California Sch. Employees Assoc. v. Vista Unified Sch. Dist.
| Decision Date | 21 December 2011 |
| Docket Number | D058123 |
| Parties | CALIFORNIA SCHOOL EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION, et al., Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. VISTA UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al., Defendants and Appellants. |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
Super. Ct. No. 37-2009-00057592- CU-PT-NC
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of San Diego County, Thomas Nugent, Judge. Affirmed.
Debra Gil and her union, California School Employees Association (CSEA), filed a petition for writ of mandate requesting that Gil's former employer, Vista Unified School District (the District), be ordered to pay her $6,412.07 in statutory industrial accident leave benefits for the time when she was on leave due to a work-related injury. She claimed that while she was on industrial accident leave, the District wrongfully withheld these benefits by placing her on unpaid administrative leave due to the expiration of acertificate needed for her job as a school bus driver. The trial court granted Gil's writ petition, finding that the expiration of her bus driver certificate did not bar her from receiving the industrial accident leave benefits.
Challenging the court's ruling on appeal, the District argues (1) Gil was required to exhaust her internal remedies under the parties' collective bargaining agreement before filing a court action, and (2) Gil is not entitled to the industrial accident leave benefits because she was suspended from her employment. We reject these contentions and affirm the judgment.
Gil began working for the District as a school bus driver in 1989. On April 18, 2008, she was involved in a bus accident during the course of her employment. She filed a workers' compensation claim and began receiving workers' compensation benefits equal to about two-thirds of her normal salary. The industrial accident leave benefits which were not paid to Gil are set forth in the Education Code and approximate the remaining one-third of her normal salary.
School bus drivers are required to have a valid school bus driver certificate, and Gil's certificate was set to expire on April 29, 2008. Three days after Gil's accident, on April 21, 2008, the District's transportation director sent Gil a letter stating that her certificate was due to expire on April 29; she needed 10 or more hours of training to be eligible to test for renewal of the certificate; there were no open positions to which she could be demoted; and a dismissal recommendation would be sent to human resources.
Two days later, the District's human resources director sent Gil a letter stating that her last day of paid administrative leave would be April 28, 2008 (the date her school bus driver certificate would expire), and that effective April 29 she would be on unpaid administrative leave pending reinstatement of her certificate. She was advised of the campus location where she could attend the bus driver class.
After receiving these communications, Gil apparently satisfied some, but not all, of the requirements to renew her school bus driver certificate. On July 23, 2008, the District's transportation director sent Gil a letter giving her a "grace period" until August 15, 2008, to renew the certificate. The letter stated that if she did not complete the renewal by that date, she could take a voluntary demotion to a transportation assistant (if there was an opening); otherwise, dismissal would be recommended. On December 22, 2008, the District's human resources coordinator sent Gil a notice of intent to dismiss her because her bus driver certificate had expired on April 28, 2008, and had not been renewed.
During the time period of these communications from the District concerning her school bus driver certificate, Gil had not been released by a doctor to return to work and she remained on industrial accident leave.
On December 23, 2008, CSEA sent the District a letter protesting its action of placing Gil on unpaid administrative leave without following the required due process procedures. CSEA requested that the District pay Gil the industrial accident leave benefits owed to her under the relevant collective bargaining and Education Code provisions.
On December 27, 2008, Gil requested a Skelly 1 hearing on the District's notice of intent to dismiss her. However, she was still not released to return to work, and she subsequently decided to retire. On January 6, 2009, she sent the District a notice stating that she was retiring effective January 10, 2009. Based on Gil's decision to retire, the District cancelled the Skelly hearing and did not continue with the termination process.
On January 9, 2009, the District denied CSEA's request for payment of the leave benefits to Gil.
On February 2, 2009, CSEA and Gil2 filed a public entity claim against the District, stating the District had violated the Education Code by failing to keep Gil on paid status and failing to pay her the industrial leave benefits required by the Education Code from April 29, 2008, until the date of her retirement in January 2009. The District denied the claim.
