Los Angeles City School District v. Griffin

PRESTON, J.

This is an original proceeding in mandate which attacks the constitutionality of section 5.1100 of the School Code.

Petitioner school districts comprise the public school system of Los Angeles and certain adjacent territory which forms a part of one or the other of such districts, and they employ over 500, to wit: in excess of 10,000 teachers in their elementary and secondary schools. They seek writ of mandate to compel the secretary of the Los Angeles board of education, their governing board, to execute a contract between said board and the public school teachers’ retirement salary fund board (see. 5.940, School Code). The execution of said contract would mark the culmination of procedure followed by said board of education, pursuant to the provisions of sections 5.1110-5.1138, inclusive, School Code, in its effort to establish a plan for district retirement salaries for the teachers in the public schools of the districts under its control.

Respondent, said secretary of the board of education, bases his refusal to sign the contract upon the sole claim that section 5.1100 of the School Code is unconstitutional in its attempted classification of school districts, as shown by the italicized portions of the following provisions thereof:

“The governing boards of

any two or more school districts having the same personnel,

in which districts

five hundred or more teachers

are employed in the elementary and secondary schools thereof . . . shall have power ... to elect to provide a plan or system for a district retirement salary ... to be paid by the district to all teachers in the public schools of such districts ...”

To be more specific, respondent contends that the limitation (1) that two or more school districts have the same

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personnel, and (2) that the districts employ 500 or more teachers in the elementary and secondary schools thereof, brings the statute within the inhibitions of section 25 of article IV of the state Constitution, which in part provides: