City and County of San Francisco v. Cooper

Decision Date04 April 1975
Docket NumberS.F. 23210
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
Parties, 534 P.2d 403, 89 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2262, 76 Lab.Cas. P 53,674 CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO et al., Petitioners, v. Nathan B. COOPER, as Controller, etc., Respondent; George A. BANGS et al., Real Parties in Interest.

Thomas M. O'Connor, City Atty., and George E. Baglin, Deputy City Atty., for petitioners.

Evelle J. Younger, Atty. Gen., Carl Boronkay, Asst. Atty. Gen., Anthony C. Joseph and Anthony M. Summers, Deputy Attys. Gen., as amici curiae for petitioners.

Nathan B. Cooper, in pro per.

Littler, Mendelson & Fastiff, J. Richard Thesing, William C. Wright, Nancy L. Ober, Van Bourg, Allen, Weinberg, Williams & Roger, Levy, Van Bourg & Hackler, Victor J. Van Bourg, Stewart Weinberg, David A. Rosenfeld, Reynold H. Colvin, and Jacobs, Blanckenburg, May & Colvin, San Francisco, for real parties in interest.

William L. Ferdon, Robert W. Tollen and Chickering & Gregory, San Francisco, as amici curiae.

TOBRINER, Justice.

In March 1974 numerous workers employed by the City and County of San Francisco and a large number of school teachers employed by the San Francisco Unified School District went on strike in protest of salary and fringe benefit proposals then under consideration for the upcoming 1974--1975 fiscal year. During the course of the two strikes, discussions were undertaken between employee association representatives and representatives of the two municipal employers, the city and the school district. Ultimately these 'meet and confer' or negotiating sessions culminated in the adoption of separate legislative measures by the board of supervisors and the governing board of the school district.

Shortly after the enactment of these measures, real party in interest, George Bangs, filed two taxpayer actions in the superior court challenging, on a variety of grounds, the validity of both the city's salary standardization ordinance and the school district's salary schedule resolution. After determining that these taxpayer actions raised substantial questions as to the validity of the challenged ordinance and resolution, respondent, Nathan Cooper, Controller of the City and County of San Francisco, refused to implement the newly enacted measures at the commencement of the 1974--1975 fiscal year and continued to authorize salary warrants only on the basis of the 1973--1974 pay rates. The city and the school district then filed the instant proceeding seeking a writ of mandate to compel the controller to draw and deliver warrants reflecting the salary increases granted by the new ordinance and resolution. The taxpayer, in his return to the alternative writ, opposes the requested relief, arguing that both the city ordinance and school district resolution are invalid for a number of distinct reasons. 1

As discussed at length below, we have concluded that although portions of both the challenged ordinance and resolution are invalid, the present pleadings do not demonstrate that either measure fails in its entirety and, in particular, do not establish that the basic salary schedules which lie at the heart of the legislative enactments are invalid. Accordingly, we have determined that a writ of mandate should issue compelling the controller to draw and deliver salary warrants reflecting the newly adopted salary schedules.

As we explain initially, although the taxpayer claims that both legislative measures are invalid in their entirety because they were adopted 'as a result of,' and 'under the coercion of,' an illegal public employee strike, the controlling authorities clearly establish that such a contention does not constitute a permissible basis for invalidating duly enacted legislation. In the absence of a constitutional, statutory or charter provision prohibiting a local legislative body from exercising its legislative power to settle an 'illegal' strike, the judiciary has no authority to withdraw the legislative prerogative on the basis of allegedly improper influences brought to bear upon individual legislators. In this realm, legislative judgment and wisdom are reviewable only by the electorate, not by the courts.

Second, we shall explain that the taxpayer has not established that the challenged ordinance conflicts with the controlling 'prevailing wage' provisions of the city charter. Although the taxpayer alleges that the salary schedule is 'arbitrary, palpably unreasonable and constitutes an abuse of discretion,' these conclusory allegations are inadequate in themselves to demonstrate the invalidity of the ordinance, and they are not sufficiently substantiated by the taxpayer's more specific averments. We do, however, agree with the taxpayer's contention that the board of supervisors was without authority to adopt a separate portion of the ordinance establishing a city-financed employee dental plan, in light of a specific city charter provision delegating authority for the establishment of such a plan to a separately constituted health service board.