Thereafter, Gil filed a petition for writ of mandate requesting that the District be ordered to pay the leave benefits mandated by the Education Code. In opposition, the District argued that Gil's claim should be denied because she was required to exhaust the grievance and arbitration remedies in the parties' collective bargaining agreement. On themerits, the District asserted she was not entitled to the industrial leave benefits because she was no longer qualified for her job due to the expiration of her bus driver certificate.3
In reply, Gil argued she was not required to first file a grievance because she was asserting her statutory rights under the Education Code which existed independently of the collective bargaining agreement. She contended the District had no right to cut off statutory leave benefits payable to an employee who is on industrial accident leave due to the coincidental expiration of a work-related certificate. She asserted there was nothing in the Education Code making the industrial accident leave benefits contingent on the maintenance of a job certificate or license; termination of industrial leave benefits based on the expiration of a certificate would defeat the legislative purpose of providing the injured employee time to heal without loss of employment; and actions based on the nonrenewal of a certificate or license would be appropriate when the employee is able to return to work but not while the employee is on industrial accident leave.
The trial court concluded Gil was not required to file a grievance under the collective bargaining agreement before filing the court action. The court found Gil was entitled to the industrial leave benefits even though her bus driver certificate expired during her industrial leave, noting the District had "cited no authority requiring an employee on leave recovering from injuries to take efforts to maintain or renew licensesor certificates." Accordingly, the court ordered the District to pay Gil the $6,412.07 she was owed as paid leave from April 29, 2008, to January 10, 2009.
A petitioner seeking issuance of a writ of mandate must show that a respondent has failed to perform an act despite a clear, present, and ministerial duty to do so, and that the petitioner has a clear, present and beneficial right to that performance. (Code Civ. Proc., § 1085, subd. (a); Hendrix v. Superior Court (2011) 191 Cal.App.4th 889, 893.) " 'A ministerial act is an act that a public officer is required to perform in a prescribed manner in obedience to the mandate of legal authority and without regard to his own judgment or opinion concerning such act's propriety or impropriety, when a given state of facts exists.' " (Kavanaugh v. West Sonoma County Union High School Dist. (2003) 29 Cal.4th 911, 916.)
Although the usual remedy for failure to pay wages owing to an employee is an action for breach of contract, the courts have concluded that a public employee may use mandamus procedures when the amount of the claim is fixed by law and the act of drawing and paying the warrant is a ministerial duty. (Tevis v. City & County of San Francisco (1954) 43 Cal.2d 190, 198-199 (Tevis); A.B.C. Federation of Teachers v. A.B.C. Unified Sch. Dist. (1977) 75 Cal.App.3d 332, 341-342.) Further, " 'mandamus is a proper remedy where the dispute concerns the proper construction of a statute or ordinance giving rise to the official duty to pay the salary claim.' " (A.B.C. Federation of Teachers, supra, at p. 342; Tevis, supra, at p. 198; California School Employees Assn. v.Torrance Unified School Dist. (2010) 182 Cal.App.4th 1040, 1044; 8 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (5th ed. 2008) Extraordinary Writs, §§ 90, 91, pp. 978-981.)
The statute invoked by Gil in her writ petition, Education Code4 section 45192, sets forth a detailed scheme concerning industrial accident leave payments to employees who are injured on the job. Section 45192 states that school districts must provide at least 60 working days of annual paid industrial accident leave; the leave must commence on the first day of absence; and the payments must not exceed the employee's normal daily wages when added to a workers' compensation award. (§ 45192, subds. (a), (c), (d).) When the employee has exhausted the industrial accident leave, other leave benefits (including paid sick leave and vacation leave) are then used, in an amount that does not exceed the normal daily wages when added to the workers' compensation award. (§ 45192, subd. (f).) Other sections of the Education...
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