Industrial Welfare Com. v. Superior Court

• Decision Date: 10 July 1980
• Docket Number: S.F. 24123
• Citation: 27 Cal.3d 690,166 Cal.Rptr. 331,613 P.2d 579
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 613 P.2d 579, 24 Wage & Hour Cas. (BNA) 866, 89 Lab.Cas. P 55273A, 1980 O.S.H.D. (CCH) P 24,754 INDUSTRIAL WELFARE COMMISSION et al., Petitioners, v. The SUPERIOR COURT OF KERN COUNTY et al., Respondents; CALIFORNIA HOTEL AND MOTEL ASSOCIATION et al., Real Parties in Interest.

Page 331

166 Cal.Rptr. 331

27 Cal.3d 690, 613 P.2d 579, 24 Wage & Hour Cas. (BNA) 866,

89 Lab.Cas. P 55273A, 1980 O.S.H.D. (CCH) P 24,754

INDUSTRIAL WELFARE COMMISSION et al., Petitioners, v. The SUPERIOR COURT OF KERN COUNTY et al., Respondents CALIFORNIA HOTEL AND MOTEL ASSOCIATION et al., Real Parties in Interest.

S.F. 24123.

Supreme Court of California, In Bank.

July 10, 1980.

Rehearing Denied Aug. 27, 1980.

As Modified Aug. 28, 1980.

George Deukmejian, Atty. Gen., Arthur C. de Goede, Asst. Atty. Gen., Randall P. Borcherding, Joseph M. O'Heron, James M. Schiavenza, Carol Hunter and Ronald V. Thunen, Jr., Deputy Attys. Gen., for petitioners.

Van Bourg, Allen, Weinberg & Roger, Victor J. Van Bourg, David A. Rosenfeld, San Francisco, Joan Bodner, Redburn, Bodner & Palewicz, San Francisco, W. Kenneth Rice, Adrian Andrade, El Centro, and Richard M. Pearl, Delano, as Amici Curiae on behalf of petitioners.

No appearance for respondent.

Jerome B. Falk, Jr., Dirk M. Schenkkan, Howard, Prim, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady & Pollak, San Francisco, Richard W. Smith, Burlingame, Jan L. Kahn, Kahn & Soares, Hanford, Richard M. Mosk, Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp, Los Angeles, Jean C. Gaskill, James L. Meeder, Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, San Francisco, Willard Z. Carr, Jr., Los Angeles, Kenneth E. Ristau, Jr., Dennis A. Gladwell, Newport Beach, Mark Wm. Shurtleff, Huntington Beach, Donald B. Ayer, Menlo Park, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Newport Beach, George J. Tichy, II, Richard H. Harding, Michele S. Poohar, Littler, Mendelson, Fastiff & Tichy, San Francisco, Robert P. Roy and Dressler, Stoll, Quesenbery & Hersh, El Centro, for real parties in interest.

TOBRINER, Acting Chief Justice.

On September 7, 1979, the California Industrial Welfare Commission (hereafter IWC or commission), acting pursuant to its constitutionally and statutorily based authority (Cal. onst., art. XIV, § 1; Lab.Code, §§ 70-74, 1171-1204), ¹ adopted a series of industry-wide "wage orders," prescribing the minimum wages, maximum hours, and standard conditions of employment for employees in this state. These orders (hereafter 1980 wage orders) were scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 1980. In mid-December 1979, however, shortly before the effective date of the orders, numerous employer associations and individual employers (hereafter employers), representing companies which employ millions of California workers, initiated four separate mandate actions in various superior courts throughout the state, challenging the validity of nine of the 1980 wage orders on various grounds. ² In each of the cases, an alternative writ of mandate issued, along with an order staying each of the nine challenged wage orders in whole or in part.

In a significant number of respects, the December 1979 lawsuits were sequels to similar litigation that had been brought by many of the same organizations and employers several years earlier challenging the 1976 orders adopted by the IWC. In the earlier round of litigation, various courts throughout the state had reached differing conclusions with respect to a number of common legal issues raised in each of the separate lawsuits. As a consequence, in some industries employees were denied the benefits of the 1976 wage orders, while in other industries similarly situated employees were afforded the protections of the orders. After the normal, lengthy process of trial and appeal, one of the cases challenging the 1976 orders reached this court for decision in 1979. In California Hotel & Motel Ass'n v. Industrial Welfare Com. (1979) 25 Cal.3d 200, 157 Cal.Rptr. 840, 599 P.2d 31, our court resolved several of the common legal issues presented in the challenges to the 1976 wage orders, but at the same time determined that a number of other legal issues "could be dealt with more appropriately" in a future case in which the IWC had explained the basis of its wage orders in a fashion consistent with our holding in that case. (25 Cal.3d at pp. 204-205, fn. 2, 157 Cal.Rptr. at p. 842, fn. 2, 599 P.2d at p. 33, fn. 2.)

