FRANCISCO SALAZAR et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. DELAINE EASTIN, as Superintendent, etc., et al., Defendants and Respondents.
No. S032696
Supreme Court of California
Mar. 20, 1995
9 Cal. 4th 836
FRANCISCO SALAZAR et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. DELAINE EASTIN, as Superintendent, etc., et al., Defendants and Respondents.
Robert K. Miller, M. Carmen Ramirez, Grant R. Specht, Barbara Macri-Ortiz, Andrew T. Koenig and Peter Roos for Plaintiffs and Appellants.
Tina L. Rasnow, Nossaman, Gunther, Knox & Elliott and Stephen P. Wiman as Amici Curiae on behalf of Plaintiffs and Appellants.
Daniel E. Lungren, Attorney General, Charlton G. Holland III, Assistant Attorney General, John H. Sanders and James F. Ahern, Deputy Attorneys General, for Defendant and Respondent State Board of Education.
Joseph R. Symkowick and Joanne Lowe for Defendant and Respondent Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Kronick, Moskovitz, Tiedemann & Girard, John L. Bukey and Wendy Gomez Getty as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent Superintendent of Public Instruction.
OPINION
WERDEGAR, J.—
When we granted review in Arcadia, the Court of Appeal in the instant case had already reached the opposite conclusion. Based on its belief that
In Arcadia we expressed “confiden[ce] that the parties [would] file the appropriate action to challenge the continued propriety of the injunction against the Superintendent . . . .” (Arcadia, supra, 2 Cal.4th at p. 259, fn. 5.) Following our suggestion, the state defendants filed, and the trial court granted, a motion to vacate the remedial order. The Court of Appeal reversed on the ground that
We conclude the Court of Appeal in Salazar II, supra, erred in two respects. Because Arcadia, supra, 2 Cal.4th 251, eliminated the legal basis for the injunction, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by vacating it. Thus, the Court of Appeal erred in reversing that order. The Court of Appeal also erred in directing the trial court to modify the injunction to address the application of
I. BACKGROUND
To judge the correctness of the Court of Appeal‘s decision requires an understanding of what has and has not been adjudicated. For this reason it is necessary to set out in detail the complex procedural history of the case.
Under
A. Proceedings in the Superior Court.
This case began in 1985, when plaintiffs Francisco Salazar and Irene Villalobos filed a petition for writ of mandate and complaint for injunctive relief in the Ventura County Superior Court against the state defendants and the Fillmore Unified School District. Plaintiffs alleged that
Plaintiffs’ claim under the free school clause (
The Fillmore Unified School District was dismissed from the lawsuit when it elected not to charge for transportation. Plaintiffs then moved for summary judgment on their claims against the state defendants. In the alternative, plaintiffs asked the court to determine that two issues were without substantial controversy: “1. That California Education Code Section 39807.5 is contrary to the Free Schools Clause provision of the California Constitution; [and] [¶] 2. That California Education Code Section 39807.5 is a denial of equal protection under the California Equal Protection Clause.” In support of their motion, plaintiffs submitted state records showing that, of the state‘s 1,049 school districts, 1,008 were providing transportation. Of those, 60 were charging fees. Plaintiffs also submitted declarations by parents and guardians in the Corcoran, Fillmore, Santa Barbara, and Sonoma Valley school districts, who asserted their children had occasionally been refused transportation on account of inability to pay. In addition, some of the declarants had experienced difficulties in establishing their right to be exempted for indigency.
In response to plaintiffs’ motion, the state defendants disclaimed any duty to oversee the implementation of
The trial court denied plaintiffs’ motion. In its order, which preceded our decision in Arcadia, supra, 2 Cal.4th 251, the court expressed in dictum its “view that [section 39807.5 was] indeed unconstitutional.”3 However, the court did not rule, or purport to rule, on the merits. Instead, the court held
Summary judgment having been denied, the case proceeded to trial. Plaintiffs informed the court in their pretrial memorandum that “the sole substantive fact to be established [was] whether school transportation in California in 1986 is an ‘integral fundamental part of the elementary and secondary education or amount[s] to [a] necessary element of any school[‘]s activity‘. Hartzell v. Connell (1984) 35 Cal.3d 899, 905 [201 Cal.Rptr. 601, 679 P.2d 35]. . . .” The only other fact plaintiffs proposed to establish concerned their standing as taxpayers, namely, that “[s]tate money is expended in the administration of the statute [or] that the state is under an obligation, which requires a state expenditure, to assure that school districts do not violate the State Constitution.”
At trial plaintiffs presented only two witnesses, each an employee of the Department of Education. The first witness authenticated reports listing the districts that had and had not elected to charge for transportation and the amounts collected. The second witness, whose job it was to obtain from the Department of Transportation the statewide average cost of transportation and to disseminate that information to local school districts (see
Following the trial, which took less than a day, the court entered judgment for the state defendants without reaching the merits of plaintiffs’ claims. In its statement of decision, the court explained the sole basis for its ruling was plaintiffs’ failure to join the school districts that were charging for transportation. In the court‘s words, “[i]t is inherently unfair to those districts to
B. Salazar I.
Plaintiffs appealed. The Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, reversed. In the Court of Appeal‘s view, plaintiffs had standing as taxpayers, and the local districts were not indispensable parties; whether or not the districts were necessary parties, the trial court had discretion to proceed without them, and the decision not to do so was an abuse of discretion. (Salazar I, supra.) Rather than reversing and remanding for a trial on the merits, the Court of Appeal proceeded to decide the merits as a matter of law. Citing the plurality opinion in Hartzell v. Connell (1984) 35 Cal.3d 899, which held that fees for extracurricular activities were unconstitutional, the Court of Appeal concluded that transportation was “an essential component of the educational process” and, thus, a service that under the free school clause (
We denied review and directed the Reporter of Decisions not to publish the Court of Appeal‘s opinion. (Salazar v. Honig, review den. and opn. ordered nonpub., Sept. 1, 1988 (S006146).) On remand, the trial court followed the Court of Appeal‘s directions by entering injunctive relief against the state defendants. The remedial order broadly declares, following
C. Arcadia.
The state defendants complied with the injunction. Nevertheless, at least 18 school districts continued to charge fees for transportation. (Arcadia, supra, 2 Cal.4th at p. 256.) Shortly thereafter, 25 school districts filed suit in the Sacramento County Superior Court requesting a declaratory judgment regarding the facial validity of
We affirmed. (Arcadia, supra, 2 Cal.4th 251.) Salazar, who attacked
“In addition,” we wrote, “the unusual history of [Salazar I] suggest[ed] that it would be in the public interest to permit [Arcadia] to go forward. Although Salazar presented evidence at that trial on the unconstitutionality of
Proceeding to the merits, we held
We also held the statute to be constitutional on its face under the equal protection clause. (Arcadia, supra, 2 Cal.4th at pp. 266-267.) We reasoned: “Salazar‘s claims that school transportation fees discriminate against the poor and burden the exercise of a fundamental right might have merit if the statute were to be applied in such a way that children were prevented from attending school because they could not afford to pay the fees. However,
Regarding Salazar‘s further contention “that
Our conclusion
Following our suggestion, the state defendants filed a motion to vacate the injunction and writ of mandate. Arcadia, supra, 2 Cal.4th 251, defendants argued, effectively overruled Salazar I, supra. In response, plaintiffs argued Salazar I survived Arcadia, because the former went beyond the face of the statute to adjudicate claims about how the statute was being applied. According to plaintiffs, “[t]he Court of Appeal made . . . factual findings on the evidence in the record in [its] statement of facts on appeal and reached the conclusion that there were abuses of local authority.” (Italics added.) Based on that premise, plaintiffs asked the court to modify the remedial order, rather than vacating it, so the order would affect only the four districts (Corcoran, Fillmore, Santa Barbara, and Sonoma Valley) mentioned in the declarations plaintiffs had offered in support of their unsuccessful motion for summary judgment. Plaintiffs also asked the court to require the state defendants to oversee the four districts’ implementation of the statute.
