Aebli v. Board of Education

PETERS, P. J. The present appeal involves an interpretation of this court’s opinion in Aebli v. Board of Education, 62 Cal.App.2d 706 [145 P.2d 601], The specific question presented is what was the legal effect of that decision on the rights of the six parties who are here appellants, they also being six of the 189 appellants on the prior appeal? The trial court in the present proceeding found that as to these six appellants the judgment was affirmed, and entered its judgment accordingly. From this judgment these six parties appeal, contending that as to them the judgment on the prior appeal was reversed.

A proper analysis of the question presented requires a reference to the issues and holdings on the prior appeal. The litigation started in 1932. In that year 189 teachers in the San Francisco School Department, including the six appellants on the present appeal, filed actions against the school board alleging that the actions of the hoard in ordering a reduction in their ratings and salaries, and in collecting back from them what the hoard claimed was excess payments made to them, were illegal. The actions prayed for a restoration of the money that had been deducted from their salaries and for writs of mandate to restore them to their previous ratings. The trial judge, the Honorable C. J. Goodell, after a protracted trial, prepared two exhaustive opinions in which he discussed in detail the facts and the law applicable to each of the litigants. Thereafter complete and carefully prepared findings and conclusions of law were filed. In these findings the trial court, generally speaking, divided the teachers into three main categories—the clerical or mechanical error cases, the nonuniformity cases and the estoppel cases. As to the [461]teachers within the clerical or mechanical error category the trial court denied them any relief; as to the second category— the nonuniformity cases—the trial court granted them the right to recover back the sums that had been deducted from their salaries, but held that the reratings of the board, so far as they acted prospectively, were valid; as to the six estoppel cases the trial court held that because of facts peculiar to their individual cases the board was estopped from charging back the allegedly excess payments and from changing their ratings prospectively. The trial court also included these estoppel cases in its findings relating to the nonuniformity group. The six teachers involved on the present appeal were not listed in any of these three categories by the trial court, but in both its opinions and findings, were separately treated. As to each of these six parties the trial court found that they had not sustained their respective burdens of proof. They were treated in the opinion of Judge Goodell as specialized types of mechanical or clerical error cases. Judgment was entered in accordance with these findings. From this judgment the teachers appealed from those portions adverse to them, and the board appealed from those portions adverse to it. This court accepted the classifications made by the trial court, and reversed the judgment in part and affirmed it in part. So far as is pertinent here this court affirmed all portions of the judgment from which the board appealed. So far as the appeal by the teachers is concerned the order of this court was that (62 Cal.App.2d at p. 760) “all portions of the judgment from which they appeal should be affirmed except the following:” The court then listed three specific portions of the judgment that should be reversed. The first two categories are not involved on the present appeal. The third portion of the order of reversal reads: 1 ‘ That portion of the judgment denying to the teachers discussed under the heading ‘The “non-uniformity” cases’ the right to a writ of mandate to be restored to their prior ratings should be reversed.”