Bode v. Minnesota Dept. of Natural Resources

• Decision Date: 01 June 1999
• Docket Number: No. C1-98-2200,C1-98-2200
• Citation: 594 N.W.2d 257
• Parties: Judy V. BODE, et al., Respondents, v. MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, et al., Appellants.
• Court: Minnesota Court of Appeals

Page 257

594 N.W.2d 257

Judy V. BODE, et al., Respondents, v. MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, et al., Appellants.

No. C1-98-2200.

Court of Appeals of Minnesota.

June 1, 1999.

Review Granted Aug. 18, 1999.

Syllabus by the Court

I. Subject-matter jurisdiction, in its strict sense, is a court's power to hear and determine a particular class of actions.

II. A judgment is void if the issuing court lacked jurisdiction over the subject matter, lacked personal jurisdiction over the parties through a failure of service that has not been waived, or acted in a manner inconsistent with due process. Minnesota caselaw has also applied a subject-matter-jurisdiction analysis to judgments that exceed statutory authority, contain procedural irregularities, or are entered erroneously after the expiration of a limitation period.

III. The failure to file an appeal within a statutory filing period is a procedural jurisdictional defect ordinarily fatal to the appeal. But the defect is not a lack of subject-matter jurisdiction in its strict sense, and the judgment is not void when the timeliness objection is raised, for the first time, 18 years later by successors-in-interest to a litigant involved in the original proceedings.

R. Brian Bates, St. Paul, for respondents.

Mike Hatch, Attorney General, Craig L. Engwall, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul, for appellants.

Considered and decided by WILLIS, Presiding Judge, LANSING, Judge, and SCHUMACHER, Judge.

OPINION

LANSING, Judge

The Department of Natural Resources appeals a district court's order voiding, for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, a 1986 district court order that designated a parcel of land as a protected wetland. We conclude that the jurisdiction at issue is not strictly subject-matter jurisdiction, and the landowners are not entitled to relief when they first object to the timeliness of the appeal 18 years after the appeal was filed and 12 years after entry of the judgment. We reverse.

FACTS

In 1979, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) tentatively designated wetland 52-26, located in part on land owned by William Bode, a protected wetland. William Bode objected and, in August 1980, a hearings unit was constituted that determined 52-26 did not qualify as a protected wetland under Minn.Stat. § 105.37, subd. 15 (1980). The hearings unit issued the determination in a September 10, 1980, handwritten order. On October 1, 1980, the hearings unit served typed copies of the order by mail. On November 4, 1980, DNR filed a notice of appeal with the district court. In December 1986, the district court reversed the hearings unit's order.

During the next ten years, William Bode and his successors-in-interest, Judy and Linda Bode (Bodes), and the DNR were involved in litigation, primarily over the validity and enforceability of restoration orders. In April 1996, the Bodes brought this action against DNR, seeking to void DNR's designation of wetland 52-26 as a protected wetland and to obtain damages for loss of farmland resulting from DNR's destruction of a tile drainage system that William Bode installed on wetland 52-26. DNR counterclaimed, alleging that the Bodes continued to drain wetland 52-26 in violation of a court order. In September 1997, the district court granted DNR's motion for summary judgment and dismissed the Bodes' claims; DNR's counterclaim was not dismissed.

In July 1998, the Bodes moved under Minn. R. Civ. P. 60.02(d) to vacate the 1986 district court order designating wetland 52-26 as a protected wetland because DNR failed to bring its 1980 appeal within the statutory time period. The district court granted the Bodes' motion and voided the 1986 judgment for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. DNR appeals, contending its appeal was timely and, even if its appeal was not timely, collateral estoppel precludes the Bodes' belated jurisdictional challenge.

ISSUES

I. Does a failure to file an appeal within the statutory time period deprive the court of subject-matter jurisdiction?

II. Did DNR fail to file its appeal within the statutory time period?

III. Is the order void because of a jurisdictional defect?

ANALYSIS

I

Subject-matter jurisdiction is "a court's power to hear and determine cases of the general class or category to which the proceedings in question belong." Black's Law Dictionary 1425 (6th ed.1990); see Reid v. Independent Union of All Workers, 200 Minn. 599, 604, 275 N.W. 300, 302 (1937); Sache v. Gillette, 101 Minn. 169, 172, 112 N.W. 386, 387 (1907). Early Minnesota cases describe subject-matter jurisdiction as "authority to hear and determine a particular class of actions and the particular questions which the court assumes to decide." Robinette v. Price, 214 Minn. 521, 526, 8 N.W.2d 800, 804 (1943) (citing Reid, 200 Minn. 599, 275 N.W. 300; Sache, 101 Minn. 169, 112 N.W. 386). Under this definition, the district court has original subject-matter jurisdiction over civil and criminal cases, for instance, but not over bankruptcy or administrative agency decisions. See Minn. Const. art. VI, § 3 (providing for district court's original jurisdiction).

