Court Opinion

ID: 9612464
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:09:04.209581+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:21.430453
License: Public Domain

SHENK, J., Dissenting.
I dissent.
The majority opinion and decision, when considered in connection with the decisions filed concurrently herewith in Gantner & Mattern Co. v. California Employment Com. (Sac. No. 5406, commenced December 5, 1939) and in Bodinson Manufacturing Co. v. California Employment Com. (Sac. No. 5407, commenced December 5, 1939), demonstrates the in*307congruity of the results which flow from the decisions in this group of cases.
In the Gantner & Mattern Company case, the District Court of Appeal regularly assumed jurisdiction to determine the right of the petitioner to the relief sought. That court issued an alternative writ of mandamus pursuant to its constitutional power (Const., art. VI, sec. 4b) and to sections 1084 to 1097 of the Code of Civil Procedure. No proceeding was commenced in this court or elsewhere to prohibit the District Court of Appeal from exercising its constitutional and statutory power in that proceeding. That court heard the matter on the merits on the petition and the return to the alternative writ and denied the peremptory writ, with opinion, and on the ground that the petitioner therein had not exhausted its statutory remedy. In due course the cause, transferred to this court for hearing and determination, has been decided by the majority on the same record presented to the District Court of Appeal and likewise on the merits and with the same result. For the purposes of this dissenting opinion, it matters not whether the District Court of Appeal denied or granted the peremptory writ. The fact is that this court has recognized the power of the District Court of Appeal to render a decision in that proceeding on the merits, and to have that proceeding pursue its constitutional course to this court and, in turn, this court has disposed of the proceeding on its merits.
In the present proceeding in prohibition, it appears that on December 16, 1939, the Matson Navigation Company and others commenced a mandamus proceeding in the same District Court of Appeal, wherein that court likewise issued an alternative writ and was proceeding to hear and determine the matter on a return to that writ and on a set of facts raising the identical issues on the merits as were involved in the Gantner & Mattern Company case. Yet this court in the present proceeding halted the prompt determination of the Matson Navigation Company ease and is now denying power in the District • Court of Appeal to dispose of that case in like manner as this court has now disposed of the Gantner & Mattern Co. case.
Furthermore, in the Bodinson Mfg. Co. case, this day filed, this court by a ruling on the merits, and to the same effect as determined by the District Court of Appeal, has decided that the petitioner therein had exhausted the statutory reme*308dies and was entitled to an order of this court compelling the commission to deny the claims for benefits therein involved on the ground that the claimants were ineligible under the act to receive them.
Yet, in the present proceeding, this court has declared that the District Court of Appeal is without jurisdiction to decide whether the Matson Navigation Company had exhausted its statutory remedies and, if so, to decide whether the claimants for benefits in that proceeding were eligible to receive the same, or if not to deny the relief sought, as it had done in the Gantner & Mattern Co. case.
From the foregoing the conclusion is unavoidable that if the District Court of Appeal in the first instance and this court on transfer had jurisdiction to pass upon the merits of the Gantner & Mattern Co. case, as conclusively appears by the course taken in that case, then the District Court of Appeal had jurisdiction to decide, on identical issues, the Matson Navigation Co. case. On the other hand, if the District Court of Appeal had no jurisdiction in the Matson Navigation Co. case (as has been decided), then it would necessarily follow that this court has no such jurisdiction, the petitioners in the mandamus proceeding are without remedy in the courts, and the commission allowed to proceed without the restraint universally recognized to be necessary in the proper application of administrative law.
The sole question presented in the present proceeding in prohibition is whether the District Court of Appeal has the power to decide a certain controversy pending before it. That question here is not whether the employees affected are or are not entitled to unemployment benefits, but whether the petitioners in the mandamus proceeding pending before the District Court of Appeal have stated a case which that court has jurisdiction to entertain and determine. In my opinion, that court has that power and to deny it by the issuance of a peremptory writ of prohibition is to deny to parties interested the right to seek redress in our courts against threatened unlawful action on the part of a state administrative board.
The case presented to the District Court of Appeal is one calling for a judicial determination of the powers of the Board under the statute of its creation. Particularly in that proceeding the problem is whether on the admitted facts the legislative remedy of appeal to the commission from the decision of the referee is adequate and, if not, whether it is not *309the legal duty of the California Employment Commission of its own motion, if need be, and contrary to its alleged intention, to set aside, pursuant to section 72 of the act, the decision of the referee' affirming the initial determination allowing benefits, and in any event to disallow such benefits, and thus prevent the alleged illegal payments from the unemployment fund.
In the mandamus proceeding, the District Court of Appeal was called upon to decide two principal questions:
First, whether under the undisputed facts found by or under the authority of the commission, the claimants for payments from the unemployment fund were eligible to receive the benefits. Section 56 (a) of the act provides:
“An individual is not eligible for benefits for unemployment, and no such benefits shall be payable to him under any of the following conditions: (a) If he left his work because of a trade dispute and for the period during which he continues out of work by reason of the fact that the trade dispute is still in active progress in the establishment in which he was employed.”
