State Personnel Bd. v. Fair Employment and Housing Com'n

• Decision Date: 01 December 1983
• Citation: 149 Cal.App.3d 429,196 Cal.Rptr. 815
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: , 33 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 745, 34 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 34,485 STATE PERSONNEL BOARD and California Highway Patrol, Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. FAIR EMPLOYMENT AND HOUSING COMMISSION and Department of Fair Employment and Housing, Defendants and Appellants. Richard Arthur AMON et al., Real Parties in Interest. 3 Civ. 19549

Page 815

196 Cal.Rptr. 815

149 Cal.App.3d 429, 33 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 745,

34 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 34,485

STATE PERSONNEL BOARD and California Highway Patrol, Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. FAIR EMPLOYMENT AND HOUSING COMMISSION and Department of Fair Employment and Housing, Defendants and Appellants Richard Arthur AMON et al., Real Parties in Interest.

3 Civ. 19549

Court of Appeal, Third District, California.

Dec. 1, 1983.

For Opinion on Hearing, see 217 Cal.Rptr.16, 703 P.2d 354.

Marjorie Gelb, San Francisco, Robert Barnes, Los Angeles, David A. Garcia, San Francisco, Marjorie Cox, Los Angeles, for defendants and appellants.

George Deukmejian, Atty. Gen., Talmadge R. Jones and Carol Hunter, Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiffs and respondents.

PUGLIA, Presiding Justice.

This case requires that we resolve a jurisdictional conflict between administrative agencies. The respondent State Personnel Board (Board) is vested constitutionally with the power and duty to enforce the merit principle in state civil service employment. (Cal. Const., art. VII, § 3, subd. (a); Gov.Code, § 18500 et seq.; Pacific Legal Foundation v. Brown (1981), 29 Cal.3d 168, 183-184, 172 Cal.Rptr. 487, 624 P.2d 1215.) Appellants Fair Employment and Housing Commission (Commission) and Department of Fair Employment and Housing (Department) are statutorily empowered to enforce and administer the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (Gov.Code, § 12900 et seq.; all subsequent statutory references are to sections of the Government Code unless noted otherwise.) ¹

Real parties in interest, Richard Amon, Frederick Pade, and Edith Williams (applicants), applied to the respondent California Highway Patrol (Patrol) for civil service appointments as State Traffic Officer Cadets. Their applications were rejected because of disqualifying physical conditions revealed upon medical examination. Amon has problems with visual acuity and color blindness; Pade has a disabling back condition; Williams has a digestive disorder secondary to intestinal bypass surgery.

Dissatisfied with their disqualifications, these applicants appealed directly to the Board. In the cases of Pade and Williams, hearings were conducted and the Board upheld the disqualifications, concluding that the medical standards as applied to these two applicants were necessary for the adequate performance of the job classification of State Traffic Officer. Amon abandoned his appeal to the Board and a hearing was never held in his case.

Although judicial review of the Board's decision in the Pade and Williams cases was available by way of a petition for writ of mandamus (§ 19630 et seq.; Code of Civ.Proc., § 1094.5), they, together with Amon, chose instead to file with the Department complaints of employment discrimination on the basis of physical handicap. ² (Ibid.)

After an investigation, the Department found probable cause to believe that discrimination had occurred in all three cases and issued formal administrative accusations against the Board and the Patrol, charging them with unlawful discrimination under section 12900 et seq. for disqualifying the three applicants on the basis of physical handicap. Pursuant to these accusations, administrative hearings were scheduled before the Commission to adjudicate the charges of employment discrimination.

The Board and the Patrol (respondents) filed this action in the superior court seeking to restrain the Department and the Commission (appellants) from filing accusations or holding administrative hearings with respect to the discrimination complaints of Amon, Pade, and Williams and also with respect to all other cases involving state civil service employment. Respondents also sought a declaratory judgment that the "State Personnel Board has exclusive constitutional jurisdiction over complaints, investigations, and hearings of employment discrimination in the state civil service, and that ... [appellants] do not have such or any jurisdiction in such matters; ..."

After issuing preliminary injunctive orders, the superior court granted respondents' motion and denied the appellants' cross-motion for summary judgment. The court entered judgment declaring "... the State Personnel Board, by virtue of article VII of the California Constitution, has exclusive jurisdiction over the examination and selection of state civil service employees, and ... defendants, [Department] and Commission, do not have such or any jurisdiction in such matters, even if authorized by statute; ..." The judgment also permanently enjoined appellants "... from accepting complaints, conducting investigations, or filing accusations, subpoenas, or other administrative or legal process against the State Personnel Board involving employees or agencies under the Board's exclusive jurisdiction over the state civil service set forth in article VII of the California Constitution; ..."

