Gottlieb v. Department of Water & Power

Opinion

FLEMING, J. Appellants, employees of the Department of Water and Power of the City of Los Angeles (DWP), have appealed the superior court’s dismissal of their mandamus action after that court determined that DWP had paid its employees prevailing salaries and wages during the years 1968 to 1972.

This cause has been here before (see Gottlieb v. Department of Water & Power (1976) 63 Cal.App.3d 202 [133 Cal.Rptr. 614], hg. den.), and we briefly summarize its history. The action is based on asserted violations of section 425 of the Charter of the City of Los Angeles, which declares that salaries and wages of city employees shall in each instance be at least equal to the prevailing salary or wage for the same [509]quality of service rendered to private persons or corporations under similar employment. The initial superior court decision denying relief to appellants was reversed on appeal, the appellate court concluding that the DWP survey of prevailing pay scales had been defective in that it put excessive reliance on salaries and wages paid by private utilities rather than by private employment as a whole, and concluding additionally that the DWP erroneously gave across-the-board pay increases to its employees rather than increases to specific groups based on prevailing rates of pay. But the appellate court rejected appellants’ principal contention that the pay of full-time DWP maintenance employees should be derived from that of daily and hourly paid construction workers in private employment rather than that of full-time maintenance employees. The Court of Appeal concluded its opinion by noting that the DWP apparently paid salaries and wages in excess of those required by the charter and that a resurvey of prevailing pay could be accomplished quickly and economically through use of the existing joint salary survey of the City of Los Angeles for nonutility positions and use of the DWP’s own data for utility positions.

On remand, the superior court issued a writ of mandate to the DWP, ordering it to resurvey prevailing salaries and wages for the period 1968 to 1972 but suggesting it could use the existing data in the joint salary survey of the City of Los Angeles for nonutility positions and the DWP’s own data for utility positions, and also ordering that on completion of the survey the DWP fix compensation in each instance at least equal to the prevailing salary or wage paid by private persons or corporations for performance of similar services. Thereafter, the DWP reported to the court that it had resurveyed prevailing wages in the manner suggested by the court, and had determined that in each instance the salary or wage paid during the periods at issue was at least equal to the prevailing salary or wage for the same quality of services rendered under similar employment to private persons or corporations.