It is contended in the mandamus proceeding that the claimants, petitioners here, are not eligible for benefits under the foregoing section and under the facts found by, as distinguished from the conclusions of, the commission’s referee. The question of the legal duty of the commission under the law and the facts was there squarely presented for that court’s determination. The claimants have taken the position that the decisions of the commission allowing and directing the payment of benefits are beyond judicial review. Indeed, on oral argument counsel for the commission expressed this view. It cannot be true that this is the attitude of the members of the commission, who are public officers acting as trustees of a public fund which now contains an enormous amount of money collected from the employers and employees of the state for a specific purpose, namely, for the relief of employees who have been subjected to involuntary unemployment and who are eligible under the law to receive benefits. If the commission persists in payment to those who are ineligible to receive benefits, as is alleged in the pending mandamus proceeding, approximately a half million dollars will be unlawfully paid out of a fund whose beneficial and lawful administration was mistakenly anticipated in the litigation which resulted in declaring the constitutionality of the act under which the *310commission was created and is functioning. (Gillum v. Johnson, 7 Cal. (2d) 744 [62 Pac. (2d) 1037, 63 Pac. (2d) 810, 108 A. L. R. 595].)
To hold that a commission set up by a statute of this state with the highly important and responsible duties of the Employment Commission is not amenable to judicial process in the pending mandamus proceeding would be to constitute the commission an autocratic body whose functioning is uncontrolled by any consideration except its own whim and caprice. Such of course is not the law of this state, nor of any other jurisdiction, state or federal. In this state the District Court of Appeal has constitutional and statutory authority to direct public officers to perform their duties under the law. (Const., art. VI, sec. 4b; secs. 1084-1097, Code Civ. Proc.) That power is coextensive with the same, power reposed in this court except that the decision of that court is subject to review by this court by appropriate order of transfer. It is contended that not only under section 56 (a) of this act are the petitioners herein ineligible to receive the claimed benefits, but that section 67 also prescribes that benefits shall be paid only to claimants who are eligible to receive them. To deny to the District Court of Appeal the right and power to decide whether the petitioners herein are or are not eligible under the statute and the admitted facts would be deliberately to shut our eyes to an alleged arbitrary, flagrant and unlawful assumption of power by the Employment Commission.
In my opinion there is not the slightest doubt that a justiciable controversy within its jurisdiction has been presented to the District Court of Appeal and that the issues there tendered present for determination also the question whether the petitioners before that court had exhausted their statutory remedies before the commission. This is the second principal question on the merits involved in the pending mandamus proceeding.
The majority opinion holds that the District Court of Appeal is without jurisdiction because the mandamus proceeding was prematurely brought in that the petitioners therein had not exhausted their remedies before the commission. It is noted that the Adjustment Unit of the Division of Unemployment Compensation in the department of the ^ commission granted the application of the employees, petitioners herein, for the payment of benefits. Certain of their employers appealed from the determination of the Adjustment Unit under *311section 67 of the act. ‘ The commission designated a referee to hear the appeal pursuant to section 69. On that appeal the referee found the facts. The petitioners in the District Court of Appeal claim that those facts showed conclusively and as a matter of law that the claimants were ineligible to receive the benefits. But the referee concluded that the claimants were eligible to receive benefits and affirmed the initial determination of the Adjustment Unit. Section 72 of the act provides :
“Any party to a decision by a referee may appeal to the Commission from such decision. The Commission may on its own motion affirm, modify, or set aside any decision of a referee on the basis of the evidence previously submitted in such case, or direct the taking of additional evidence ...”
