Earl v. District Court In and For City and County of Denver
| Decision Date | 02 June 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 85SA452,85SA452 |
| Citation | 719 P.2d 321 |
| Parties | Betty EARL, Petitioner, v. The DISTRICT COURT In and For the CITY AND COUNTY OF DENVER, Second Judicial District, and the Honorable Paul A. Markson, Jr., One of the Judges Thereof, Respondents. |
| Court | Colorado Supreme Court |
Nancy J. Hutchinson, Bonham & Peake, Denver, for petitioner.
Stephen H. Kaplan, Denver City Atty., Frank A. Elzi, Asst. City Atty., Denver, for respondents.
This original proceeding presents the same issue addressed in Schaffer v. District Court, 719 P.2d 1088 (Colo. 1986). We issued an order to show cause concerning the Denver district court's denial of the petitioner's motion to submit a simplified record of the administrative proceeding under review. We make the rule absolute.
The petitioner Betty Earl seeks judicial review under section 24-4-106, 10 C.R.S. (1982), of a state hearing officer's decision that the Denver Department of Social Services (the department) properly denied her application for a foster care license. 1 On September 5, 1985, the respondent district court granted Earl's motion to proceed in forma pauperis and her "Motion to Transcribe the Record In Forma Pauperis." Upon learning that there is no statutory authority for requiring the costs of transcript preparation to be borne by the Colorado Judicial Department, the district court rescinded its order granting the motion to have the record transcribed in forma pauperis.
Subsequently, Earl filed a "Motion to Partially Transcribe the Record" in which she suggested three alternative forms of relief. First, she asked that she be given access to the tape-recording of the hearing that was made in order to transcribe what she considered to be the necessary portions at the offices of her attorney. Earl also urged that the tapes themselves could be transmitted to the district court in lieu of a transcript. Finally, she suggested that she could be permitted access to the tapes for the purpose of preparing a statement of evidence as provided for by C.A.R. 10(c). 2
On October 24, 1985, the district court denied in its entirety Earl's motion to partially transcribe the record. The district court stated in the October 24 order:
The Motion For Petitioner To Partially Transcribe Record is denied. It is clear that an intelligent review of the administrative proceedings will require the entire transcript and all exhibits. Petitioner is challenging evidentiary rulings, factual findings and the denial of a directed verdict both of which require a Court review of all of the evidence presented.
Given the over-crowded docket of the Denver District Court, the Court is unable to listen to the lengthy tape recordings of the proceedings.
Further, a statement of the evidence is also unsatisfactory.
On behalf of the respondent district court, the department makes four objections to the relief requested. It argues first that "a party seeking review of an administrative hearing is required to order and pay for a transcript in order to make it part of the record," relying on Harris v. District Court, 655 P.2d 398 (1982) and Loesch v. Dept. of Rev., 194 Colo. 169, 570 P.2d 530 (1977). The department further argues that an indigent has no right to a free transcript in civil actions. 3 It asserts that there is no statutory authority for permitting the petitioner to submit the record of the administrative hearing to the district court other than in the form of a transcript. Finally, it asks this court to consider the burden that will be placed on the district court if it were required to review the record in the form of an unindexed tape-recording.
We disposed of most of these contentions under similar circumstances in Schaffer v. District Court, 719 P.2d 1088, (Colo. 1986). Schaffer also involved a petition for judicial review under section 24-4-106 of a decision of the Colorado Department of Social Services. Schaffer, who was unable to pay for the preparation of a transcript of the administrative hearing, requested the district court to waive the transcript costs or in the alternative to permit a simplified record in the form of a tape-recording or a statement of stipulated facts. Addressing Schaffer's request for relief we noted that a complete typewritten transcript is not required under section 24-4-106(6) as part of the record on review described in that section. 4 We also recognized that normally a full transcript is not essential to effective judicial review of administrative proceedings in cases such as this. Perhaps of most importance, despite the absence of explicit statutory authority for the provision of a simplified record to the district court in cases involving judicial review under section 24-4-106, we decided that application of C.A.R. 10 to district court review of an agency adjudicatory decision would "facilitate access to the courts and serve the interests of justice" without interfering with any conflicting statutory directive. At 1090. The respondent district court in Schaffer was directed to determine which of the alternatives to a transcript suggested by the petitioner was "most suitable in terms of costs, completeness, and the convenience of the parties and the court." Id.
Unlike the situation in Schaffer, the respondent district court here already has indicated that the alternatives proposed by Earl are unsatisfactory in terms of the convenience of the court or completeness. We appreciate...
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...is not an absolute necessity in the reviewing court). Thus, although the lack of a transcript may be inconvenient, see Earl v. Dist. Court, 719 P.2d 321, 324 (Colo.1986), an audiotape may provide a sufficient basis upon which to conduct review. See Schaffer v. Dist. Court, 719 P.2d 1088, 10......
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