The superior court vacated the injunction. The judge explained the basis for his ruling in these words: “It seems to me that the Court really has no choice in what to do. . . . [Plaintiffs] feel that the Court should not simply vacate the injunction, but maintain some kind of injunction against those school districts that were badly applying [section 39807.5] on the facts. [¶] I don‘t see a way to do that. First of all, the petition doesn‘t allege any invalidity as applied as distinguished from factual [sic] invalidity. The only factual basis in the petition, at least as I saw it, was the Fillmore district which was dismissed. The Court of Appeal did not rule on as applied validity, but ruled only on the constitutionality of the section. [¶] I think that‘s clear from its statement that it ruled as a matter of law in the first paragraph at page 26 of the opinion.7 The judgment in the file was not [on] a factual or as applied basis. Footnote five of Arcadia8 I think telegraphs this result. I see little choice in it.”
Plaintiffs appealed. The Court of Appeal reversed. (Salazar II, supra.) Apparently adopting plaintiffs’ view of Salazar I, the court asserted its prior opinion had not, in fact, been limited to the facial validity of
The Court of Appeal also rejected the state defendants’ argument they had no statutory power to supervise local districts’ application of
In a petition for rehearing, the state defendants pointed out that plaintiffs had dismissed the only defendant (Fillmore Unified School District) alleged to have been misapplying
We granted the Superintendent‘s petition for review.
II. DISCUSSION
A. The Trial Court Did Not Abuse Its Discretion by Vacating the Injunction.
The ultimate question before us is whether the trial court abused its discretion by vacating the injunction. “It is a rule so universally followed
Here, because the injunction was inconsistent with our decision in Arcadia, supra, 2 Cal.4th 251, to vacate it was not an abuse of discretion. Having first declared that
Arcadia, supra, 2 Cal.4th 251, thus changed the assumptions about the law upon which the injunction was based and justified the trial court in exercising its discretion to vacate the injunction. The Court of Appeal‘s contrary conclusion was erroneous.
B. The Trial Court Did Not Abuse Its Discretion by Refusing to Issue a Modified Injunction Addressing the Application of Section 39807.5 by Local School Districts.
The trial court, in vacating the injunction, denied plaintiffs’ request for a modified injunction that would have required the state defendants to control the manner in which local districts applied
The Superintendent argues the Court of Appeal erred. The ultimate question before us, once again, is whether the trial court abused its discretion by declining to modify the injunction. (Union Interchange, Inc. v. Savage, supra, 52 Cal.2d at p. 606; Kendall v. Foulks, supra, 180 Cal. at p. 174.) Despite plaintiffs’ various arguments, which we address in turn, it appears the trial court did not abuse its discretion. In holding that it did, the Court of Appeal erred.
1. There was no proper basis for a modified injunction.
The Court of Appeal ruled as it did in the belief local districts were misapplying the statute. Under those circumstances, the court reasoned, the trial court had a duty to “exercis[e] continuing jurisdiction to achieve institutional reform . . . until it [was] satisfied that the unconstitutional practices [had] been discontinued and there [was] no reasonable expectation that such practices [would] recur.” (Salazar II, supra, citing Battle v. Anderson (10th Cir. 1983) 708 F.2d 1523, 1538.) Plaintiffs argue the Court of Appeal was correct.
Certainly a court has the inherent power to modify its injunctions as “the ends of justice” require. (Sontag Chain Stores Co. v. Superior Court, supra, 18 Cal.2d at p. 95.) The principle is broad enough to permit a court that has adjudicated and enjoined violations of the law to modify the injunction, if necessary, to ensure the violations do stop. However, the principle does not aid plaintiffs, because no court has ever properly adjudicated that any local district is misapplying
The Court of Appeal (Salazar II, supra) wrote:
“Respondents and the trial court, in concluding that we did not address the issue of any unconstitutional application of
section 39807.5 , misinterpret Salazar I . . . . Nowhere in our decision did we rule the statute was ‘facially’ unconstitutional.. . . .
“Our Salazar I . . . ruling was specifically based on a factual record which focused entirely on the unlawful use or nonuse of the statute‘s indigency fee waiver provision by some of the school districts electing to charge transportation fees. Salazar I‘s facts are that some indigent school children in California are required to pay transportation fees because districts are not informing parents about the fee waiver provision, are not implementing an application procedure for the waiver, or are basing entitlement to the waiver on a families’ receipt of welfare aid. The Salazar I facts further reveal that some indigent students who cannot afford to pay transportation fees are not able to attend school.”
