BREAKING NEWS: California Supreme Court Votes to Approve MEA’s Petition for Review on Prop B!

The California Supreme Court announced this morning that it has GRANTED review of MEA’s petition challenging a lower Court’s ruling on the 2012 Proposition B litigation brought by MEA. The Supreme Court’s decision means the Appellate Court’s ruling issued earlier this year in favor of the City is void.

The case stems from MEA’s allegations that the City had a duty to meet and confer with MEA before putting Proposition B, also known as “Comprehensive Pension Reform,” on the June 2012 ballot. The City argued that Mayor Jerry Sanders and City Attorney Jan Goldsmith were simply acting as “private citizens” with regard to their Prop B actions and therefore could avoid complying with the meet and confer requirement.

MEA filed a complaint with the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), which agreed with MEA and determined that the City’s “private citizen” ruse was unlawful. PERB ordered, among other things, that all MEA-represented employees hired after July 20, 2012 be “made whole” as a result of the City denying those employees entry into the City’s defined benefit pension system. The City appealed that ruling to the 4th District Court of Appeals, which agreed with the City, reversed the PERB ruling and vacated the remedy ordered by PERB. MEA appealed that appellate Court ruling to the California Supreme Court, which voted 6-0 to issue a very rare approval of our petition for review.

The case will now be briefed and argued in the California Supreme Court, which will ultimately issue the final ruling in this landmark public employee bargaining case. We will provide additional updates as the timing of next steps in the process become more clear.

Special thanks and congratulations to MEA attorney Ann Smith, who initiated and litigated this challenge from the very beginning. Thank you and congratulations to Ann and all MEA-represented employees for this second chance at JUSTICE in this important case!