Sacramento County Deputy Sheriffs' Assn. v. County of Sacramento

• Decision Date: 04 April 1990
• Docket Number: No. C005688,C005688
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: , 1990 O.S.H.D. (CCH) P 29,058 SACRAMENTO COUNTY DEPUTY SHERIFFS' ASSOCIATION, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 6

269 Cal.Rptr. 6

220 Cal.App.3d 280, 1990 O.S.H.D. (CCH) P 29,058

SACRAMENTO COUNTY DEPUTY SHERIFFS' ASSOCIATION, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO, Defendant and Appellant.

No. C005688.

Court of Appeal, Third District, California.

April 4, 1990.

Review Denied July 10, 1990.

L.B. Elam, County Counsel, J. Steven Burris, Deputy County Counsel, for defendant and appellant.

Mastagni, Holstedt & Chiurazzi, Mark R. Kruger, Sacramento, for plaintiff and respondent.

SPARKS, Acting Presiding Justice.

Seeking shelter from the storm, the Sacramento County Deputy Sheriffs' Association (Deputies) brought this action for declaratory relief against the County of Sacramento (County) requesting a declaration that its members "are entitled to be provided with adequate rain gear including, but not limited to, a rain hat, rain boots, rain jacket and rain pants" and "that ... members who have expended their personal resources for the purpose of purchasing rain gear are entitled to be compensated from the ... County of Sacramento; ..." ¹ The lower court overruled the County's demurrer--which was based on the argument the Deputies failed to exhaust their administrative remedies--and ultimately rendered a judgment declaring "raincoats and rain boots are safety equipment" which the County "has a duty to provide [to] Sheriff's Deputies" and which "is not contingent upon or limited in [any way] by the amount of money received from the State for [that] purpose...." The County's appeal renews its procedural and substantive objections. We agree that the Deputies failed to exhaust their administrative remedies and that no exception to the requirement of exhaustion appears. Consequently, we shall reverse and remand with directions to dismiss the complaint.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Because we do not reach the merits of this dispute, the relevant facts are primarily procedural. In September 1986, the County scheduled a "meet and confer" session (see Gov.Code, § 3505) with the Deputies in response to a letter from the Deputies regarding the County's duty to provide rain gear for all members of the unit. The Deputies' initial position was that Government Code section 50081 was the source of this duty. Following a meeting between the parties, the County adhered to an interpretation of the statute absolving it of any duty to provide rain gear; without this duty, the provision of rain gear was no longer a term of employment and thus no obligation to meet and confer existed. This action followed.

In its petition, the Sacramento County Deputy Sheriffs' Association alleged that it is the recognized bargaining agent for all deputies and sergeants working for the Sheriff's Department; that members of it The County initially demurred. ⁴ Among the grounds asserted was the failure of the Deputies to exhaust their available administrative remedies, either by filing a complaint with the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Division), the enforcement arm within the Department of Industrial Relations, or requesting the adoption of an occupational safety and health regulation from the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board (Standards Board), the quasi-legislative arm within the Department of Industrial Relations responsible for developing standards for health and safety. (See Bendix Forest Products Corp. v. Division of Occupational Saf. & Health (1979) 25 Cal.3d 465, 467, fn. 2, 158 Cal.Rptr. 882, 600 P.2d 1339; § 6302, subds. (b), (d), (e).) Its points and authorities noted the general rule requiring the exhaustion of administrative remedies as a condition precedent to judicial relief, even where the statute providing the administrative remedy does not explicitly make it a prerequisite or couches the administrative remedy in permissive terms. (Flores v. Los Angeles Turf Club (1961) 55 Cal.2d 736, 747, 13 Cal.Rptr. 201, 361 P.2d 921; People v. Coit Ranch, Inc. (1962) 204 Cal.App.2d 52, 58, 21 Cal.Rptr. 875; 3 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (3d ed. 1985) Actions, § 234, pp. 264-265.)

                have used personal funds for purchasing foul weather gear which was necessary for [220 Cal.App.3d 283] their safety and protection under adverse weather conditions;  that the sheriff's department has mandated authorized types of rain gear to be worn on duty with the risk of discipline for nonconformity;  and that an actual controversy exists as to whether the County is obligated under Government Code section 50081 2 and Labor Code section 6401 (undesignated section references will be to this code) 3 to provide the rain gear without cost.  The Deputies thus "desire[d] a judicial determination as to whether or not the COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO ... is responsible to provide to each one of [the] employees within the Bargaining Unit adequate rain gear and a Declaration as to whether or not employees within the Bargaining Unit are entitled to be reimbursed for the personal funds which were used to purchase rain gear."  (Emphasis supplied.)   The verified petition also alleged the Deputies had "exhausted all administrative remedies."
                