The Court of Appeal continued: “It was the undisputed evidence of district abuses of the fee waiver policy, and the resultant discrimination against indigent students, that provided the rationale for our decision that
This interpretation of Salazar I was unexpected. We (Arcadia, supra, 2 Cal.4th at p. 259, fn. 5) and the trial court had read the opinion as holding
No other interpretation of the Salazar I opinion seemed reasonable. In Salazar I the Court of Appeal had justified its decision to reach the merits, rather than to remand the case to the trial court, on the ground it was not necessary to resolve any factual issues. The court wrote: “That the trial judge chose to deny appellants’ right to an adjudication of the law‘s illegality, by concluding that the suit was improper on procedural grounds, does not signify that this matter cannot now be resolved on appeal. The [question of the] constitutionality of the statute is solely one of law, and thus an entirely proper subject for review.” (Salazar I, supra, italics added.)
This statement by the court in Salazar I—that it was holding
To be sure, the court in Salazar I, supra, had referred to declarations in which parents and guardians in four local districts averred the districts were
“As can also be seen from the record herein, the fee-waiver policy contained within
section 39807.5 does not assure school attendance. There is evidence that some families who are not eligible for the fee-waiver policy nevertheless have difficulty paying transportation fees. One school district has apparently used the statute as a vehicle of intimidation to force parents to pay the fee. Other school districts appear to not be enforcing the fee-waiver provision, either by failing to inform the community about the provision, or by not adopting application procedures. [¶] Even if these abuses of local authority did not exist, the Hartzell court has ruled that fee-waiver policies do not satisfy the requirements of the free school guaranty. (35 Cal.3d [at p.] 911 . . . .)” (Salazar I, supra.)
Read in context, this reference by the Court of Appeal in Salazar I to plaintiffs’ declarations can properly be described only as rhetorical support for its conclusion
Certainly the Court of Appeal had no proper basis for holding that any local district was applying
Unlike plaintiffs, we do not read the Court of Appeal‘s opinion in Salazar I as containing findings of fact about the statute‘s application. As noted, plaintiffs interpret as containing factual findings the passage from Salazar I referring to plaintiffs’ declarations. (Salazar I, supra; see ante, page 853.) Plaintiffs argue the court merely exercised its power under
It thus appears no court has ever properly adjudicated that any local district is applying
That the state defendants, who defended the case on procedural grounds, did not object to the declarations asserting various districts were misapplying
2. The relief requested by plaintiffs and directed by the Court of Appeal is contrary to section 39807.5 .
The Court of Appeal‘s direction to the trial court to modify the injunction was erroneous on other grounds, as well. The Court of Appeal, adopting plaintiffs’ suggestion, directed the trial court to order the state defendants to promulgate mandatory, uniform regulations governing the exemption of indigent pupils. Such relief is contrary to
Plaintiffs argue the State Board of Education (State Board) has the power to adopt uniform regulations on this subject under
That valid rules adopted by the State Board take precedence over rules adopted by local districts (
Plaintiffs argue the state defendants can adopt rules and take other actions not specifically authorized by statute if necessary to correct unconstitutional practices in local school districts. The argument is based primarily on Butt v. State of California (1992) 4 Cal.4th 668 [15 Cal.Rptr.2d 480, 842 P.2d 1240] (Butt), in which we upheld a preliminary injunction requiring the Superintendent to take control of the affairs of a local school district whose insolvency threatened to deprive its pupils of an education equal to that of pupils in other districts.
The argument fails for two reasons.
