Lacy v. California Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd.

• Decision Date: 04 June 1971
• Citation: 95 Cal.Rptr. 566,17 Cal. App. 3d 1128
• Parties: Mary E. LACY, Petitioner and Respondent, v. CALIFORNIA UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE APPEALS BOARD, Gilbert L. Sheffield, Director of Employment, American River Hospital and Eskaton, Inc., Defendants and Appellants. Civ. 12768.
• Court: California Court of Appeals

Page 566

95 Cal.Rptr. 566

17 Cal.App.3d 1128

Mary E. LACY, Petitioner and Respondent, v. CALIFORNIA UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE APPEALS BOARD, Gilbert L. Sheffield, Director of Employment, American River Hospital and Eskaton, Inc., Defendants and Appellants.

Civ. 12768.

Court of Appeal, Third District, California.

June 4, 1971.

Hearing Denied July 28, 1971.

Dahl, Hefner, Stark & Marois, Sacramento, Dwight A. Carlson, Dinuba, for appellants American River Hospital and Eskaton, Inc.

William L. Shaw, Deputy Atty. Gen., Sacramento, for appellants California Unemployment Ins. Appeal Bd. and Gilbert L. Sheffield.

Colley & McGhee, Sacramento, for petitioner-respondent.

FRIEDMAN, Associate Justice.

The Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board sustained the decision of a referee who held that petitioner Mary E. Lacy was disqualified for unemployment insurance benefits because she had been discharged from her last employment for misconduct. Section 1256, Unemployment Insurance Code, disqualifies an individual who has been discharged for misconduct connected with his most recent work. ¹ Mrs. Lacy brought a mandate proceeding in the superior court. That court reviewed the transcript of testimony at the hearing and ordered the board to vacate its decision and award benefits. The board and the employer appeal.

In this case the administrative agency and the superior court viewed a single body of evidence--the testimony taken at the referee's hearing--and indulged in dissident findings. The agency found that Mrs. Lacy had been demoted by her employer, who then instructed her to train the man who was her replacement and new superior; that the instruction was reasonable and she was guilty of misconduct in refusing to comply. The superior court judge viewed the identical evidence, found that the employee's refusal to comply was reasonable and absolved her from the charge of misconduct.

In reviewing decisions granting or denying unemployment insurance benefits, the superior court exercises its independent judgment on the evidence and inquires whether the administrative agency's findings are supported by the weight of the evidence. (Code Civ.Proc., § 1094.5, subds. (b) and (c); Thomas v. California Emp. Stabilization Commission, 39 Cal.2d 501, 504, 247 P.2d 561.) Except where relevant evidence has been excluded at the administrative hearing or could not be produced by the exercise of reasonable diligence, the superior court's independent review focuses on the evidentiary record made at the administrative level. (Code Civ.Proc., § 1094.5, subds. (a) and (d).)

In the absence of other specifications, Labor Code section 2856 establishes the extent of an employee's duty to comply with his employer's instructions: 'An employee shall substantially comply with all the directions of his employer concerning the service on which he is engaged, except where such obedience is impossible or unlawful, or would impose new and unreasonable burdens upon the employee.'

Another criterion is supplied by a decisional elaboration of the term 'misconduct' as used in unemployment insurance legislation. In Maywood Glass Co. v. Stewart, 170 Cal.App.2d 719, 724, 339 P.2d 947, 950, the court adopted a definition originally formulated by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, equating misconduct with 'conduct evincing such wilful or wanton disregard of an employer's interests as is found in deliberate violations or disregard of standards of behavior which the employer has the right to expect of his employee, or in carelessness or negligence of such degree or recurrence as to manifest equal culpability, * * * (but not) mere inefficiency, and unsatisfactory conduct * * * inadvertencies or ordinary negligence * * *.'

There was no conflict in the evidence taken at the administrative hearing. It was sparse, incomplete, vulnerable to incompatible interpretations, but not in conflict. For about five years Mrs. Lacy had held the position of executive housekeeper at American River Hospital. In April 1969 her superior, Mr. Enyeart, informed her that the hospital's growth had enlarged the job requirements beyond her capacity and that Mr. Earl Chew would replace her. He asked whether she would be willing to work as day shift supervisor under the direction of Mr. Chew. At Mrs. Lacy's request Mr. Enyeart gave her a list of her new duties, one of which was to train new employees. According to her testimony, he then ordered her to 'train' Mr. Chew, her new superior, in the duties of the position from which she had just been demoted. She refused to 'train' her new superior and was discharged.

