Sheehan v. Eldredge

Opinion

CHRISTIAN, J. Appellants are teachers employed by the Salinas Union High School District; feeling aggrieved by the decision of the district governing board to purchase group health insurance benefits for district employees under Government Code, section 53202 et seq.,1 appellants petitioned for a writ of mandate to compel a revision of the district salary schedule. The appeal is from a judgment of dismissal entered after the court sustained respondent board members’ general demurrer.

Appellants’ basic complaint is that the particular group health insurance [79]plan which the district board decided to purchase for its employees is more valuable to teachers who have dependents covered under the plan than to those who have no dependents. The petition alleged that part of the cash salaries of teachers was “directed toward the purchase of health insurance pursuant to an order of the [r]espondents.” That allegation is incorrect as a matter of law; it was properly pointed out to the court by respondents (and is now conceded by appellants) that the health insurance benefit in question was not paid for out of payroll deductions; the plan was purchased by the district out of district funds, pursuant to Government Code, section 53202 et seq.

Under Education Code, section 13502, the salaries of the district’s teachers are fixed by the governing board. It is true, as appellants point out, that Education Code section 135012 prohibits wage discrimination on the basis of sex and that section 13506,3 in allowing salary differential on the basis of “years of training and . . . years of service” does not specifically authorize any other kind of differential such as differences in the value of employment-related benefits. Nevertheless, appellants’ contentions amount only to the assertion that if a district board chooses to purchase for its employees a group health plan, which under Government Code section 53202 it has “determined to be in the best interests of the [district] and the officers and employees electing to receive the benefits,” it must, if a group plan providing benefits for family members is selected, somehow equalize the cash equivalent of the plan for all employees. It is not clear how this would be done: perhaps by ascertaining the cash value of the health plan to the district employee with the largest number of covered dependents, then computing the cash value of coverage as to every other employee, taking account of the number of his dependents, if any, and paying equalizing cash benefits in varying amounts to all employees other than the one with the largest number of dependents.