First, we were not presented in Butt, supra, 4 Cal.4th 668, as we are here, with a statute expressly giving to an entity other than the State Board the power to adopt rules on a particular subject matter and, thus, implicitly barring the State Board from doing so. The express delegation to local school districts of the power to adopt rules governing the exemption of indigent pupils (
Nothing in Hartzell v. Connell, supra, 35 Cal.3d 899, which plaintiffs also cite, changes this conclusion. In Hartzell we upheld a rule of the State Board prohibiting local districts from charging fees for extracurricular activities. The rule was authorized by the general grant of rulemaking authority (
Second, no violation of the Constitution has properly been found to exist in this case. This distinguishes the case before us from Butt, supra, 4 Cal.4th 668, in which the trial court found after an evidentiary hearing that an
Two cases involving alleged racial discrimination, Tinsley v. Palo Alto Unified School Dist. (1979) 91 Cal.App.3d 871 [154 Cal.Rptr. 591] and San Francisco NAACP v. San Francisco Unified Sch. (N.D.Cal. 1979) 484 F.Supp. 657, add nothing to Butt, supra, 4 Cal.4th 668, or to plaintiffs’ argument. The court in Tinsley, supra, 91 Cal.App.3d 871, held proper a complaint against the state defendants alleging interdistrict disparities in educational quality, on the theory that district lines, which the state either drew or had the power to draw (id. at p. 904), had caused the disparities (id. at p. 905). Similarly, the court in San Francisco NAACP, supra, 484 F.Supp. 657, which relied on Tinsley, refused to dismiss the state defendants, on the theory that plaintiffs had alleged violations by the state defendants of specific statutory and constitutional provisions. (San Francisco NAACP, supra, 484 F.Supp. at pp. 662-667.) That the courts in Tinsley and San Francisco NAACP, as plaintiffs observe, appear to have concluded the state has ultimate responsibility for the constitutional operation of its schools, is true. (San Francisco NAACP, supra, 484 F.Supp. at pp. 662-667; Tinsley, supra, 91 Cal.App.3d at pp. 904-905.) We reached the same conclusion in Butt (supra, 4 Cal.4th at p. 685). None of those opinions, however, supports plaintiffs’ argument that the state defendants, who are bound by statutory law, may take over a function expressly delegated by the Legislature to local districts, in the absence of a court order based on adjudicated constitutional violations.
Under these circumstances, the language of
Plaintiffs’ brief does not make clear whether they are arguing here, as they did in the Court of Appeal, that the law-of-the-case doctrine bars the Superintendent from challenging the ruling in Salazar I, supra, to the effect that
It would, moreover, be unjust to hold now that the Superintendent may not relitigate the holding in Salazar I, after rejecting the same argument when plaintiff Salazar made it as an intervener in Arcadia (supra, 2 Cal.4th at pp. 257-258; see ante, p. 846). The law-of-the-case doctrine “will not be adhered to where its application will result in an unjust decision.” (DiGenova v. State Board of Education, supra, 57 Cal.2d at p. 179; see also George Arakelian Farms, Inc. v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd., supra, 49 Cal.3d at p. 1291.)
C. Miscellaneous Issues.
The parties have raised other issues that do not warrant extensive discussion in view of our decision to reverse the decision of the Court of Appeal.
1. The Superintendent‘s argument regarding indispensable parties.
The Superintendent asks us to revisit the earlier holding in Salazar I, supra, that no local school district is an indispensable party to this litigation. Our disposition of this case moots the question.
The question is not properly before us in any event, because it was decided in Salazar I, supra, which we declined to review, and because the decision on review (Salazar II, supra) raises the single issue of whether the trial court abused its discretion by vacating, rather than modifying, the injunction.
2. The State Board‘s proposed regulations.
After the Court of Appeal rendered its decision in Salazar II, supra, the State Board changed its position in this litigation. Up to that time the State
The State Board‘s new position could be construed as a request that we not review Salazar II, supra, because the board is willing to abide by that decision. Such a request would have to be declined. The Superintendent, as a party bound by the injunction in Salazar II, has an independent right to have us determine the decision‘s validity.
The State Board also asks us to confirm its power to promulgate regulations on this subject. We cannot. “The rendering of advisory opinions falls within neither the functions nor the jurisdiction of this court.” (People ex rel. Lynch v. Superior Court (1970) 1 Cal.3d 910, 912 [83 Cal.Rptr. 670, 464 P.2d 126].) Nor would it be wise to make the attempt, since local school districts, which are the entities most likely to challenge such rules as violative of their own rulemaking powers under
III. CONCLUSION
Because we held in Arcadia, supra, 2 Cal.4th 251, that
The judgment of the Court of Appeal is reversed.
Lucas, C. J., Kennard, J., Arabian, J., Baxter, J., and George, J., concurred.
The majority discuss at length the somewhat tortuous proceedings leading up to the present litigation. But there is a more fundamental principle involved: whether every pupil in California, regardless of economic circumstances, is entitled to a free public school process, including transportation. (See Hartzell v. Connell (1984) 35 Cal.3d 899 [201 Cal.Rptr. 601, 679 P.2d 35] [extracurricular activities]; Manjares v. Newton (1966) 64 Cal.2d 365 [49 Cal.Rptr. 805, 411 P.2d 901] [school bus service].)
