Los Angeles Unified School Dist. v. United Teachers

• Decision Date: 17 March 1972
• Docket Number: TEACHERS-LOS
• Citation: 100 Cal.Rptr. 806,24 Cal.App.3d 142
• Parties: , 80 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2437, 68 Lab.Cas. P 52,802 LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. UNITEDANGELES, aka UT/LA, et al., Defendants and Appellants. Civ. 36606.
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 806

100 Cal.Rptr. 806

24 Cal.App.3d 142, 80 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2437,

68 Lab.Cas. P 52,802

LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. UNITED TEACHERS-LOS ANGELES, aka UT/LA, et al., Defendants and Appellants.

Civ. 36606.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 5, California.

March 17, 1972.

Hearing Denied May 10, 1972.

Lawrence B. Trygstad, Donald W. O'Dell, Los Angeles, and Richard C. Anthony, Sacramento, for defendants and appellants.

John D. Maharg, County Counsel, Alfred Charles De Flon, Deputy County Counsel, and Jerry F. Halverson, Legal Adviser, Los Angeles, for plaintiff and respondent.

STEPHENS, Associate Justice.

This appeal is taken by defendants United Teachers-Los Angeles (UTLA) and certain of its officers and employees from a temporary restraining order ¹ enjoining defendants (including a vast number of Doe-defendants) from engaging in a teachers' strike against plaintiff Los Angeles Unified School District of Los Angeles County ² and from inducing plaintiff's schoolteacher employees to engage in such a strike.

The facts are that plaintiff School District, a public school district organized and operating pursuant to the laws of the State of California, filed an action seeking a temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction, and permanent injunction against defendants restraining them from striking or engaging in a work stoppage. Plaintiff's complaint alleged that defendants voted to and did commence a strike and work stoppage against plaintiff on April 13, 1970. In three separate declarations filed in support of its injunctive action, plaintiff stated: (1) that during the morning of April 13, 1970, a survey of junior and senior high schools in the district showed that 6,434 of the School District's 12,210 secondary teachers had not reported for work; (2) that 5,870 of the School District's elementary school teachers had not reported for work on that same day; (3) that the scheduled 1969--1970 school year was for 177 days; that if by reason of a teachers' strike the School District should become unable to operate its schools for 175 days during the school year, it might lose the right to its apportionment of $172,651,004 from the State School Fund, and that in addition thereto it would lose its entitlement to State School Fund apportionments of $1.19 per pupil-day for grades 1--3, inclusive; $1.02 per pupil-day for grades 4--8, inclusive; $0.91 per pupil-day for grades 9--12, inclusive; and $0.75 per pupil-day for 'defined adults.' An informal hearing was held in the chambers of the judge before whom the matter was pending, at which defendants appeared by way of counsel and filed declarations in opposition to the issuance of a temporary restraining order. Following the informal hearing, on April 13, 1970 the court issued its temporary restraining order and order to show cause re preliminary injunction. ³

Defendants' contentions on appeal are set forth in their brief as follows: '(T)he temporary injunction issued on April 13 1970 restraining the Appellant(s) from calling or engaging in a strike by school teachers against the (School District) is void on one of the following bases:

'(1) The temporary injunction prohibited a strike by school teachers against a School District on the basis that such a strike, Per se, is in violation of the common law of California.

'(2) The injunction is invalid on the basis that the Legislature has by statute authorized school teachers to engage in such a strike.

'(3) School teachers have a Constitutional right to engage in a strike as a matter of exercising their fundamental rights of free speech and association under the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.

'(4) School teachers have a Constitutional right to engage in a strike under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

'(5) The injunction that restrains a strike by school teachers is invalid on the basis that the Superior Court followed the doctrine that a strike by school teachers...