Finally, we shall point out that the school board resolution is not invalid under the Winton Act (Ed.Code, § 13080 et seq.), even though it was enacted subsequent to, and adopted the substance of, a written 'agreement,' prepared as a result of numerous 'meet and confer' sessions betweeen employee and employer representatives. As we explain, although the Winton Act withholds binding legal effect from any agreement entered into by meeting and conferring representatives, the school board itself, through a formal resolution, adopted the measure at issue here. Since the Winton Act, by its own terms, defines the objective of the meet and confer process to be a 'written resolution . . . of the governing board effectuating (the) recommendations (of the conferring representatives)' (Ed.Code, § 13081, subd. (d)), the fact that the school board decided to adopt the recommendations emerging from the meet and confer sessions obviously represents no violation of the act. Although we do find that one portion of the resolution, purporting to grant employee association representatives a 'veto' power over subsequent changes in school board policy, constitutes an invalid delegation of power, this provision is severable from the remainder of the resolution and does not taint the salary increase.

1. The facts of the instant case.

As already noted, the instant proceeding involves the validity of two separate and distinct legislative measures, a city ordinance (No. 152--74) and a school district resolution (No. 44--9--Sp 1). Although the circumstances leading to the enactment of these two measures are in some respects interrelated, the relevant facts are sufficiently distinct to necessitate a separate discussion of each enactment.

(a) Ordinance No. 152--74

Under the Charter of the City and County of San Francisco (hereafter 'San Francisco city charter' or 'city charter'), the compensation paid to a large number of city employees (sometimes referred to as 'miscellaneous employees' or 'employees subject to salary standardization') is established by the board of supervisors pursuant to a 'prevailing wage' standard. Section 8.401 of the charter provides that for such employees the compensation fixed by the board 'shall be in accord with the generally prevailing rates of wages for like service and working conditions in private employment or in other comparable governmental organizations in this state'; sections 8.400 and 8.401 establish the procedure leading up to the board's ultimate fixing of compensation.

In brief, these charter provisions direct the city civil service commission to conduct surveys of comparable jobs throughout the state and, on the basis of the data collected in such surveys, to recommend to the board of supervisors a wage schedule which will provide salaries in accord with 'prevailing wages' to all employees subject to salary standardization. The board of supervisors then reviews this data and, after considering additional information gathered on its own, 'may approve, amend or reject' the commission's recommendation. If the board decides to alter the commission's recommendation, however, the charter provides that the board shall transmit the data upon which it has relied to the civil service commission 'for review and analysis,' and the commission is directed to make a report on the proposed changes to the board. 2

On January 15, 1974, the civil service commission formally presented to the board of supervisors its recommendations for the 1974--1975 salary schedule based on data gathered from its surveys. The commission's recommendation divided the relevant employees into three groups: (1) for those employees whose salaries, under the commission's analysis, were found to be equal to or 1 percent below 'prevailing wages,' the commission recommended no increase; (2) for those employees whose salaries, again under the commission's analysis, were from 1 percent to 4 percent below 'prevailing wages,' the commission recommended a 2 1/2 percent increase; and (3) for those employees whose salaries, in the commission's opinion, were 4 percent or more below 'prevailing wages,' the commission recommended a 5 percent increase. The commission estimated the total cost of its '0--1 1/2--5%' salary proposal at $4.8 million.

After two public hearings before the board of supervisor's legislative and personnel committee, the committee presented the matter to the full board on March 4, 1974, recommending that the commission's '0--2 1/2--5%' proposal be revised to a '2--3--5%' formula, retaining the same classifications proposed in the commission's recommendation. 3 The total cost of this 2--3--5 percent plan was estimated at $5.5 million. A majority of the board of supervisors tentatively approved this amended formula at the March 4 meeting and the final vote on the proposed ordinance was scheduled for...

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