The majority say the District Court of Appeal has no jurisdiction in the mandamus proceeding because the petitioners liad not taken and prosecuted to a final conclusion an appeal from the decision of the referee to the commission under section 72 of the act. Section 67 of the act provides for an appeal from an initial determination and then provides:
“If an appeal is duly filed benefits with respect to the period prior to the final decision on appeal shall be paid only after such decision, except as herein provided.” Then follows the exception which is the crux of this phase of the present controversy. It reads: “If a referee affirms an initial determination allowing benefits,. such benefits shall be paid regardless of any appeal which may thereafter be taken, but if such determination is finally reversed no employer’s account shall be charged with benefits so paid as to each such determination so reversed. ’ ’
The main opinion decides as a matter of law that an employer must take and pursue to conclusion this last appeal to the commission before he may seek redress from the courts, notwithstanding the presence of an immediately enforceable order for alleged illegal expenditures from the unemployment trust fund. It is clear to me that a bona fide controversy is presented in the mandamus proceeding on the question whether the remedy provided by the statute for an appeal to the commission is an adequate statutory remedy as required by law, inasmuch as the benefits must be immediately paid notwithstanding the pendency of such appeal. It is of course well established that when the legislative department has set up an administrative board to ascertain the facts and to take *312action thereon and has provided in the statute for hearings, rehearings, appeals and other proceedings before the board prior to its final decision, an interested party must exhaust his administrative remedies before he may resort to the courts for a redress of his grievances. But it is equally well settled that the statutory remedies before the board must be both appropriate and adequate. (See Myers v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, 303 U. S. 41 [58 Sup. Ct. 459, 82 L. Ed. 638]; National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1 [57 Sup. Ct. 615, 81 L. Ed. 893, 108 A. L. R. 1352.) To provide for an appeal to the commission from a decision of the referee would certainly appear to be appropriate. But whether the appeal to the commission provided for by this particular statute is adequate, under the circumstances presented to the District Court of Appeal, is a judicial question. The argument against the adequacy of the remedy provided by the final appeal to the commission is that since the benefits must be paid immediately upon affirmance by the referee and notwithstanding the pendency of such appeal to the commission from the order of affirmance, the subject matter of the court controversy, namely, the alleged illegality of the payments by reason of powers usurped by the commission expressly prohibited by the act, has evaporated and the question has become moot; that is, unless the court may intervene to prevent the alleged illegal payments from 'the trust fund, the express mandate of the statute will be violated and the unlawful action of the board placed beyond judicial scrutiny and control; that power reposed in an administrative board does not constitute it an autocratic body to the extent that it may, uncontrolled and with impunity, exercise its power contrary to the provisions of the act which created it; that it is well settled that “whether the Commission applies the legislative standards validly set up, whether it acts within the authority conferred or goes beyond it, whether its proceedings satisfy the pertinent demands of due process, whether, in short, there is compliance with the legal requirements which fix the province of the Commission and govern its action, are appropriate questions for judicial decision.’’ (Federal Radio Com. v. Nelson Bros. etc. Co., 289 U. S. 266, 276 [53 Sup. Ct. 627, 77 L. Ed. 1166, 89 A. L. R. 406]; Federal Communications Com. v. The Pottsville Broadcasting Co., 309 U. S. 134 [60 Sup. Ct. 437, 440, 84 L. Ed. 656]); that prima facie the petition for the writ of mandamus before the *313District Court of Appeal presents a case of a threatened enforcement of an order on the part of the commission which will violate the express legislative mandate, which is a prerequisite to valid payments within the rule repeatedly announced by the Supreme Court of the United States; that the so-called remedy by appeal to the commission from the order of affirmance of the referee is just as inadequate and futile as would be a statutory right of appeal from a judgment for money where a stay pending appeal is expressly denied the appellant and with a further statutory mandate that notwithstanding the pendency of the appeal the money must be paid, and the judgment satisfied; that it is no valid answer to this argument that the statute provides that in the event the commission on appeal should reverse the order of the referee “No employer’s account shall be charged with the benefits so paid”, for the reason that the employer as a contributor to the trust fund has an additional interest in preserving the integrity of that fund as against illegal expenditure and dissipation thereof contrary to the express provisions of the act.
The foregoing arguments urged on behalf of the respondents are addressed to the merits of the controversy pending before the District Court of Appeal and are mentioned solely for the purpose of indicating that there is clearly a question of law presented to that court in a matter in which it has jurisdiction of both the parties and the subject matter under the Constitution and laws of this state.
The majority say that the provision for payment of benefits pending appeal, when an initial determination for payment has been affirmed by the referee, was designed to carry out the policy declared in section 1 of alleviating the evils of unemployment, as part of a legislative plan of social security. This may be true where the payments are to persons eligible to receive the same under the act. But where the fact of ineligibility is concededly established and payments are threatened to be made to persons expressly excluded by the provisions of the act, do the majority still mean to say that such payments will carry out the legislative plan? The majority also say that to permit these “justifiable and necessary” payments to be postponed for long periods would defeat the objectives of the act. Would it defeat the objectives of the act to halt payments of benefits expressly forbidden by the act? On the contrary, would it not defeat the objectives of *314the act to permit payments of benefits expressly so forbidden? The legislature did not leave any question for determination to the referee or the commission when the facts unquestionably disclose ineligibility on the part of claimants to receive payment of benefits. The provisions of the act direct the commission and leave it no alternative.
Finally, the writ of prohibition should not issue if there is a “plain, speedy, and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law” (sec. 1103, Code Civ. Proc.). The petitioners herein would have had such a remedy by petition to this court for a hearing after decision by the District Court of Appeal, if they had been dissatisfied with that decision. If the result in the mandamus proceeding had been the same in that court as in the Gantner & Mattern Co. case, as seems likely, it is fair to assume that the petitioners herein would not have been in a position to complain. In any event, if the mandamus proceeding had been allowed to take its usual course by decision in the District Court of Appeal and petition to this court, as the “plain, speedy, and adequate remedy” provided by the Constitution, the long drawn-out process of the present proceeding for over a year and the consequent uncertainty of jurisdiction of District Courts of Appeal resulting from the majority opinion would have been avoided.
Ward, J., pro tem., concurred.