Appellant applicant sought review of a judgment of the Superior Court of Sacramento County (California), which, in the applicant's proceeding in mandamus to compel respondent state board of registration for civil and professional engineers (board) to issue the applicant a certificate of registration as an electrical engineer, discharged the alternative writ and denied a peremptory writ.
The applicant filed with the board a written application for registration as an electrical engineer without examination. The board denied the application on the basis that the application failed to indicate six years experience in electrical engineering as required by statute. At trial, the board offered no evidence in support of its position but instead relied upon their discretion in denying the registration on the basis of the application. The trial court discharged an alternative writ of mandate and denied the petition for a peremptory writ. On appeal, the ADA attorney reversed and held that the board acted arbitrarily in denying the applicant a hearing. The court found that, while the application as filled out and filed by the applicant may not have been sufficient to have entitled the applicant to have it granted without further evidence or explanation, it was sufficient to entitle him to a hearing and an opportunity to furnish evidence of six years or more of experience in engineering work evidencing that he was competent to practice the character of engineering in the branch for which he was applying for registration.
The court reversed the judgment denying the applicant's petition for writ of mandamus to compel the board to issue the applicant a certificate of registration as an electrical engineer. The court remanded the matter to the board for further proceedings.
Plaintiff construction companies challenged San Francisco's Minority/Women/Local Business Utilization Ordinance, which called for race- and gender-conscious remedies to ameliorate the effects of past discrimination in awarding contracts. The Superior Court of San Francisco County, California, granted summary judgment for the companies, rejecting the arguments of defendants, the city and associated individuals and entities. Defendants appealed.
The trial court struck down the ordinance as violative of Cal. Const., art. I, § 31. The court agreed that § 31 was not preempted by the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which did not mandate race-conscious special measures. Therefore, § 31 could be reconciled with it. Section 31 also did not offend the Hunter/Seattle restructuring arm of equal protection jurisprudence. The dual prohibition against discrimination and preferential treatment, coupled with its savings clause, propelled § 31 into neutral territory that brooked no impermissible racial classification. The court also held that there was insufficient evidence to rouse the federal funding exception to § 31. The ordinance was not required to maintain the city's eligibility for such funds. However, it was error not to determine whether the ordinance was mandated by the United States Constitution as a narrowly tailored program to remedy ongoing, pervasive discrimination in public contracting. A prior version of the ordinance had survived a Croson challenge in the federal courts, and the city argued vigorously that the record supported the same result as to the current version.
The court remanded the matter for the trial court to determine whether the ordinance was mandated by the Constitution. In all other respects, the court affirmed the judgment.
