California Teachers Assn. v. Nielsen

Opinion

HALVONIK, J.

Appellants are teachers and representatives of teachers who, as a result of their activities and statements during a strike, had complaints and letters of reprimand placed in their personnel files. Appellants petitioned for a writ of mandate commanding the school district to remove the letters and complaints from their files. Relief was denied below and this appeal ensued.

On May 23,

1975,

about 500 teachers of the South San Francisco Unified School District failed to report for work. The strike was not

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settled until June 6, 1975. For purposes of this litigation, the central feature of the strike settlement was an agreement by the school district that no reprisals would be taken against employees based upon the withholding of their services.

During the strike and its immediate aftermath the district received approximately 125 verified complaints about the behavior of striking employees. After review, 13 complaints were deemed serious enough to be placed in the respective employees’ personnel files. Letters of reprimand were prepared to accompany the complaints. On December 3, 1975, each of the 13 was sent a copy of the complaint against him or her and a letter of reprimand. The letter said that “After much deliberation, the Board of Trustees has determined that a copy of the complaint and this letter of reprimand be placed in your personnel file.” Although the wording of the reprimand letter, standing alone, could conceivably have led the recipients to assume that the reprimand and complaint were already in the personnel file, a copy of Education Code section 13001.5, providing employees with the right to respond before a complaint is placed in the file, accompanied the letter and the employee’s attention was called to that section in the letter itself. Additionally, there were public pronouncements that the complaints and letters were not yet in the files and that the employees would have an opportunity to respond before they were placed there. Two teachers took advantage of that opportunity and successfully refuted the charges. Thus complaints and letters were placed in but 11 files.