Neither the employer nor the unemployment insurance agency produced testimony to refute Mrs. Lacy. Mr. Chew was the only other witness at the hearing. On the witness stand he observed that her reluctance to train him was a 'misunderstanding on her part.' He did not deny that she had been instructed to train him. Neither he nor Mrs. Lacy supplied any clue to the parties' understanding of the instruction to train him.

The trial court expressly found that the disobeyed instruction imposed a 'new' burden on the employee within the meaning of Labor Code section 2856. That finding does not satisfy the statute, which permits disobedience only when the burden is both 'new and unreasonable.' The trial court did find that the employee's refusal to comply was reasonable and concluded that she had not violated the Labor Code provision. Thus one may fairly imply a finding by the trial court that the employer's instruction imposed a burden which was both new and unreasonable. Moreover, the court concluded that Mrs. Lacy had not been guilty of misconduct, thus impliedly finding that she had not been guilty of 'willful or wanton disregard' of her employer's interests within the meaning of the formulation in the Maywood Glass Co. case, supra.

The evidentiary record discloses neither the employer's nor the employee's conception of the order to 'train' Mr. Chew, the new successor and superior. The training might have amounted to an extensive and intensive indoctrination in the principles and techniques of management and personnel administration. On the other hand, it might have amounted to no more than a transmission of routine informational details, such as the location of the key to the linen room. The employer's order was thus shrouded in utter subjectivity. The hearing record similarly concealed the employee's emotional reaction. She might have justly resented her ouster by one of inferior qualifications or might have rejected the order through injured vanity. Whatever the communicated or uncommunicated meaning of the employer's instruction, the administrative agency characterized it as reasonable, the superior court as unreasonable. The appellants now ask the appellate court to superimpose its own--and supposedly more authoritative--characterization upon the cryptically described conduct.

The request assumes a scope of appellate review broader than a California appellate court possesses. While the superior court exercises its independent judgment on the administrative evidence, California law accords the appellate court a much narrower scope of review, confining it to an inquiry whether the superior court's findings are supported by substantial evidence. (Moran v. State Board of Medical Examiners, 32 Cal.2d 301, 308, 196 P.2d 20.) The appellate court's review of the superior court judge's gleanings from the administrative transcript is just as circumscribed as its review of a jury verdict or judge-made finding after a conventional trial. On appeal, after the superior court has applied its independent judgment to the evidence, all conflicts must be resolved in favor of the respondent and all legitimate and reasonable inferences made to uphold the superior court's findings; moreover, when two or more inferences can be reasonably deduced from the facts, the appellate court may not substitute its deductions for those of the superior court. (Yakov v. Board of Medical Examiners, 68 Cal.2d 67, 72, 64 Cal.Rptr. 785, 435 P.2d 553.)

True, the scope of appellate review may be dilated by viewing the issue as one of law rather than fact. Many issues might with equal force be classed as questions of law or questions of fact. (2 Am.Jur.2d, Administrative Law, §§ 618--619, pp. 461--466; Brown, Fact and Law in Judicial Review, 56 Harv.L.Rev. 899; Jaffe, Judicial Review: Question of Law, 69 Harv.L.Rev. 239; Netterville, Administrative 'Questions of Law' and the Scope of Judicial Review in California, 29 So.Cal.L.Rev. 434; Stern, Review of Findings of Administrators, Judges and Juries: A Comparative Analysis, 58 Harv.L.Rev. 70.) In the allocation of adjudicative functions the application of a legal principle or rule to undisputed facts is said to be a question of law for the appellate courts. (Yakov v. Board of Medical Examiners, supra, 68 Cal.2d at p. 74, fn. 7, 64 Cal.Rptr. 785, 435 P.2d 553; see also, Parsons v. Bristol Development Co., 62 Cal.2d 861, 866, 44 Cal.Rptr. 767, 402 P.2d 839). That concept supplies an argument for assigning the present issue to the law category. In contrast, instances are legion in which the reviewing court discerns a question of fact, not of law, when opposing inferences may reasonably be drawn from nonconflicting evidence. E.g., Primm v. Primm, 46 Cal.2d 690, 694, 299 P.2d 231; Bove v. Beckman, 236 Cal.App.2d 555, 564, 46 Cal.Rptr. 164; Frankenheimer v. Frankenheimer, 231 Cal.App.2d 101, 107, 41 Cal.Rptr. 636; see Weiner, The Civil Nonjury Trial and the Law-Fact Distinction, 55 Cal.L.Rev. 1020).

Because Moran v....