It’s the Law : Courts Around the State to Close for Lincoln’s Birthday

You can’t get divorced or sentenced to state prison or found liable for a traffic accident next Monday, because all California state courts will be closed to celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.

While the judges in Los Angeles County are playing golf, however, their clerks are scheduled to work. Except the clerk, Frank S. Zolin, who will be out playing golf with the judges.

It was the Legislature that closed the courts for Honest Abe’s day, with a new law designed to make sure that courts in every county all celebrate the same holidays.

That, the legislators hoped, would shush complaints from lawyers who drive from county to county without knowing who’s open for business and who’s off celebrating one of the courts’ lesser-known 12 annual holidays.

The new law provides that “officers and employees of the courts shall observe only judicial holidays,” including Lincoln Day.

But county officials claim that the 200 or so court clerks--not to mention deputy sheriffs, district attorneys and public defenders who people the courts--are employees of the county, rather than employees of the state court.

And county employees, the county employers say, cannot have the day off, unless their bargaining units negotiated for it in their contracts. The clerks didn’t.

“Nobody brought it up. I don’t think anybody was aware of the statute,” said Anthony R. Segall, one of the clerks union’s two lawyers. “The Coalition of County Unions negotiated for 15,000 employees, and only 200 are clerks. So it just got overlooked.”

No problem. Court clerks know their way to the courthouse and they sued.

So Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kurt Lewin will be asked Thursday to permit the clerks to observe Lincoln Day on Monday as they feel the new state law requires them to do.

“I don’t want to be enslaved on the birthday of the Great Emancipator!” said Charles Fooks, president of the clerks union, Local 575, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees AFL-CIO.

Took Plea to Heart

Segall will argue the clerks’ case alone Thursday because his partner, Glenn Rothner, took the plea for a holiday to heart.

“In honor of Lincoln Day,” Segall said, “Glenn went skiing.”

Because courtrooms, and some whole courthouses, will be closed throughout Los Angeles County on Monday, Zolin has arranged for two work sites--Torrance and the downtown courthouses--where clerks can assemble to file documents and perform other catch-up tasks. He expects about 60 of the clerks to show up, with others taking the day off as a vacation day.

Eventually, Zolin said, the merger of the county clerk’s office with the court administrator’s office begun in 1985 will be complete, and such controversies will be history. About 130 “judicial assistants” who do the same work as court clerks but were hired under the new combination office, for example, are considered court employees and will have Monday off.

Zolin has circulated a memo informing all clerks hired under the old system that they are welcome to switch status at any time, with the same pay and benefits but no bargaining unit and with Lincoln Day off.

Newest Title

Despite his newest title of county clerk, Zolin has no doubt about his own right to take Monday off for golf in the judges’ tournament.

He is also executive officer of the Superior Court and jury commissioner.

“In both those jobs I am clearly a court employee,” he said, “and two out of three titles have to be right.”