This appeal ensued. We shall hold that the judgment of the superior court is a correct application of paramount constitutional principles with regard to the actual controversy but otherwise overbroad to the extent it undertakes to resolve issues not the subject of a concrete dispute.

I

The California Constitution decrees that state civil service employment will be governed according to the merit principle administered by a nonpartisan personnel board, to the end that the spoils system be eliminated and that employment in the state service be based on merit, efficiency and fitness free from legislative encroachment. Beyond that, the Legislature remains free to fashion laws relating to personnel administration for the best interests of the state. (Pacific Legal Foundation v. Brown, supra, 29 Cal.3d at pp. 182-184, 172 Cal.Rptr. 487, 624 P.2d 1215.) Pertinent constitutional language appears in article VII: "In the civil service permanent appointment and promotion shall be made under a general system based on merit ascertained by competitive examination." (§ 1, subd. (b); "The Board shall enforce the civil service statutes and, by majority vote of all its members, shall prescribe probationary periods and classifications, adopt other rules authorized by statute, and review disciplinary actions." (§ 3, subd. (a)).) These provisions, as with all provisions of the California Constitution, "are mandatory and prohibitory, unless by express words they are declared to be otherwise." (Art. I, § 26; see also State Board of Education v. Levit (1959) 52 Cal.2d 441, 460, 343 P.2d 8.) It is the duty of the courts "to give effect to every clause and word of the constitution, and to take care that it shall not be frittered away by subtle or refined or ingenious speculation." (Levit, supra, 52 Cal.2d at p. 460, 343 P.2d 8.)

On the other hand, the Legislature is vested with "all legislative power not expressly or by necessary implication denied to it by the Constitution." (Dean v. Kuchel (1951) 37 Cal.2d 97, 104, 230 P.2d 811; Pacific Legal Foundation, supra, 29 Cal.3d at p. 180, 172 Cal.Rptr. 487, 624 P.2d 1215; City and County of San Francisco v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd. (1978) 22 Cal.3d 103, 113, 148 Cal.Rptr. 626, 583 P.2d 151.) A presumption lies in favor of the Legislature's power to act, and constitutional "restrictions and limitations are construed strictly, and are not to be extended to include matters not covered by the language used." (Collins v. Riley (1944) 24 Cal.2d 912, 916, 152 P.2d 169; Pacific Legal Foundation, supra, 29 Cal.3d at p. 180, 172 Cal.Rptr. 487, 624 P.2d 1215.)

This case probes the line of demarcation between constitutional mandate and legislative prerogative. It is undisputed that the Board and, in turn, the Department and the Commission each have acted by virtue of an express grant of authority, yet only the Board exercises powers derived from the Constitution. (See Northern Inyo Hosp. v. Fair Emp. Practice Com. (1974) 38 Cal.App.3d 14, 21-22, 112 Cal.Rptr. 872; Stearns v. Fair Employment Practice Com. (1971) 6 Cal.3d 205, 211, 98 Cal.Rptr. 467, 490 P.2d 1155.)

We are constrained to attempt to "harmonize" or "accommodate" apparent jurisdictional conflicts between administrative agencies, even where the jurisdiction of one agency flows from the Constitution itself. (Pacific Legal Foundation, supra, 29 Cal.3d at pp. 175, 197, 199-200, 172 Cal.Rptr. 487, 624 P.2d 1215.) In Pacific Legal Foundation, the court considered the potential impact of the state Employer-Employee Relations Act (SEERA, § 3512 et seq.) on the Board's constitutional authority to enforce and administer the merit principle in the state civil service. Holding that SEERA is not unconstitutional on its face, the Court eschewed a "drastic or inflexible rule totally curtailing one agency's jurisdiction at the expense of the other's" because of "the mere possibility of conflict." (Pacific Legal Foundation, supra, at p. 175, 172 Cal.Rptr. 487, 624 P.2d 1215.) Said the Court: "... petitioners cannot prevail by suggesting that in some future hypothetical situation constitutional problems may possibly arise as to the particular application of the statute .... Rather, petitioners must demonstrate that the act's provisions inevitably pose a present total and fatal conflict with applicable constitutional prohibitions." (Emphasis in original; id., at pp. 180-181; see also p. 200, 172 Cal.Rptr. 487, 624 P.2d 1215.) Although provisions of SEERA granting the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) jurisdiction to investigate and devise remedies for unfair labor practices might on their face overlap to some extent, they are not "irreconcilably in conflict with the State Personnel Board's jurisdiction to 'review disciplinary actions' under article VII, section 3, subdivision (a)," of the Constitution. (Fn. omitted; id., at pp. 196, 197-200, 172 Cal.Rptr. 487, 624 P.2d 1215.) The court emphasized that the Board and PERB each were established to serve a "different, but not inconsistent, public purpose." (Id., at p. 197...