Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEAL from the Superior Court of San Bernardino County, Super.Ct.No. SCVSS137487, Bob N. Krug, Judge. (Retired judge of the San Bernardino Super. Ct., assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to art. VI, § 6 of the Cal. Const.)
Law Offices of Dennis J. Hayes, Dennis J. Hayes and Alison M. Miceli for Plaintiff and Appellant.
Morrison & Foerster, Robert A. Naeve and Sarvenaz Bahar for Defendants and Respondents.
OPINION
McKinster, Acting P.J.,
This is an appeal by plaintiff and appellant San Bernardino Public Employees Association (hereafter SBPEA) from the judgment of dismissal entered against it and in favor of defendants and respondents, San Bernardino Superior Court and Tressa Sloan Kentner, in her official capacity as Court Executive Officer (hereafter defendants), after the trial court sustained their demurrer, without leave to amend, to SBPEA’s petition for writ of mandate. SBPEA and two individual court reporters (referred to collectively as plaintiffs) filed the petition in order to obtain a declaration that defendants were not properly compensating court reporters for the preparation of certain transcripts. Plaintiffs also sought a writ of mandate directing defendants to cease and desist from failing to properly compensate court reporters. The petition alleged, in pertinent part, that SBPEA is the authorized collective bargaining representative for court reporters employed by San Bernardino Superior Court and in that capacity has standing to sue on their behalf to obtain compensation under Government Code section 69950 for the preparation of certified transcripts.
The trial court’s ruling on defendants’ demurrer does not affect the individual plaintiffs and therefore neither of them is a party to this appeal.
All further statutory references are to the Government Code, unless indicated otherwise.
In their demurrer, defendants asserted that SBPEA does not have associational standing to prosecute this action because court reporters are independent contractors, not employees of the court, when they prepare and sell certified transcripts. Therefore, the relief requested in the writ petition is outside SBPEA’s scope of representation. The trial court agreed and sustained defendants’ demurrer without leave to amend.
For reasons we now explain, we conclude that the associational standing requirements are not met in this case. Therefore, we will affirm the judgment.
DISCUSSION
The only issue in this appeal is one of law—whether SBPEA has standing to maintain this action on behalf of court reporters employed by defendants. We review issues of law de novo. (Zelig v. County of Los Angeles (2002) 27 Cal.4th 1112, 1126, citing Blank v. Kirwan (1985) 39 Cal.3d 311, 318.)
Resolution of the standing issue is governed by Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising Comm’n (1977) 432 U.S. 333, which sets out the test to determine whether an association, like SBPEA, has standing to bring suit on behalf of its members—“[A]n association has standing to bring suit on behalf of its members when: (a) its members would otherwise have standing to sue in their own right; (b) the interests it seeks to protect are germane to the organization’s purpose; and (c) neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual members in the lawsuit.” (Id. at p. 343; see Brotherhood of Teamsters & Auto Truck Drivers v. Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd. (1987) 190 Cal.App.3d 1515, 1521-1522; Driving Sch. Assn. of Cal. v. San Mateo Union High Sch. Dist. (1992) 11 Cal.App.4th 1513, 1517; and Apartment Assn. of Los Angeles County, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles (2006) 136 Cal.App.4th 119, 129.) The noted criteria, which we address in reverse order, are not met in this case.
A. Participation of Individual Members is Required
In the petition for writ of mandate, plaintiffs alleged, in pertinent part, that in accordance with section 69950, subdivision (a), San Bernardino Superior Court compensates court reporters for preparing an original transcript at the rate of $0.85 for each 100 words contained in the original and $0.15 for each 100 words contained in the copies ordered at the same time (referred to in the petition and hereafter as the “original and two copies rate”). If at a later date the court reporter is directed to prepare a duplicate original and copies of a previously produced transcript, San Bernardino Superior Court compensates the reporter in accordance with section 69950, subdivision (b) at the rate of $0.20 for each 100 words contained in the new original, and $0.15 for each 100 words contained in the copies ordered at the same time (referred to in the petition and hereafter as the “three copies rate”). When, due to extenuating circumstances, such as loss of or damage to archived computer files, a court reporter must either completely or substantially reproduce a previously produced transcript, San Bernardino Superior Court agreed to compensate the reporter at the original transcript rate set out in section 69950, subdivision (a) if the court reporter submits an affidavit setting out the circumstances that required reproduction of the previously produced transcript and “[u]pon validation of a valid reproduction.”
Section 69950, subdivision (a) states, “The fee for transcription of original ribbon or printed copy is eighty-five cents ($0.85) for each 100 words, and for each copy purchased at the same time by the court, party, or other person purchasing the original, fifteen cents ($0.15) for each 100 words.”
The writ petition includes allegations setting out the circumstances under which five court reporters, including the two court reporters named individually, reproduced previously produced transcripts but defendants paid the reporters at the lower three copies rate set out in section 69950, subdivision (b) rather than the higher original and two copies rate set out in section 69950, subdivision (a). Plaintiffs alleged that as a result of paying the lower three copies rate, defendants violated section 69950 and failed to properly compensate court reporters in their employ. Based on the noted allegations, plaintiffs sought a judgment declaring that defendants had violated section 69950, enjoining defendants from compensating court reporters in a manner inconsistent with section 69950, and awarding plaintiffs “[p]ast fees improperly withheld from court reporters employed by [defendants] . . . .”
