A dissent in the California Supreme Court?! What's the world coming to?!
Admittedly, it's not the most vitriolic one you'll ever read. Nor about the biggest-ticket item in the universe. Everyone agrees that you've got to pay a prevailing wage on public works projects; for example, here, ripping up a public road and replacing it. The question is simply: What about transporting the heavy machinery for that job from offsite locations to that work site? Does that count?
Justice Corrigan's opinion says: Nope. Justices Cuéllar and Liu would say: Yes.
Justice Cuéllar's dissent is only five pages, and is hardly hyperbolic. It ends with the typical: "So with respect, I dissent."
That said, its tone is not entirely deferential to the majority opinion. Take this line, for example: "[T]he majority narrows this statutory language beyond recognition." Or this one: "The majority [] breaks with this established authority without justification. It glosses over section 1772’s language . . . . It papers over this language, and in the process disapproves of long-standing authority providing a workable framework for applying it, on the basis of an implausible reading of the section’s exceedingly spare legislative history."
Not the most vociferous dissent in history, to be sure, but not entirely passive either.
(It's the same lineup in the other "prevailing wage" opinion issued today, BTW.)