The majority strayed from this basic, indeed constitutional, principle in their prevailing opinion in Arcadia Unified School Dist. v. State Dept. of Education (1992) 2 Cal.4th 251 [5 Cal.Rptr.2d 545, 825 P.2d 438] (Arcadia). It is regrettable that they persist in that untenable position in the present case.
The importance of school transportation was stressed almost half a century ago in the case of Everson v. Board of Education (1947) 330 U.S. 1, 48 [91 L.Ed. 711, 740, 67 S.Ct. 504, 168 A.L.R. 1392], in which Justice Rutledge, joined by Justices Frankfurter, Jackson, and Burton, observed: “Without buildings, without equipment, without library, textbooks and other materials, and without transportation to bring teacher and pupil together in such an effective teaching environment, there can be not even the skeleton of what our times require. Hardly can it be maintained that transportation is the least essential of these items, or that it does not in fact aid, encourage, sustain and support, just as they do, the very process which its purpose to accomplish. No less essential is it, or the payment of its cost, than the very teaching in the classroom or payment of the teacher‘s sustenance.” (Dis. opn. of Rutledge, J.) The remaining justices in Everson did not disagree with this observation of Justice Rutledge; indeed, they went so far as to approve public funding of transportation to private schools.
That children of parents on welfare may possibly obtain a waiver of transportation costs does not solve the problem, particularly for those industrious working parents struggling to make ends meet in these difficult economic times. Most significantly, the Constitution guarantees access to free public schooling to all, not merely to indigents. (
Notes
“When the governing board of any school district provides for the transportation of pupils to and from schools in accordance with the provisions of
“The amount determined by the board shall be no greater than the statewide average nonsubsidized cost of providing such transportation to a pupil on a publicly owned or operated transit system as determined by the Superintendent of Public Instruction, in cooperation with the Department of Transportation.
“For the purposes of this section, ‘nonsubsidized cost’ means actual operating costs less federal subventions.
“The governing board shall exempt from these charges pupils of parents and guardians who are indigent as set forth in rules and regulations adopted by the board.
“No charge under this section shall be made for the transportation of handicapped children.
“Nothing in this section shall be construed to sanction, perpetuate, or promote the racial or ethnic segregation of pupils in the schools.”
“1. That California Education Code section 39807.5 violates the Free Schools and Equal Protection Clauses of the California Constitution for the reasons set forth in the decision of the Court of Appeal in Case No. B026629 [Salazar I, supra].
“2. That no public school district in this state can lawfully charge bussing or transportation fees to school children or their parents for transportation to and from school.
“3. That the State Defendants, and each of them, shall cease and desist from calculating the state-wide average nonsubsidized cost of providing bus transportation to a pupil to and from school under
“4. That the Defendant State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Bill Honig, and the other State Defendants in this case shall, within ten (10) days of entry of this order, mail a copy of this order to all school districts, along with a Legal Advisory informing districts to comply with this order.
“5. Should any school district charge a fee described in paragraph 2 following the notification set forth in this judgment, the Defendants, and each of them, shall issue an order to such district to cease and desist from the imposition of such fee and shall enforce such order pursuant to all powers vested in the Defendants.
“6. This Court shall maintain continuing jurisdiction over this action. The State Defendants shall, within thirty (30) days, report to counsel for the Plaintiffs and the Court all efforts taken by them to comply with this judgment.
“7. The Clerk of the Ventura County Superior Court, after the filing of this judgment, shall issue a peremptory writ of mandate in a format approved by this Court.
“8. The obligations of the Defendants under this judgment shall commence immediately upon the filing of this judgment.”
The authority cited by the Court of Appeal states that the “[i]interpretation and applicability of a statute or ordinance is clearly a question of law.” (
“(a) [Request for findings] A request that the reviewing court make findings of fact shall contain a draft of the proposed findings, and may be made in a brief, or a separate application may be served and filed. If opposing counsel has not had an opportunity in his brief to object to the request, he may serve and file written opposition thereto.
“(b) [Application to produce evidence] Proceedings for the production of additional evidence on appeal shall be in accordance with