Minnick v. Department of Corrections
| Decision Date | 27 July 1979 |
| Citation | 157 Cal.Rptr. 260,95 Cal.App.3d 506 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | , 24 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1809, 20 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 30,233 Wayne MINNICK et al., Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS et al., Defendants and Appellants. Civ. 42545. |
Stuart R. Pollak, Jerome B. Falk, Jr., Steven L. Mayer, Steven E. Schon, Howard, Prim, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady & Pollak, A Professional Corp., San Francisco, Constance Henderson, State of California Department of Corrections, Sacramento, for defendants and appellants.
Ronald Yank, Carroll, Burdick & McConough, San Francisco, for plaintiffs and respondents.
Thomas A. Seaton, Mark N. Aaronson, San Francisco Lawyers', Committee for Urban Affairs, San Francisco, for amici curiae.
The California Department of Corrections and Jero J. Enomoto, its director, appeal from a declaratory judgment which states that they have violated specified constitutional and statutory provisions "by discriminating by reason of sex and by reason of ethnic background in hiring and promotion of employees" in the Department. The judgment also orders, and the court issued, a "Permanent Injunction" restraining the Department and Enomoto from engaging in certain personnel practices in the future.
The judgment was entered after a nonjury trial of the issues joined on an amended complaint filed by respondents Wayne Minnick, Henry J. Darden, and California Correctional Officers Association ("CCOA") in 1976. Because of material changes in the direction and reach of respondents' action after that, the judgment grants only part of the relief they initially sought. It also reflects an application of the California Supreme Court's 1976 decision in the celebrated Bakke case. (Bakke v. Regents of University of California (1976) 18 Cal.3d 34, 132 Cal.Rptr. 680, 553 P.2d 1152.) That decision (hereinafter cited as "California Bakke" ) has been substantially superseded by the United States Supreme Court's resolution of the same case during the pendency of this appeal. (University of California Regents v. Bakke (1978) 438 U.S. 265, 98 S.Ct. 2733, 57 L.Ed.2d 750 ("U.S. Bakke").) These chronological factors, and other problems, require that the extensive record be summarized in close detail.
Respondents Minnick and Darden are male Caucasians employed by the Department as correctional officers in the State In each of four counts pleaded in the amended complaint, respondents made conventional allegations to the general effect that Minnick and Darden were entitled to maintain the action as a class action "on behalf of themselves and on behalf of all other employees of the Department of Corrections, insofar as such employees are disadvantaged and/or find themselves judged with regard to hiring and promotional policies on the basis of their sex and/or race."
prison system. They are also members of the CCOA, a Statewide organization. These facts, and the identities of the various defendants, were alleged in the amended complaint filed in 1976. The defendants named in it included the Department and Enomoto, who was sued in his representative capacity as its director. 1
As pertinent here, it was further alleged in each count that the named defendants (see fn. 1, Ante ) had "discriminated" against Minnick, Darden, and other employees of the Department "on the grounds of race, national origin, and sex," in the "carrying-out" of a so-called "Affirmative Action Program"; that specified aspects of the program were not being "contested" by respondents, but that its operation had caused discriminatory treatment of Minnick and Darden in described episodes in which each had been denied promotion in his employment by reason of his race and sex and "the race and/or sex of the person actually promoted" in preference to him; that each had exhausted his administrative remedies; and that CCOA had been "damaged" by the described employment practices because they frustrated its objectives as "an organization actively opposed to racism and sexism, and working actively to increase the unity of all correctional officers . . . ." It was alleged in a perorative paragraph that Minnick and Darden had been and will continue to be "denied promotional employment opportunities . . . on the basis of their race and/or the basis of their sex" in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, sections 7 and 8 of article I of the California Constitution, and various federal and California statutes.
According to the fair import of the allegations in the various counts, and of multiple prayers which followed them, Minnick and Darden sought mandatory injunctions requiring their promotions and the recovery of damages in the form of back pay for the higher positions allegedly denied them. According to the same sources, all three respondents sought an award of attorneys' fees alleged as "damages" they had incurred; preliminary and permanent injunctions restraining the defendants from further carrying out the discriminatory personnel policies alleged; and a declaratory judgment to the effect that the policies were "unconstitutional, illegal, and void."
In an answer filed in 1976 by the defendants then named in the action (see fn. 1, Ante ), they pleaded material admissions and denials and several affirmative defenses.
Respondents obtained an "Order To Show Cause Re Preliminary Injunction" which was set for hearing in early 1976 but ordered off calendar to permit discovery proceedings. The parties later stipulated that a rescheduled hearing on it would serve as a trial of the action and that jury trial was waived. Pursuant to a bifurcation agreed upon still later, the issues of "liability" (as distinguished from "damages") were tried first. The cause was tried on these bases between August and October of 1976.
Testimony from more than 30 witnesses, and 58 documentary exhibits, were received at the trial. The voluminous briefs argue the consequent mass of evidence in terms of The Department adopted a documented "Affirmative Action Plan" (hereinafter "AAP") in 1974. Its preamble states in pertinent part that the Department's "policy" is "to provide equal employment opportunities for all persons on the basis of merit and fitness and to prohibit discrimination based on race, sex, color, religion, national origin, or ancestry in every aspect of personnel policy and practices in the employment . . . and treatment of employees." According to its terms, the principal objectives of the AAP include (1) increasing the number of female employees in the Department to a percentage level equivalent with that in the total "California labor force" in April, 1970, and (2) increasing the number of "minority" employees to a level equalling at least 70% Of any given "minority" in the inmate population of the Department (i. e., State prisoners).
what it shows, but neither side had adequately summarized it. The record supports the following recitals, which will suffice for purposes of this appeal:
The projected increases were variously broken down and allocated among segments of the Department and specified ethnic "minority" groups (defined as "Black," "Asian," "Spanish surname," "Native American," and "other extraction"), but they respectively translated into "overall" goals of "38% Women employed" and "36% Minorities employed." The AAP indicated, and there was evidence, that the desired "minority" level would serve inmate-related objectives of the Department by improving relationships with prisoners and reducing severe racial conflict and violence within the State prison system.
The percentages of female and minority employees in the Department were markedly below those projected in the AAP when it was adopted. The attainment of both percentages was targeted to be reached by July, 1979. Although their realization was consequently directed to the hiring of new female and minority employees, the AAP provided that the underlying policy of nondiscrimination was to be applied in all areas involving the promotion, transfer, training, and work assignments of Department personnel.
There was evidence that various male Caucasian employees had been denied promotion or transfer in instances where preferences had been given to female or minority members. Proof presented by respondents Minnick and Darden supported the inference that each had been denied promotion in deference to a female or minority candidate, and it was shown that each had pursued a "grievance" to the State Personnel Board without success. It was also established, however, that neither had been eligible for promotion under conventional civil service rules which applied irrespective of the AAP or its implementation.
Various supervisory employees of the Department testified that preference for promotion or transfer was not given to female or minority employees in specified segments of the Department after 1974. There was thus a conflict in the evidence as to how widely the preferential policies expressed in the AAP had been pursued within the Department. According to all the evidence of instances where they had been applied, "preference" was given to female sex or minority status only to the extent that each was considered a "plus" factor in the assessment of a particular employee for promotion or transfer. Some evidence supported the inference that this "plus" had occasionally contributed to the promotion or transfer of the preferred employee ahead of nonpreferred candidates who were otherwise more qualified for the new position. There was no evidence that such "preference" had ever resulted in the promotion or transfer of an employee who was not qualified to hold the position.
Vacancies in specific positions were occasionally left open, and promotions or transfers to them were...
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