California Court of Appeal

In a plaintiff's petition for a writ of mandate seeking to direct the Board of Trustees of a community college district to reinstate him to his former position of Vice President of a community college with back pay, trial court's denial of the petition is affirmed where: 1) former community college administrators do not have either a statutory or property right to their former administrative positions that would entitle them to writ of mandate relief reinstating them to their former positions; 2) assuming arguendo AB1725 removed the right of community college administrators to earn tenure while serving in an administrative position, that difference does not make Barthuli's reasoning and holding inapplicable to plaintiff's case, as Barthuli's reasoning was based, in large part, on a statutory scheme that granted administrators certain rights to teaching positions on termination of their administrative positions; 3) although the trial court should have denied plaintiff's request for back pay when it denied his petition for writ of mandate directing his reinstatement, because defendant did not file a cross-appeal challenging the trial court's writ of mandate directing it to pay plaintiff back pay, defendant cannot now challenge the trial court's error in awarding him back pay; and 4) trial court's alternative grounds for denying plaintiff's request for reinstatement need not be addressed; 5) purported evidentiary error by the trial court did not constitute prejudicial error.

Appellate Information

• Decided 10/18/2010
• Published 10/18/2010

Judges

• McDONALD

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Martha A. Torgow, Jack M. Sleeth