Personnel Board (1951) 37 Cal.2d 634, 641 [234 P.2d 981].) It is not for us, as judges, but for the people themselves, to decide the contrary. I would conclude that the arbitration procedure provided in the memorandum of understanding contravenes the charter and ordinances of the City of Berkeley, and is therefore void.
I believe, however, that, on the particular facts of this case, the city is equitably estopped to deny liability under the arbitration award. Through its council, the city purported to ratify the original memorandum of understanding. The city manager executed an agreement submitting this case to arbitration; contrary to the city’s position, the agreement clearly placed the entire matter of proper discipline of appellant Crane before the arbitrator. Under these circumstances, appellants could reasonably rely on the city’s apparent authority and intent to cooperate. In doing so, they forfeited other avenues of administrative and judicial review which were available to them.
No public policy is served by preventing confirmation of the award in this case. Accordingly, I concur in the judgments of reversal. (City of Long Beach v. Mansell (1970) 3 Cal.3d 462, 493-501 [91 Cal.Rptr. 23, 476 P.2d 423].)
Clark, J., and Manuel, J., concurred.