People v. Medrano, Cr. 8962
| Citation | 71 Cal.App.3d 823,138 Cal.Rptr. 322 |
| Decision Date | 19 July 1977 |
| Docket Number | Cr. 8962 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals |
| Parties | , 96 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2672, 82 Lab.Cas. P 55,093 The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Francisco Franco MEDRANO and Jan Peterson, Defendants and Appellants. |
Jerome Cohen, Sanford N. Nathan, George C. Lazar, Mary H. Mocine, W. Daniel Boone, E. Michael Heumann II, and Glen E. Rothner, Salinas, for defendants and appellants.
Harry J. Delizonna, Gen. Counsel, Dennis Sullivan, Chief of Litigation, Ellen Lake, Asst. Chief of Litigation, and Manuel M. Medeiros, Counsel, San Francisco, as amicus curiae on behalf of Agricultural Labor Relations Bd.
Evelle J. Younger, Atty. Gen., Jack R. Winkler, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Arnold O. Overoye, Asst. Atty. Gen., Marjory Winston Parker and Roger E. Venturi, Deputy Attys. Gen., on behalf of plaintiff and respondent.
Here we deal, first with a claim that California's Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975 (ALRA; Lab.Code, 1140 et seq.) divested the municipal court of jurisdiction to try two union organizers on a misdemeanor trespass charge and, second, with a claim that the criminal prosecution infringed constitutional freedoms of communication possessed by defendants and by the farm workers they sought to address.
A municipal court jury found defendants guilty of violating Penal Code section 602(n) 1 by trespassing upon property leased to a farm labor contractor. Defendants appealed to the superior court and we ordered the appeal transferred here for decision. (Code Civ.Proc., § 911; Cal. Rules of Court, Rule 63.)
The events are described in a settled statement on appeal. The incident occurred at a farm labor camp operated by Alphonso De Dios, a licensed farm labor contractor, on property leased from a third person. On the property were five buildings occupied by farm workers and their families. De Dios lived in a mobile home on the same premises. The property was surrounded by a fence. A gate which was usually unlocked provided entry. Several labor camps operated by other contractors were nearby. De Dios imposed no restriction on entry or exit of workers or their guests but did require solicitors to obtain permission to enter the property.
At the time of the incident, September 13, 1975, De Dios was absent from the camp and had left his son Robert in charge. Robert De Dios worked as a labor supervisor for his father and resided at another of his father's labor camps. In the late afternoon he saw two organizers for the United Farm Workers Union on the premises and asked them to leave. The organizers complied with the request and reported back to defendant Jan Peterson, the area supervisor for the union. Peterson had sent the organizers to De Dios' labor camp after learning earlier that day that a representation election for employees of Vista Verde Farms had been scheduled by the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) for the following day. She understood that some of the occupants of De Dios' labor camp worked for this grower.
Upon learning that the organizers had been asked to leave De Dios' camp, Jan Peterson and several other organizers went to the premises, entered without resistance and began knocking on the doors of workers' living quarters to inquire whether they were employees of Vista Verde Farms and whether they needed transportation to the polling sites for the coming election. Within a half-hour of their arrival Robert De Dios confronted them and asked them to leave. When Peterson, the spokesperson, rejected the request, De Dios telephoned the sheriff's department. Sheriff's deputies arrived within 20 minutes and conferred briefly with Peterson, who told them that the organizers were entitled to be on the premises. At about the same time defendant Francisco Medrano entered the labor camp. He too was an organizer for the United Farm Workers. The sheriff's deputies approached the group of organizers with whom Peterson was standing and asked them to leave the premises. Robert De Dios made a similar request. The other organizers complied but defendant Peterson remained behind and was cited for trespass. Standing some distance away, Medrano watched the group of organizers disperse after De Dios requested them to leave. As Medrano awaited instructions from Peterson, a deputy sheriff approached him and issued a trespass citation.
At the trial both defendants testified that they had entered this particular labor camp without incident on earlier occasions. On the first occasion Medrano had gone to De Dios' residence to seek permission to enter the camp but had found no one home. Three residents of the camp testified that they had not invited defendants to enter the premises on the day in question and did not consider them to be welcome.
Counsel for the ALRB have filed an amicus curiae brief devoted primarily to the theme that union access to the farm labor camp was arguably protected by the ALRA, hence that the municipal court had no jurisdiction to try the trespass charge. Attorneys for the two defendants emphasize the claimed interference with free speech.
The lack-of-jurisdiction argument advanced by amici curiae is premised upon the 'preemption doctrine' developed under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), 29 U.S.C. § 151, et seq. According to that doctrine, when labor union activity is arguably among the 'concerted activities' extended to labor by the act, federal and state courts generally defer to the exclusive competence of the National Labor Relations Board, the agency delegated by Congress to administer the act. (See generally, Farmer v. Carpenters (1977) ---- U.S. ----, 97 S.Ct. 1056, 51 L.Ed.2d 338, 347-350; San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon (1959) 359 U.S. 236, 245, 79 S.Ct. 773, 3 L.Ed.2d 775; Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. San Diego County Dist. Council of Carpenters (1976) 17 Cal.3d 893, 896-898, 132 Cal.Rptr. 443, 553 P.2d 603.) The California Agricultural Labor Relations Act was closely modeled after the federal law. Indeed, one provision of the ALRA, Labor Code section 1148, expressly directs the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board to follow the applicable precedents of the National Labor Relations Act.
Like section 7 of the NLRA, section 1152 of the Labor Code enumerates the rights of organization, collective bargaining and concerted activities possessed by employees. Combining the features of section 8 of the NLRA, Labor Code section 1153 enumerates unfair labor practices on the part of agricultural employers and section 1154 the unfair labor practices of labor organizations. Other provisions of the California Law (§§ 1156-1159) follow the federal model, directing the ALRB to supervise elections in which agricultural employees may select a union to represent them in collective bargaining. (See Agricultural Labor Relations Bd. v. Superior Court (1976) 16 Cal.3d 392, 389-400, 128 Cal.Rptr. 183, 546 P.2d 687.) Sections 1160 et seq. authorize the ALRB to prevent 'any person' from engaging in an 'unfair labor practice' as defined by the preceding provisions of the act. The ALRB procedure is the exclusive method of redressing unfair labor practices. (Lab.Code, § 1160.9.)
In designating the NLRA precedents as guideposts, the ALRA apparently incorporates into California law the general features of the preemption doctrine. An ongoing problem under the NLRA is whether the preemption doctrine ousts the courts of power to entertain civil or criminal trespass charges against union representatives who conduct activities on employers' property. Amici curiae strongly rely on Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. San Diego County Dist. Council of Carpenters, supra, 17 Cal.3d 893, 132 Cal.Rptr. 443, 553 P.2d 603. There the court nullified an injunction against union picketing on the employer's private property. Despite the trespassory nature of the conduct, it was arguably among the concerted activities of labor protected against employer interference; hence it fell initially within the exclusive competence of the NLRB and displaced the jurisdiction of the state courts. (17 Cal.3d at p. 899, 132 Cal.Rptr. 443, 553 P.2d 603.)
We know of three out-of-state decisions which have considered the preemption defense in criminal trespass prosecutions against union pickets. Two courts rejected the defense. (People v. Goduto (1961) 21 Ill.2d 605, 174 N.E.2d 385, cert. den., 368 U.S. 927, 82 S.Ct. 361, 7 L.Ed.2d 190; People v. Bush (1976) 39 N.Y.2d 529, 384 N.Y.S.2d 733, 349 N.E.2d 832.) A third court accepted it. (State v. Williams (Balt.Crim.Ct.Md.1959) 44 LRRM 2357, 2363.) The California Supreme Court has expressed its disapproval of the former, its approval of the latter. (Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. San Diego County Dist. Council of Carpenters, supra, 17 Cal.3d at p. 906, fn. 8, 132 Cal.Rptr. 443, 553 P.2d 603; Musicians Union, Local No. 6 v. Superior Court (1968) 69 Cal.2d 695, 712, fn. 8, 73 Cal.Rptr. 201, 447 P.2d 313.)
Utilizing Sears as an analogy, amici curiae contend that the ALRA granted defendant union organizers a right of entry onto 'agricultural property' and into 'farm labor camps.' The analogy is unacceptable. It rests upon an assumed parallelism between the federal and state labor relation laws which the state law specifically rejects. In Labor Code section 1140.4, subdivision (c), the California Law distinctly excludes farm labor contractors--such as De Dios--from the statutory category of agricultural employers. 2 The federal law contains no comparable exclusion.
The settled statement on appeal declares that the events occurred at a labor camp housing agricultural workers 'employed by [De Dios], a licensed labor contractor.' The briefs on appeal fail to recognize De Dios' exempt status. They do not inquire whether De Dios, excluded by statute from the class of agricultural employers, could...
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