State v. Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen

• Decision Date: 18 September 1950
• Citation: 222 P.2d 27
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: 26 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2642, 18 Lab.Cas. P 66,003 STATE v. BROTHERHOOD OF RAILROAD TRAINMEN et al. Civ. 14284.

Page 27

222 P.2d 27

26 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2642, 18 Lab.Cas. P 66,003

STATE v. BROTHERHOOD OF RAILROAD TRAINMEN et al.

Civ. 14284.

District Court of Appeal, First District, Division 2, California.

Sept. 18, 1950.

Hearing Granted Nov. 16, 1950. ^*

Fred N. Howser, Attorney General, Herbert E. Wenig, Deputy Attorney General, for appellant.

Clifton Hildebrand, Oakland, for respondent.

James H. Phillips, Sacramento, for intervenor.

GOODELL, Justice.

The State sued under § 1060, Code of Civil Procedure, for a declaration of its rights and duties under a contract entered into on September 1, 1942 by the Board of State Harbor Commissioners with the defendant Brotherhoods respecting the rates of pay, rules, and working conditions affecting certain employees of the State Belt Railroad. From a judgment in favor of the defendants this appeal was taken on an agreed statement under rule 6a.

The State Belt Railroad is owned by the State of California, and its management, control and operation have always been committed by statute to the Harbor Board. The Railroad operates on the waterfront of San Francisco and its functions and the scope of its activities are fully described in several decisions, including Sherman et al. v. United States, 282 U.S. 25, 51 S.Ct. 41, 75 L.Ed. 143; United States v. State of California, 297 U.S. 175, 56 S.Ct. 421, 80 L.Ed. 567, and Maurice v. State of California, 43 Cal.App.2d 270, 110 P.2d 706. The Railroad has between 125 and 225 employees, depending on the volume of business on hand, and the Harbor Board has approximately 425 other employees engaged in its other harbor activities at San Francisco.

The principal question presented is whether the Railroad is subject to the provisions of the Federal Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq. Section 152 thereof provides that 'It shall be the duty of all carriers, their officers, agents, and employees to exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, and working conditions, and to settle all disputes, whether arising out of the application of such agreements or otherwise, in order to avoid any interruption to commerce or to the operation of any carrier growing out of any dispute between the carrier and the employees thereof.' Other questions in the case are whether, if the Railroad is subject to the Act, the duty of representing it in making and maintaining such agreements is that of the Harbor Board or of the State Personnel Board, and whether such agreements must be approved by the State Department of Finance. The appellant claims that state statutes on these subjects are conflicting.

The contract in question was negotiated and signed by the Harbor Board, and neither the Personnel Board nor the Department of Finance had any hand in it.

The case of United States v. State of California, supra, 297 U.S. 175, 56 S.Ct. 421, 80 L.Ed. 567, is decisive of the main question. That case arose out of a violation by the same State Belt Railroad, of the Federal Safety Appliance Act, 45 U.S.C.A. ch. I, § 6. The United States sued the State for a $100 penalty for the violation; the State resisted payment on the ground that the Belt Railroad was not subject to the Act; the District Court held that it was. The Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, 75 F.2d 41, on a jurisdictional ground, but the Supreme Court reversed the latter court. In holding that the Railroad was an interstate carrier the Supreme Court said that 'California, by engaging in interstate commerce by rail, has subjected itself to the commerce power, and is liable for a violation of the Safety Appliance Act, as are other carriers, unless the statute is to be deemed inapplicable to state-owned railroads because it does not specifically mention them. * * * The danger to be apprehended is as great and commerce may be equally impeded whether the defective appliance is used on a railroad which is state-owned or privately-owned. No convincing reason is advanced why interstate commerce and persons and property concerned in it should not receive the protection of the act whenever a state, as well as a privately-owned carrier, brings itself within the sweep of the statute, or why its all-embracing language should not be deemed to afford that protection.' [297 U.S. 175, 56 S.Ct. 424.]

