Appendix A: California Department of Education (CDE) K.C. Settlement Agreement and Legal Advisory
medications. “[T]he Legislature,” the Nurses observe, “does not engage in idle acts.” (Citing
California Teachers Assn. v. Governing Bd. of Rialto Unified School Dist. (1997) 14 Cal.4th
627, 634 .) The maxim is valid, but its application is flawed. Having generally authorized
unlicensed school personnel to administer medications (§ 49423) and directed the Board to adopt
implementing regulations (§ 49423.6), the Legislature nevertheless retained the power to impose
additional restrictions on drugs deemed to justify special precautions. Nothing in section 49423
or 49423.6 conditioned the effectiveness of those statutes on further legislation, and nothing in
the later-enacted, drug-specific statutes repeals the general authority granted in the earlier, more
general provisions. So understood, none of the relevant statutes represents an idle act. In contrast,
to accept the Nurses ’ argument would entail the implausible conclusion that the Legislature had
intended section 49423 and its 1968 statutory predecessor (former § 11753.1; see ante, at p. 8) to
lie dormant and ineffective until the Legislature enacted the first drug-specific statute 33 years
later. (§ 49414 [concerning epinephrine auto-injectors].) History is to the contrary. As we have
seen, the 1968 Legislature intended the original statute to be self-executing, and the 2000
Legislature, to force compliance, directed the Board to adopt implementing regulations in short
order. (See § 49423.6 [“[o]n or before June 15, 2001”]; see also ante, at p. 9.)
4. Failed Legislation.
Despite the foregoing evidence to the contrary, amici curiae supporting the Nurses urge
us to infer from a variety of failed bills that the Legislature believes further, specific legislation is
necessary before unlicensed school personnel may administer insulin. Because section 49423 and
its implementing regulations plainly do authorize such personnel to administer prescription
medications and we re in fact adopted for that purpose, “to undertake the problematic exercise of
BP 2006 – Provision of Healthcare Services
Page 43
Desert Mountain Special Education Local Plan Area (DMSELPA) (rev. 11/16)
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator