Safer v. Superior Court

Decision Date19 September 1975
Citation124 Cal.Rptr. 174,15 Cal.3d 230,540 P.2d 14
Parties, 540 P.2d 14, 90 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2712 Laura Carol SAFER et al., Petitioners, v. The SUPERIOR COURT OF VENTURA COUNTY, Respondent; C. Stanley TROM, as District Attorney, etc., Real Party in Interest. L.A. 30364.
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court

Ellen Lake, San Francisco, Cohen, Carder & Engelhardt, Delano, and Tom Stanley, for petitioners.

Norton Tooby, Menlo Park, Joseph Remcho, Los Angeles, Deborah Hinkel, San Francisco, Jennie Rhine, Berkeley, David A. Rosenfeld and Gordon R. Gaines, San Francisco, as amici curiae on behalf of petitioners.

Evelle J. Younger, Atty. Gen., C. Stanley Trom, Dist. Atty., Laurence D. Grossman and Frederick A. Jones, Deputy Dist. Attys., for real party in interest.

TOBRINER, Justice.

In this case we hold that a court acts in excess of its jurisdiction when it permits a district attorney to disregard the statutory confines of his authority by prosecuting under the Code of Civil Procedure a contempt stemming from a civil litigation in which the district attorney could rest his participation neither upon standing as a party nor upon statutory authorization. To forbid the continuation of the unlawful proceedings thus instituted, we issue our writ of prohibition.

In the spring of 1974 the United Farm Workers of America (hereinafter Farm Workers) set up picket lines around the fields of several growers of strawberries in Ventura County. These growers, alleging that the picketing constituted unlawful interference with their farming operations, retained an attorney who on May 30, 1974, filed suit seeking injunctive relief, damages of $50,000 per day, and punitive damages of $1,000,000 against the Farm Workers and their members. On the same day on which plaintiffs (Frank McGrath Ranch Company et al.) filed this complaint, they also obtained from the Ventura Superior Court a temporary restraining order which severely limited the spacing and number of pickets. 1

On the following day the Ventura County Sheriff arrested a number of union members and sympathizers who had assembled at one of the growers' fields to picket; 2 the sheriff charged these persons with the commission of misdemeanors under Penal Code section 166, subdivision 4, i.e., wilful disobedience of a lawful court order. 3 Arraigned on this charge, Laura Carol Safer and each of her accused codefendants pleaded not guilty, requesting a jury trial within the time limits of Penal Code section 1382, subdivision 3. The court set trial dates accordingly.

On the days set for these jury trials, however, the district attorney, rather than proceeding to trial, served 4 the defendants with orders to show cause in comtempt proceedings prosecuted under Code of Civil Procedure section 1209. 5 The district attorney then procured dismissals of the misdemeanor charges 'in furtherance of justice' (Pen.Code, § 1385) on the grounds that defendants had, moments before, become subject to the contempt proceedings that he had just instituted. In this manner the district attorney sought to convert a misdemeanor proceeding, in which defendants had the protection of a jury trial and other statutory safeguards, into a contempt proceeding, in which defendants would be stripped of these protections.

Defendants demurred to these new proceedings on several grounds: that the district attorney lacked authority to institute them; that the underlying restraining order suffered from unconstitutional vagueness; and that the facts stated did not constitute a contempt. Defendants further moved for a dismissal on the basis of Penal Code section 1387, which bars a second prosecution of a dismissed offense previously charged as a misdemeanor. 6 Alternatively, defendants urged that if their demurrer and motions for dismissal did not succeed, they stood entitled to a jury trial on the civil charges. 7 A consolidated argument on these matters took place on July 22 and 23, 1974; the court decided adversely to defendant on each of their contentions.

Throughout these contempt proceedings plaintiffs in the original civil litigation, which precipitated these events, did not appear by their retained counsel. All appearances on the behalf of Frank McGrath Ranch Company et al. were made by the District Attorney of Ventura County. The record reflects no attempt by the parties who had procured the original injunction to enforce it against defendants.

We granted an alternative writ of prohibition to consider the questions raised by these facts. 1. The district attorney lacks statutory authority to prosecute this contempt under the Code of Civil Procedure.