Minnesota caselaw has also applied subject-matter-jurisdiction analysis to judgments that do not specifically relate to a class or category of cases, but instead exceed statutory authority, contain procedural irregularities, or are entered erroneously after the expiration of a time period. Ortiz v. Gavenda, 590 N.W.2d 119 (Minn.1999) (finding no subject-matter jurisdiction when plaintiff bringing wrongful-death action failed to follow procedure required to gain appointment as trustee for next-of-kin); Marzitelli v. City of Little Canada, 582 N.W.2d 904 (Minn.1998) (referring to expiration of appeal period as subject-matter jurisdiction); Greer v. City of Eagan, 486 N.W.2d 470 (Minn.App.1992) (subject-matter jurisdiction did not attach when appeal not timely filed); Park Elm Homeowner's Ass'n v. Mooney, 398 N.W.2d 643, 647 (Minn.App.1987) (holding district court exceeded its statutory authority in a manner "tantamount to granting a judgment without subject-matter jurisdiction").

In some of these cases, the finding of lack of subject-matter jurisdiction is based on an incurable jurisdictional defect, but not necessarily subject-matter jurisdiction. For example, in Andstrom v. Willmar Regional Treatment Ctr., 512 N.W.2d 117 (Minn.App.1994) we held that a time limitation for appealing an agency decision "is jurisdictional and is to be strictly construed." 512 N.W.2d 117, 118 (Minn.App.1994) (emphasis added) (quoting Management Five, Inc. v. Commissioner of Jobs & Training, 485 N.W.2d 323, 324 (Minn.App.1992)); see also Flame Bar, Inc. v. City of Minneapolis, 295 N.W.2d 586 (Minn.1980) (strictly construing time limitation). Andstrom and Flame Bar implicate the procedural exercise of jurisdiction, but not subject-matter jurisdiction in its strict application.

Indisputably, the district court had, and an appellate court now has, the authority to hear and determine appeals from agency decisions. The jurisdictional question is not whether the court had subject-matter jurisdiction over agency appeals, but whether the untimeliness prevented the exercise of jurisdiction. See Kansas City S. Ry. v. Great Lakes Carbon Corp., 624 F.2d 822, 825 (8th Cir.1980) (a "total want of jurisdiction" must be distinguished from "an error in the exercise of jurisdiction") (citation omitted); Harvey v. Dots, Inc., 561 N.W.2d 192, 194 (Minn.App.1997) (subject-matter jurisdiction implicates power of court to act but does not require determination of whether court acted correctly); see also Robert J. Martineau, Subject Matter Jurisdiction as a New Issue on Appeal: Reining in an Unruly Horse, 1988 BYU L.Rev. 1, 24 (discussing the holding of several courts "that procedural requirements do not go to subject matter jurisdiction"); Mark A. Hall, The Jurisdictional Nature of the Time to Appeal, 21 Ga. L.Rev. 399 (1986) (discussing topic generally).

To hold a judgment void for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction on the grounds that it had not been timely filed "blur[s] the distinction * * * between the 'appropriate exercise of power' and the 'absence of power.' " Mesolella v. City of Providence, 508 A.2d 661, 665-66 (R.I.1986) (quoting La Petite Auberge, Inc. v. Rhode Island Comm'n for Human Rights, 419 A.2d 274, 279 (R.I.1980)); see Carlisle v. United States, 517 U.S. 416, 116 S.Ct. 1460, 1470, 134 L.Ed.2d 613 (1996) (Ginsberg, J., concurring) ("It is anomalous to classify time prescriptions, even rigid ones, under the heading 'subject matter jurisdiction.' "). A court may very well have the subject-matter jurisdiction to adjudicate the case, but rules of procedure or statutes of repose prevent the exercise of the jurisdiction.

The dispositions in these cases are not affected by whether the power in question is a lack of subject-matter jurisdiction or some other type of jurisdiction, because the lack of jurisdiction may be dispositive whether or not it is subject-matter jurisdiction. But when we apply subject-matter-jurisdiction analysis under Minn. R. Civ. P. 60.02(d) or Minn. R. Civ. P. 12.08(c), the identification of the precise jurisdictional flaw is critical because of the potential consequences. The rules of civil procedure create powerful exemptions for subject-matter voidness, namely, that an absence of subject-matter jurisdiction may be raised at any point in the proceeding and that a judgment entered by a district court without subject-matter jurisdiction is inherently void and cannot be validated by the passage of time. See Minn. R. Civ. P. 12.08(c); Peterson v. Eishen, 512 N.W.2d 338, 340 (Minn.1994); Lange v. Johnson, 295 Minn. 320, 204 N.W.2d 205 (1973); Mesenbourg v. Mesenbourg, 538 N.W.2d 489 (Minn.App.1995).

The Bodes argued successfully to the district court that DNR's untimeliness in filing its appeal of the 1980 wetland determination was a jurisdictional error that deprived the...