Jackson County Public Hospital v. Public Employment Relations Bd.

Decision Date27 June 1979
Docket NumberNo. 62347,62347
Parties102 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2857 JACKSON COUNTY PUBLIC HOSPITAL, Appellee, v. PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS BOARD, Appellant.
CourtIowa Supreme Court

Thomas J. Miller, Atty. Gen., Carlton G. Salmons, Asst. Atty. Gen., and N. Morrison Torrey and Nancy D. Powers, Public Employment Relations Board, Des Moines, for appellant.

Russell L. Samson and David H. Goldman of Rogers, Phillips & Swanger, Des Moines, for appellee.

Considered en banc.

ALLBEE, Justice.

This appeal has been brought by the Public Employment Relations Board to contest a district court decree which reversed the PERB's decision that it had jurisdiction over the food service workers at Jackson County Public Hospital. The hospital has cross-appealed, contending that the district court should have reversed the PERB for more reasons than it did. The substantive dispute in the case is whether the hospital was guilty of certain prohibited practices in the firing of two food service workers.

Jackson County Public Hospital is a health care facility which employs approximately 270 people. It is stipulated that the hospital is a public employer within the meaning of the Public Employment Relations Act, section 20.3(1), The Code. The hospital has, for a number of years, contracted with A.R.A. Services, Inc., for the provision of all food services on a cost-plus basis. A.R.A. is a Delaware corporation with its principal office in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and provides similar food services to various institutions over much of the country.

The circumstances out of which this controversy arises have their genesis in January of 1975. It was during that month that a representative of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees and Bartenders International Union AFL-CIO wrote to the local A.R.A. manager and demanded recognition of the union as the collective bargaining representative for food service workers. A representation petition was filed concurrently with that demand. The demand was made on the premise that the food service workers were employees of A.R.A. and were thus subject to the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board.

A.R.A. did not accede to the union's demand and a hearing on the representation petition was necessary. In the decision on that matter filed on April 2, 1975, the NLRB's Regional Director, acting on behalf of the NLRB, determined that A.R.A. was not engaged in commerce within the meaning of the NLRA, and that A.R.A.'s operations were intimately related to the patient care functions of the hospital, an institution which is exempt from NLRB jurisdiction. The representation petition was therefore dismissed.

The parties, particularly the hospital, attribute great importance to the precise reasons for the NLRB's action. We do not attach such weight to those reasons. We do note, however, that the decision appears to have merely assumed that A.R.A. was the employer of the food service workers, and made no specific findings on that issue.

In May 1975, food service employees met and determined to continue organizational efforts, this time under the Iowa Public Employment Relations Act, chapter 20, The Code. The hospital, through its administrator, Jon Jensen, made known its opposition to the unionization of food service workers.

On June 2, two food service workers who had participated in organizational activities, Phyllis Scott and Janice Edson, were called to the hospital administrator's office. There the administrator, with the food service manager in attendance, conducted what is referred to as the "termination interview." The two were informed that they were no longer suited for their positions as diet aides and were given their termination letters. Those letters were authored by the food service manager and cosigned by the hospital's administrator.

Finally, on August 26, 1975, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO, acting on behalf of the discharged employees, filed the prohibited practice complaint which initiated this action. The complaint alleged that Scott and Edson were discharged for union activity and that the discharges violated sections 20.10(2)(a), (b) and (d). The hearing officer and the PERB found that prohibited practices, violations of sections 20.10(2)(a) and (d), had occurred. On judicial review, the district court agreed that the PERB could find such violations, but held that the PERB was without jurisdiction because the food service workers involved were not public employees. From this decision, both parties have appealed.

I. We are initially confronted by several procedural issues. Two of these have been raised by the parties, but the first has not.

A. The first question is whether the hospital's appeal to the district court was filed in a timely manner. Section 20.11 establishes the procedure for filing and acting upon a prohibited practice complaint. The final subsections of section 20.11, 20.11(5) through 20.11(11), purport to establish a means for obtaining judicial review of any PERB decision on a prohibited practice complaint. Section 20.11(5) provides that any appeal to the district court must be taken within ten days of the filing of the PERB decision or order appealed from. This provision is in conflict with the judicial review provisions of the Iowa Administrative Procedure Act, section 17A.19(3), The Code, which allow thirty days for the filing of a petition for judicial review. There are, of course, numerous other inconsistencies between the judicial review methodology provided by section 20.11(5)-(11) and that of sections 17A.19 and .20. It is, however, the appeal deadline which is most clearly of critical importance in this case because the hospital's petition for judicial review was filed on November 22, 1976, the twenty-sixth day after the PERB decision was filed on October 27.

It would appear that the legislature perceived a need for a more rapid disposition of questions arising out of labor-management disputes. See also §§ 20.13(3) and 20.14(6) (applying the section 20.11 hearing and appeal procedures to bargaining unit determinations and bargaining representative determinations). Section 17A.19 very clearly provides, however, that it is the exclusive means of obtaining judicial review of agency action, "(e)xcept as expressly provided otherwise by another statute referring to this chapter by name . . . ." There is no mention of the Iowa Administrative Procedure Act in section 20.11. There is certainly no express provision that section 20.11 should be followed instead of section 17A.19. While we are troubled by this disparity in view of the fact that the PERA and the IAPA were both before the legislature at the same time, See, e.g., 1974 H.J. 723 (At 1:20 p.m. on February 28, a special order of business for the consideration of House File 1200, the IAPA, was deferred to permit continued debate on Senate File 531, the PERA.), we are confronted by the clear language of section 17A.19. That language means what it says. E.g., City of Davenport v. PERB, 264 N.W.2d 307, 311 (Iowa 1978). Section 17A.19 governed the filing and course of judicial review in the district court. See PERB v. Stohr, 279 N.W.2d 286, 289 (Iowa 1979). The petition was timely filed.

B. The hospital contends that the district court erroneously limited itself, when considering whether the alleged prohibited practices had been shown, to a consideration of whether the PERB's finding was supported by substantial evidence in the record made before the agency when that record is viewed as a whole. See § 17A.19(8)(f). The argument is that the district court should have determined whether the PERB applied a preponderance of the evidence test to find the elements of each prohibited practice as provided by section 20.11(9). But section 20.11(9) purports to be a statement of standards for judicial review of PERB findings on prohibited practice complaints. And, as we have just explained, this case was governed in the district court by section 17A.19. The district court was therefore correct in applying the substantial evidence test of section 17A.19(8)(f). Of course, as also noted above, if section 20.11 did apply, the hospital would have no basis for complaint because its petition, under section 20.11(5), would have been filed sixteen days late.

C. Finally, the parties have raised a question regarding the scope of this court's review of a district court's decision on judicial review of agency action. The PERB states the issue as being whether this court's review under section 17A.20 is limited to determining whether the district court reasonably applied the proper legal standards of section 17A.19(8).

In Hoffman v. Iowa Department of Transportation, 257 N.W.2d 22, 25 (Iowa 1977), this court recited its task as being "to review the record in the manner specified in § 17A.19(7) and make anew the judicial determinations specified in § 17A.19(8)." This rule has been reiterated on several subsequent occasions. See, e.g., Davenport Community School District v. Iowa Civil Rights Commission, 277 N.W.2d 907, 909 (Iowa 1979); Davoren v. Iowa Employment Security Commission, 277 N.W.2d 602, 603-04 (Iowa 1979); Taylor v. Department of Transportation, 260 N.W.2d 521, 522 (Iowa 1978). The question does not appear to have been a serious issue in any of these cases.

Section 17A.20 provides:

Appeals. An aggrieved or adversely affected party to the judicial review proceeding may obtain a review of any final judgment of the district court under this chapter by appeal to the supreme court. The appeal shall be taken as in other civil cases, although the appeal may be taken regardless of the amount involved.

In "other civil cases," this court sits to correct errors of law. Iowa R.App.P. 4. Thus, this court's duty, under the IAPA, is to correct errors of law made by the district court.

But the district court, when exercising the powers conferred on it by section 17A.19...

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