A California Court of Appeal ruled late yesterday that Orange County officials had treated the local sheriff's deputy union unfairly and upheld a lower court's decision to issue a temporary restraining order blocking the county from instituting annual jail personnel cost savings of between $24 million and $34 million.
The 25-page decision written by Justice Richard D. Fybel was a huge victory for the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs (AOCDS) and Mark Nichols, the union's executive director, who'd repeatedly told county officials over the years that they cannot replace deputy jobs with civilians in jail custody positions without first meeting and conferring with AOCDS.
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That battle resulted in AOCDS suing the county and the sheriff's
department in 2010, and demanding a temporary restraining order blocking
any reduction in deputy jail positions.
Superior Court Judge Kazuharu Makino granted that request until the entire case can be resolved.
County
officials appealed Makino's ruling, claiming that it was improper
because the union wasn't likely to prevail in the lawsuit.
Sheriff Sandra Hutchens and county officials also argued
that they should be “exempt” from the “meet and confer” requirements of
the contract with the union because they are trying to improve “the
economical and efficient operation of local government.”
(Specifically, they want to replace well paid deputies with cheaper, trained civilians in basic jail jobs that have little or no inmate contact.)
But
Fybel and the two other members of his appellate court panel–justices
Kathleen O'Leary and Raymond Ikola–determined that the county's position
regarding exemption is not supported by California case law.
“The
trial court did not abuse its discretion by concluding a preliminary
injunction should be issued pending trial in this matter, after
balancing the likelihood the Association would prevail on its claims and
the relative harm the Association and defendants would suffer as a
result of the issuance or non-issuance of the preliminary injunction,”
wrote Justice Fybel.
The ruling is a special victory for Charles A. Goldwasser, the AOCDS attorney, and a loss for Nicholas S. Chrisos, county counsel. The justices declared that the union won't have to pay Goldwasser's bill for this appellate case. Local taxpayers will.
The case now returns to Judge Makino's court.
–R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.
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