In answer to the argument that California in operating the Belt Railroad was performing a public function in its sovereign capacity hence could not constitutionally be subjected to the provisions of the federal act, the court said: 'Despite reliance upon the point both by the government and the state, we think it unimportant to say whether the state conducts its railroad in its 'sovereign' or in its 'private' capacity. That in operating its railroad it is acting within a power reserved to the states cannot be doubted. [Citations.] The only question we need consider is whether the exercise of that power, in whatever capacity, must be in subordination to the power to regulate interstate commerce, which has been granted specifically to the national government. The sovereign power of the states is necessarily diminished to the extent of the grants of power to the federal government in the Constitution. * * *'

The sovereignty question was later set at rest by our own Supreme Court in People v. Superior Court, 29 Cal.2d 754, 763, 178 P.2d 1, 6, where it said that 'The fact that the service is conducted for the benefit of commerce and without profit is insufficient to take it out of what otherwise would be an industrial and commercial character.'

Maurice v. State of California, supra, 43 Cal.App.2d 270, 110 P.2d 706, followed United States v. California, supra, in holding that the State Belt Railroad was subject to the Federal Safety Appliance Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq. It held also that it was likewise subject to the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. ch. II, § 51 et seq.

State of California v. Anglim, 9 Cir., 129 F.2d 455, held that it was subject to the Federal Carriers' Taxing Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 261 et seq.

In United States v. California, supra, the court said that the State Belt Railroad's service did 'not differ in any salient feature from that which this Court, in United States v. Brooklyn Terminal, supra, 249 U.S. 296, 304, 305, 39 S.Ct. 283, 63 L.Ed. 613, 6 A.L.R. 527, held to be common carriage by rail in interstate commerce within the meaning of the Federal Hours of Service Act', 45 U.S.C.A. § 61. The analogy just drawn forecasts what the holding would be if the State Belt Railroad's status should come before that court under the latter Act.

The source of the Federal Safety Appliance Act, the Federal Employers' Liability Act, the Federal Carriers' Taxing Act and the Federal Hours of Service Act is the commerce clause and that, too, is the source of the Railway Labor Act. If the State Belt Railroad is within the purview of all those pieces of interstate legislation it is certainly subject to the Railway Labor Act.

In United States v. California, supra, the court attached no importance to the fact that the Safety Appliance Act was silent as to its applicability to states or state-owned carriers. In several places in the opinion that subject is mentioned and discounted, hence appellant's argument that Congress could not have intended the Railway Labor Act to apply to states or state-owned railroads, is not persuasive despite the citation of four statutes where Congress took pains to expressly exclude states.

Under the authorities it must be held that the State Belt Railroad is subject to the Federal Railway Labor Act and that in dealing with its employees who are themselves within that act the State of California is bound to deal on the same basis and in the same way as would a privately-owned carrier. If, as a consequence, some action or other of the Harbor Board in connection with the contract should collide with some conflicting provision of state law, there simply would be nothing the Board could do about it but follow the course of conduct dictated or called for by the Railway Labor Act, wheresoever that might lead, since the latter act is 'the supreme Law of the Land'. Const. Art. VI. It is the plain duty of this and every other state court in such cases to see that the supremacy clause is obeyed.

The State next contends that 'the Harbor Board did not have and does not have authority to collectively bargain or to make a collective bargaining contract providing for rates of pay and working conditions in conflict with state civil service laws.'

The State also contends that there is a direct conflict between § 1705, Harbors and Navigation Code and § 18004, Government Code.

Section 1705 reads: '* * * The [Harbor] board shall fix the compensation of its officers and employees other than the commissioners.' When the contract was made in 1942 the section read substantially the same.

Section 18004 reads: 'Unless the Legislature specifically provides that approval of the Department of Finance is not required, whenever any State agency or court fixes the salary or compensation of an employee or officer, which salary is payable in whole or in part out of State funds, the salary is subject to the approval of the Department of Finance before it becomes effective and payable * * *.' When the contract was made in 1942 this was § 675.1, Pol.Code, which read substantially the same.

These doubts as to the agency wherein the contractual authority resides and this apparent conflict in legislation, call for an inquiry into the Harbor Board's powers and jurisdiction.

We shall not attempt to give a complete chronological history of the legislation relating to the Harbor Board, but merely enough of it to show that such part thereof as bears on the present problems has followed one definite and uniform pattern with singular consistency for almost nine decades.

By an act of the legislature approved April 24, 1863, the Board of State Harbor Commissioners was...