California Court of Appeal

In plaintiffs' claim for breach of the duty of fair representation and breach of contract and collective bargaining agreement against a union, alleging that the union failed to ensure that overtime was fairly allotted among the workers, trial court's dismissal of the matter for lack of subject matter jurisdiction is affirmed where: 1) even if plaintiffs had exhausted their administrative remedies by pursuing their claims before the City's Employee Relations Board (ERB), they could not have commenced their action in superior court to challenge ERB's ruling; 2) pursuant to section 3509.5(b) and (c), plaintiffs were required to commence a writ petition in the court of appeal within 30 days of the adverse decision; and 3) the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the union's motion for sanctions because the plaintiffs' complaint was not frivolous based on their belief they had exhausted administrative remedies and that the jurisdictional limitations of section 3509 did not apply to ERB based upon the ambiguous language of 3509(d).

Appellate Information

• Decided 12/18/2012
• Published 12/18/2012

Judges

• Johnson

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel