Fremont Police Ass'n v. City of Fremont

*803 Opinion

The Fremont Police Association appeals from a judgment determining the validity of a personnel rule of the City of Fremont. The personnel rule complained of grants a vacation of 12 working days to any policeman with less than 5 years of employment; the issue is whether Government Code section 38634 1 requires the city to grant an annual leave of 15 working days to members of its police force.

The same question was considered by the Attorney General in an opinion which concluded that the term “days” in section 38634 refers to calendar rather than working days. ( 31 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen. 132 .) Opinions of the Attorney General are not binding on the courts, but they are entitled to great weight. (Smith v. Anderson (1967) 67 Cal.2d 635, 641, fn. 5 [ 63 Cal.Rptr. 391 , 433 P.2d 183 ].) The opinion points out that the Legislature has in certain other enactments expressly provided that the term “days” refers to working days. No such specification appears in section 38634. When section 38634 was enacted in 1949, Government Code sections 18050 and 24005 had both referred to “working days” in the computation of vacation time for state and county employees respectively. The…