Neither statute nor decision empowers a district attorney to intervene in a contempt proceeding stemming from private civil litigation in order to enforce an injunctive order granted at the behest of one of the litigants. Although, as we shall explain, various statutes provide for the appearance of the district attorney in specific civil cases, none covers the circumstances of the present case; the district attorney here therefore lacks the necessary authorization to proceed in the matter before us. 8

By the specificity of its enactments the Legislature has manifested its concern that the district attorney exercise the power of his office only in such civil litigation as that lawmaking body has, after careful consideration, found essential. An examination of the types of civil litigation in which the Legislature has countenanced the district attorney's participation reveals both the specificity and the narrow perimeters of these authorizations.

We set forth illustrative statutes which specifically empower a district attorney to bring a civil action; thus he may: defend suits brought against the county and bring actions to collect fines and recognizances (Gov.Code, § 26521); test the validity of laws providing for the payments of county funds and recover any funds illegally paid out (Gov.Code, §§ 26523, 26525); represent judges appearing in their official capacities as parties defendant (Gov.Code, § 26524); sue to abate public nuisances in the name of the People (Gov.Code, § 26528); bring proceedings for the commitment and treatment of incompetent or disturbed persons (Welf. & Inst.Code, § 5114); prosecute parents for disobedience of a child support order (Welf. & Inst.Code, § 11484); bring an action for the declaration of parental relationship (Civ.Code, § 231); and enforce certain business regulation laws (Bus. & Prof.Code, § 16754). Neither these nor any other of the various narrowly framed authorizing statutes, however, empower a district attorney to intervene at will in a civil case involving private parties in an economic dispute.

Even in some of these specifically authorized matters, moreover, the district attorney enjoys neither plenary power nor unbridled discretion. Thus he may prosecute certain actions only upon the request of a designated supervisory body. 9 In counties which employ a County counsel, the statutes provides that his very presence deprives the district attorney of the power to perform certain duties. 10 We find, then, that the Legislature's narrow enumeration of the types of civil cases in which the district attorney may participate expresses its general mandate that public officers not use their funds and powers to intervene in private litigation.

Indeed, in implementing this legislative intent, we have imposed liability upon the district attorney when he overstepped the boundaries of his official authorization and its attendant immunities; we have done so even when the authorization in question framed the asserted powers in broad and general terms. (Lipman v. Brisbane Elementary Sch. Dist. (1961) 55 Cal.2d 224, 235, 11 Cal.Rptr. 97, 359 P.2d 465.) If in areas related to criminal prosecution the district attorney's authority has been subject to limitations, 11 then even stronger considerations dictate such limitations in noncriminal sectors in which he possesses only narrow and specific authorizations.

We find further indication that the district attorney's authority does not embrace the circumstances of this case in the Legislature's clear demonstration that it knows how to grant him such power when it wishes to do so. For example, Welfare and Institutions Code section 11484 provides that in cases in which the parents of a child receiving public assistance have applied for, or received, a divorce or separation 'the district attorney may apply to the superior court in such action for an order directing either parent or both to show cause: . . . (w)hy the parent should not be held in contempt for his failure to comply with any order of support previously entered.' Thus the Legislature, when it desired to authorize the district attorney's intervention in contempt proceedings stemming from private litigation to enforce an order, had no difficulty in expressing itself its articulation of specific statutory authorization in that situation points to the absence of such authority in the instant case.

The absence of any statute empowering the district attorney to appear in private litigation such as the instant case demonstrates, moreover, legislative awareness that our legal system has long depended upon the self-interested actions of parties to pursue a dispute to its conclusion, or to decide, alternatively, that further time-consuming litigation serves no one's best interests. 12 Thus the district attorney's intrusion into this arena of conflicting private interests serves neither the public interest nor the statutory intent.

The intervention of the district attorney in these proceedings, springing from a civil suit is, indeed, the introduction of the government itself on one side of the litigation, casting the whole issue into a different framework. The weight of government tends naturally to tilt the scales of justice in favor of the party whom the government sponsors. Moreover, in cases like this the...

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