Clark v. State Employees Appeals Bd.

• Citation: 363 A.2d 735
• Parties: Alfred A. CLARK v. STATE EMPLOYEES APPEALS BOARD and State Board of Education.
• Decision Date: 09 September 1976
• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Maine (US)

Page 735

363 A.2d 735

Alfred A. CLARK v. STATE EMPLOYEES APPEALS BOARD and State Board of Education.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Sept. 9, 1976.

Preti & Flaherty, by Gerald F. Petruccelli, Harold C. Pachios, Peter H. Rysman, Portland, for plaintiff.

Levine, Brody & Levine, by Morton A. Brody, Waterville, for State Employees Appeals Board.

John W. Benoit, Jr., Deputy Atty. Gen., Augusta, for State Board of Education.

Before DUFRESNE, C. J., and WEATHERBEE, POMEROY, WERNICK, ARCHIBALD and DELAHANTY, JJ.

DUFRESNE, Chief Justice.

Alfred A. Clark, the appellant, was notified in September, 1969 that he was to be dismissed from his employment as a maintenance mechanic at the Southern Maine Vocational Technical Institute. Clark contested the proposed firing through the several steps provided by 5 M.R.S.A., § 753, and in December, 1969 the State Employees Appeals Board (the Board) denied him any relief, concluding that the termination of Clark's employment was justified. No further proceedings were taken at that time.

In August, 1971 the appellant filed with the Board a petition in which he sought a rehearing with respect to his previous discharge from the reference employment on alleged grounds of newly discovered evidence of impropriety of his dismissal. Holding that it was without authority to grant the appellant a new hearing, the Board refused the request.

Aggrieved by this administrative decision, the appellant, pursuant to Rule 80B, M.R.C.P., filed a complaint in the Superior Court (Kennebec County) in the way of mandamus to compel a rehearing by the Board. At this point, the State Board of Education, Clark's former employer, upon motion pursuant to Rule 24, M.R.C.P., was permitted to intervene in the action and, together with the State Employees Appeals Board, filed a motion to dimiss the 80B complaint on the ground that it failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted (Rule 12(b), M.R.C.P.), arguing in support thereof lack of jurisdiction to grant the requested rehearing.

The motion was granted and the Superior or Court Justice ordered the dismissal of Clark's 80B complaint. The instant appeal is from the ensuing judgment. We deny the appeal.

The issue is, whether the State Employees Appeals Board (the Board) had the power to reopen and rehear the dispute between the appellant and the State Board of Education after a final decision, from which no appeal was taken, had been reached in the previous proceedings.

Since governmental agencies are limited in their operations within the framework established for them by the Legislature, questions of jurisdiction, such as presented in the instant case, are cognizable in judicial review. State Board of Education v. Coombs, 1973, Me., 308 A.2d 582.

Initially, we take notice that the statutory provisions establishing the State Employees Appeals Board and setting up the procedures for settlement of grievances and disputes between state employees and the employer agencies of the State do not specifically authorize the Board to reopen and reconsider its decisions which, for all intents and purposes, are intended to be final.

We recognize, however, that, even in the absence of such specific statutory grant of power, some courts impute authority in administrative agencies to reopen and reconsider previous final decisions on the basis that administrative tribunals possess the inherent power of reconsideration of their judicial acts, in analogy to the authority of courts of general jurisdiction at common law, except as modified by statute. It is said that the denial to such tribunals of the authority to correct error and injustice and to revise their judgments for good and sufficient cause would run counter to the public interest. See Handlon v. Town of Belleville, 1950, 4 N.J. 99, 71 A.2d 624, 16 A.L.R.2d 1118; Wammack v. Industrial Commission of Arizona, 1958, 83 Ariz. 321, 320 P.2d 950.

On the other hand, other courts hold that administrative agencies created by legislative enactments are nonjudicial bodies and have no inherent powers of courts. These agencies, as creatures of statute, have no greater powers than, but only such powers as, those expressly conferred upon them by the Legislature, or such as arise therefrom by necessary implication to allow carrying out the powers accorded them, and, in the absence of specific statutory authority to reopen and rehear on its merits a case in which a final order, decree or decision has been entered, administrative boards have no lawful authority to modify or set aside such final decisions in their exercise of functions of a quasi-judicial nature. Trigg v. Industrial Commission, 1936, 364 Ill. 581, 5 N.E.2d 394; Murdock v. Perkins, 1964, 219 Ga. 756, 135 S.E.2d 869.

It is a fundamental rule of statutory construction that, when a power is conferred by statute, whatever is necessary to carry out the power and make it effective and complete will be implied. City of Rockland v. Camden and Rockland Water Company, 1935, 134 Me. 95, 97, 181 A. 818; Kennie v. City of Westbrook, 1969, Me., 254 A.2d 39, 42. That which is implied in the statute is as much a part of it as that which is expressed. White v. Shalit, 1938, 136 Me. 65, 69, 1 A.2d 765. But, for the rule to apply, the particular powers to be implied must be necessary to the full exercise of the powers expressly granted. Commonwealth v. Cartwright, 1944, 350 Pa. 638, 40 A.2d 30, 33, 155 A.L.R. 1088.

Our Court said as much in relation to the powers of the Industrial Accident Commission and repudiated the concept of inherent power in public agencies invested with quasi-judicial functions.

In Conners' Case, 1921, 121 Me. 37, 115 A. 520, a final decree of the Chairman of the Industrial Accident Commission, after the time for taking an appeal had expired, was said to be beyond the power of the Chairman to reconsider upon a rehearing on the merits on the ground of newly discovered evidence, the Court using the following language:

'The Industrial Accident Commission is not a court of general, nor even of limited common law jurisdiction, but an administrative tribunal specially created by the Legislature to administer the Workman's Compensation Act . . .. As such administrative arm of the Legislature it possesses only such jurisdiction, powers and authority as are conferred upon it by express legislative grant or such as arise therefrom by implication as necessary and incidental to the full and complete exercise of the powers granted. . . . It has a procedure all its own, and it borrows nothing by implication from the courts of common law.' Id. at pages 39-40, 115 A. at page 521 (Emphasis added) ¹

In Conners' Case, supra, this Court posited its conclusion that the Legislature intentionally denied the Industrial Accident Commission the power of reopening or rehearing a case on its merits, following the entry of a decree, and of making a new determination, not...