As quoted above, the relief requested in the petition includes recovery of fees defendants allegedly improperly withheld from court reporters. In order to recover those fees, individual court reporters must present evidence first to show the circumstances that required reproduction of the previously produced transcript and establish entitlement to the higher rate of compensation, and next to prove the amount of compensation defendants improperly withheld. Consequently, both the claim and the relief requested require the participation of individual court reporters, and that participation defeats SBPEA’s claim of associational standing.
But even if the damage claim were dropped from the petition, the relief requested would still require participation of individual court reporters because the basis for the petition is that defendants did not properly pay court reporters when extenuating circumstances required the court reporter to reproduce a previously produced transcript. As alleged, the only court reporters with claims against defendants are those who, due to extenuating circumstances, have been required to reproduce a previously produced transcript. Those individual court reporters must participate in the action in order to establish a basis for any type of relief. Because the claim and the relief requested require the participation of individual court reporters, SBPEA does not have associational standing to maintain the action. (Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising Comm’n, supra, 432 U.S. at p. 343.)
Although we need not address the two remaining criteria, because all three criteria must exist in order to establish associational standing, we do so to disabuse SBPEA of its notion that the trial court erred.
B. Interest Alleged is Not Germane to SBPEA’s Purpose
The interest alleged in the petition is pertinent only to court reporters who have prepared transcripts. Defendants contend, as they did in their demurrer, that although court reporters are employees of the court when they are reporting court proceedings, when they prepare and sell transcripts of those proceedings, court reporters are independent contractors, and as such are compensated in accordance with the rates set out in section 69950. As alleged in the writ petition, SBPEA is an employee organization recognized by defendants “as the exclusive representative of court reporters employed by the San Bernardino Superior Court, for purposes of collective bargaining.” Because transcript preparation and compensation are not matters pertinent to a court reporter’s status as an employee, and are not subject to collective bargaining, defendants contend that the issue is not germane to SBPEA’s purpose. We agree.
SBPEA’s purpose is to represent employees of defendants in connection with issues related to the terms and conditions of their employment. (See, e.g., Brotherhood of Teamsters & Auto Truck Drivers v. Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd., supra, 190 Cal.App.3d at p. 1522 [“It is patently a matter of union purpose to maintain the integrity of the collective bargaining process. It is also a matter of union interest to protect its members from what is perceived to be a wrongful denial of benefits arising from a breakdown of the collective bargaining process.”].) Court reporters are not employees of defendants when they prepare and sell transcripts. Rather, they are independent contractors as evidenced by the fact, among others, that transcripts are not prepared in every case, and when transcripts are requested, court reporters prepare them on their own time. (See Charles R. v. Superior Court (1980) 110 Cal.App.3d 945, 952 [“Although the reporters are court employees, their function in preparing transcripts bears more resemblance to that of an independent contractor. The transcript is ordinarily prepared outside of court hours by one or more reporters and one or more transcribers, who are paid for their product on a piece-work basis.”].) As previously noted, court reporters’ compensation for transcript preparation is fixed by statute, and that compensation is not included in calculating court reporters’ retirement benefits. (Cramer v. Superior Court (2005) 130 Cal.App.4th 42, 49, citing McNeil v. Board of Retirement (1958) 51 Cal.2d 278.) In short, neither the conditions under which the work is performed nor the compensation received for that work is subject to collective bargaining. Issues related to the preparation of transcripts, including the issue of compensation, are not germane to SBPEA’s purpose.
C. Individual SBPEA Members Do Not Have Standing to Bring the Action
As discussed above, in performing the function of preparing transcripts, court reporters are not court employees, they are independent contractors. Because they are not court employees when preparing transcripts, court reporters also are not members of SBPEA when performing that function. Moreover, not all court reporters have standing to maintain this action because the claim alleged in the petition, as previously discussed, is limited to those court reporters who not only have prepared transcripts, but who also have been required to reproduce those transcripts due to extenuating circumstances. For these reasons, individual SBPEA members do not have standing and therefore SBPEA likewise lacks associational standing to maintain this action.
In challenging the trial court’s order sustaining defendants’ demurrer, SBPEA points out that the trial court did not understand the concept of associational standing and sustained the demurrer because in the trial court’s view SBPEA did not have a beneficial interest in the outcome of the lawsuit. As the trial court put it, SBPEA “has no germane interest in this lawsuit because they [are] going to accomplish nothing whether they win or lose. They will gain nothing or they will lose nothing depending on the outcome of the petition. It is the individual court reporters that are going to be the ones that profit or don’t profit, and they are the only ones that should be in the lawsuit.” Although the trial court’s specific reasoning is incorrect, we nevertheless must affirm the ruling if the outcome is correct. So long as the ruling of the trial court was correct in law, we will not disturb it on appeal simply because it was made for the wrong reason. (D’Amico v. Board of Medical Examiners (1974) 11 Cal.3d 1, 19.) The trial court’s ruling in this case was correct, albeit for the wrong reason. SBPEA does not have associational standing and therefore may not maintain this action.
DISPOSITION
The judgment of dismissal is affirmed. Defendants to recover costs on appeal.
We concur: Richli, J., King, J.