In opposition to the exhaustion argument, the Deputies asserted first that the Occupational Safety and Health Act (Cal-OSHA) does not explicitly mandate initial resort to its procedures and provides for review of Division actions by the Courts of Appeal and the Supreme Court (§ 6308) without containing "any language stating that administrative remedies must be exhausted before review.... If the legislature intended a complainant to exhaust administrative remedies prior to litigation, it would have said so." In addition, they found significant the fact that no case had specifically held one must exhaust the Cal-OSHA's administrative remedy before seeking judicial relief, impugning the County's authorities as "over twenty years old" and "general." As their fallback argument, they complained their administrative It is not reported what transpired at the hearing on the demurrer. The demurrer was overruled by minute order and the reasoning there is confined to the assertion that "Movant presents no authority that plaintiff must exhaust administrative remedies. See City of Oakland [, supra, 30 Cal.App.3d 96, 106 Cal.Rptr. 134]."

remedy was inadequate. (See 3 Witkin, op. cit. supra, Actions, § 238, p. 269.)

In contemplation of the hearing on the merits of the petition, the parties submitted affidavits on the substantive issue, the substance of which need not be recounted here. The County renewed its exhaustion argument and in reply the Deputies incorporated their opposition to the demurrer on that issue. Following oral argument, the court took the matter under submission. The judgment in favor of the Deputies we quoted at the outset of this opinion was limited to the substantive issue of the section 6401 duty to provide foul weather gear. However, the trial court's written ruling on the matter discussed the exhaustion argument. There, it first noted that "[d]efendants have [not] been able to point to [any] authority to show that exhaustion of such procedures is required." The court then dispatched the Deputies' authority to the contrary, but ultimately stated its reasoning as "[w]hether or not exhaustion has occurred in the present case appears to be irrelevant, given the fact that the primary issue to be resolved by the administrative body, the question of whether rain gear is a safety device, has already been answered affirmatively in the City of Oakland decision." ⁵

DISCUSSION

Section 6401, under which the Deputies would premise the duty of the County to provide rain gear, ⁶ was reenacted as part of Cal-OSHA in 1973. Under Cal-OSHA, the Division has the power, jurisdiction, and supervision over every employment or place of employment necessary to adequately enforce and administer all laws, lawful standards and orders (which are promulgated by the Standards Board setting health and safety standards categorically for occupations and employments (§ 6305, subd. (a)), or special orders (promulgated by the Division with respect to health and safety for particular employers or employments not covered by Standards Board standards and orders (§ 6305, subd. (b)) requiring the safety of the employment or place of employment and requiring the protection of the health and safety of every employee. (§§ 6303, 6303.5, 6307.) This power, jurisdiction, and supervision may be invoked by the complaint of any employee or employee representative; if the complaint involves a serious violation (defined as one with the probability of death or serious physical injury), the division must summarily investigate within three working days, and otherwise must do so within fourteen calendar days. (§ 6309.) As the Supreme Court held in Bendix Forest Products Corp., supra, 25 Cal.3d at pp. 470-473, 158 Cal.Rptr. 882, 600 P.2d 1339, the Division is thus fully empowered under When the requirement of exhaustion is not excused, "relief must be sought from the administrative body and this remedy exhausted before the courts will act." (Abelleira v. District Court of Appeal (1941) 17 Cal.2d 280, 292, 109 P.2d 942.) Exhaustion of administrative remedies, the high court emphasized, is "not a matter of judicial discretion, but is a fundamental rule of procedure laid down by courts of last resort, followed under the doctrine of stare decisis, and binding on all courts." (Id. at p. 293, 109 P.2d 942.) Thus, in the absence of some excusing exception, "exhaustion of the administrative remedy is a jurisdictional prerequisite to resort to the courts." (Ibid.; see also 3 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (3d ed. 1985) Actions, § 234, pp. 264-265; 2 Witkin, op. cit. supra, Jurisdiction, § 69, p. 437.) It may well be true that the exhaustion doctrine does not implicate fundamental, subject matter jurisdiction and is rather a procedural prerequisite. Thus, it has been said that exhaustion is jurisdictional "only in the sense that a court's failure to apply the rule in a...