In February 1980, two months after the institution of the four December 1979 lawsuits noted above, the Attorney General, acting on behalf of the IWC, initiated this proceeding seeking an original writ of mandate or prohibition from this court. The Attorney General's petition alleged that each of the four mandate actions filed in December 1979 presented a number of common legal issues, many of which had been raised but left unresolved in California Hotel & Motel Ass'n. The petition also suggested that if the lower court actions were permitted to run their normal course, there was a significant possibility that the history of the 1976 wage order litigation would repeat itself, with lower courts reaching disparate results on common legal issues, and with employees in many industries being deprived of the protection of the 1980 wage orders for perhaps as long as several years. Under these circumstances, the Attorney General urged this court to issue an alternative writ and to provide a prompt and definitive resolution of the numerous common legal issues raised in the various court actions below.

In view of the large number of employees affected by the challenged orders, and the tortuous litigation history which had prevented the implementation of the majority of IWC wage orders in recent years, we concluded that this was an appropriate instance for the exercise of our original jurisdiction, and accordingly we issued an alternative writ of mandate. (See, e. g., Agricultural Labor Relations Bd. v. Superior Court (1976) 16 Cal.3d 392, 402, 128 Cal.Rptr. 183, 546 P.2d 687.) Although the employers claim that we lack jurisdiction to review the legal challenges to any of the 1980 wage orders because none of the trial courts has as yet entered a judgment on the merits, the Court of Appeal in Rivera v. Division of Industrial Welfare (1968) 265 Cal.App.2d 576, 580-581, 71 Cal.Rptr. 739, acted under similar circumstances to review the validity of an IWC wage order in an original mandate proceeding instituted in the appellate court. ³

Moreover, because the stay orders issued by several of the respondent courts have the practical effect of enjoining the operation of an administrative regulation promulgated pursuant to the IWC's quasi-legislative authority, past authorities teach that if this court concludes that the challenged orders are in fact valid, the lower court's issuance of such quasi-injunctive relief would properly be subject to correction by extraordinary writ. (See, e. g., Agricultural Labor Relations Bd. v. Superior Court, supra, 16 Cal.3d at p. 401, 128 Cal.Rptr. 183, 546 P.2d 687.) Accordingly, we conclude that this matter is properly before this court.

1. Background and general principles of review.

Before undertaking an analysis of the numerous legal contentions which the employers have advanced in support of their attack upon the 1980 wage orders, we believe it may be helpful to summarize very briefly the historical background of the IWC's jurisdiction and the established legal principles which govern judicial review of the commission's administrative orders.

The IWC is a five-member appointive board initially established by the Legislature in 1913. For the first 60 years of its existence, the IWC's mission was to regulate the wages, hours and conditions of employment of women and children employed in this state, in furtherance of such employees' "health and welfare." To this end, the commission beginning in 1916 promulgated a series of industry- and occupation-wide "wage orders," prescribing various minimum requirements with respect to wages, hours and working conditions to protect the health and welfare of women and child laborers. For many decades, IWC wage orders have embraced a variety of subjects comparable in scope to the 1980 wage orders at issue in this case.

In the early 1970s, a number of federal judicial decisions invalidated a substantial portion of the then-prevailing IWC wage orders on the ground that the limited application of such orders to women workers (and children) violated the prohibition on sex discrimination embodied in Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964. (See, e. g., Rosenfeld v. Southern Pacific Co. (9th Cir. 1971) 444 F.2d 1219, 1225-1227; Homemakers Inc. of L. A. v. Division of Indust. Welf. (N.D.Cal.1973) 356 F.Supp. 1111, affd. (9th Cir. 1974) 509 F.2d 20, cert. den. (1976) 423 U.S. 1063, 96 S.Ct. 803, 46 L.Ed.2d 655; and cases cited, 509 F.2d at p. 23, fn. 7.) In response to these federal decisions, the California Legislature in 1972 and 1973 amended the applicable provisions of the Labor Code to authorize the IWC to establish minimum wages, maximum hours and standard conditions of employment for all employees in the state, men as well as women. (Stats.1972, ch. 1122, §§ 2-6, pp. 2153-2155; Stats.1973, ch. 1007, §§ 1.5-4, pp. 2002-2003.) The constitutionality of this legislative expansion of the IWC's jurisdiction to all California workers is explicitly confirmed by article XIV section 1 of the California Constitution which declares: "The Legislature may provide for minimum wages and for the general welfare of employees and for those purposes may confer on a commission legislative, executive and judicial powers." ⁴

Although the 1973 modification of the IWC's jurisdiction to encompass men as well as women and minors clearly worked a substantial expansion in the number of workers affected by the commission's orders, and, as a practical matter, was probably a major impetus to the host of litigation that has surrounded the commission's wage orders since 1973, the 1973 legislation did not alter the basic nature of the IWC's decision-making authority or the basic principles governing judicial review of the commission's exercise of that authority. From its inception in 1913 to the present, the commission has been vested with broad statutory authority to...