Jordan v. Hamada

• Citation: 616 P.2d 1368,62 Haw. 444
• Decision Date: 08 September 1980
• Docket Number: P,No. 6547,AFL-CI,6547
• Parties: Theodore B. JORDAN, Intervenor-Appellant, v. Mack H. HAMADA, Chairman, Hawaii Public Employment Relations Board; John E. Milligan and James K. Clark, Board Members of the Hawaii Public Employment Relations Board and the Hawaii Public Employment Relations Board, Appellees, and the Hawaii Government Employees' Association, Local 152, AFSCME,etitioner-Appellee.
• Court: Supreme Court of Hawai'i

Page 1368

616 P.2d 1368

62 Haw. 444

Theodore B. JORDAN, Intervenor-Appellant, v. Mack H. HAMADA, Chairman, Hawaii Public Employment Relations Board; John E. Milligan and James K. Clark, Board Members of the Hawaii Public Employment Relations Board and the Hawaii Public Employment Relations Board, Appellees and the Hawaii Government Employees' Association, Local 152 AFSCME, AFL-CIO, Petitioner-Appellee.

No. 6547.

Supreme Court of Hawai'i.

Sept. 8, 1980.

Syllabus by the Court

1. HRS § 91-14 evinces a purpose to grant broad rights to judicial review as it permits "any person aggrieved" by a final decision or order of a government agency to seek review, provided he institutes proceedings in the circuit court within thirty days of service of the decision or order.

2. Statutes governing appeals are to be liberally construed.

3. Rule 72's provision defining appellee is subject to two possible applications: a timely notice of appeal, ipso facto, makes an agency whose decision is appealed an appellee; or, the agency is by rule a party needed for just adjudication who may be joined if feasible, even on the court's initiative.

4. In an appeal from an administrative agency's decision, the failure to designate the agency as an appellee is not cause for dismissal, particularly where there is a policy favoring judicial review of administrative actions.

5. Where an administrative agency's decision is being appealed, appellant's failure to take any step other than the timely filing of the notice of appeal does not affect the validity of the appeal so long as all necessary parties are subsequently brought into court and there is prompt compliance with the requirements of Rule 72.

Edwin L. Doernberger, Honolulu (James S. Campbell and Kent M. Keith, Honolulu, with him on the briefs, Cades, Schutte, Fleming & Wright, Honolulu, of counsel), for intervenor-appellant.

Benjamin C. Sigal, Honolulu (Shim, Sigal, Tam & Naito, Honolulu, of counsel), for petitioner-appellee.

Before RICHARDSON, C. J., and OGATA, MENOR, LUM and NAKAMURA, JJ. NAKAMURA, Justice.

The sole question for decision is whether an appeal from an administrative agency to a circuit court was rendered fatally defective by the appellant's failure to include the name of the agency in the caption of the notice of appeal. We hold that it was not, and reverse the circuit court's dismissal of the appeal.

I.

Appellant Theodore B. Jordan is a state employee belonging to an appropriate collective bargaining unit represented by Appellee Hawaii Government Employees' Association, Local 152, AFSCME, AFL-CIO (hereafter HGEA) for purposes of collective bargaining under Hawaii's public sector collective bargaining law, HRS Chapter 89. As a certified "exclusive representative," HGEA is allowed by HRS § 89-4 ¹ to collect a "service fee" ² deemed reasonable by the Hawaii Public Employment Relations Board (hereafter HPERB) from each employee in a bargaining unit it is certified to represent. On August 15, 1975, HGEA filed a petition to have the reasonableness of its service fees determined. HPERB permitted Jordan to intervene in this proceeding because of a manifest interest. After a hearing where the intervenor raised numerous objections to the approval of HGEA's service fees, HPERB found them reasonable and on December 10, 1976 issued Decision No. 72, which contained pertinent findings of fact, conclusions of law, and orders.

Jordan filed a notice of appeal from the decision in the First Circuit Court on January 7, 1977. There was no reference to the administrative agency in the captions of the appeal documents, the employee organization being the only appellee there designated. ³ The relevant documents included a notice of appeal, a designation of record on appeal, a detailed statement of the case on appeal, and an order directing HPERB to certify and transmit the entire record of the agency proceeding to the circuit court, the order being filed shortly after the other documents. Appellant made prompt service of copies of all the foregoing papers on both HGEA and HPERB.

HGEA moved to dismiss the appeal to the circuit court, asserting, inter alia, that appellant had failed to join an indispensable party, the non-joinder allegedly resulting from the absence of HPERB's name from the captions of the pleadings. Prior to the hearing on the motion, appellant filed amended pleadings that designated HPERB and its members as appellees in the captions. These, however, were filed more than thirty days after Decision No. 72 had been issued. The circuit court granted the motion to dismiss. In its view, the applicable procedural rule, Rule 72, H.R.C.P., made the naming of HPERB as an appellee a prerequisite for judicial review. And as the amendments that might have cured the crucial omission were filed beyond the thirty-day period allowed by law for the institution of review proceedings, the notice of appeal was held procedurally deficient. Thus, the narrow issue before us is whether there is a jurisdictional requirement that the agency whose decision is being appealed be expressly designated an appellee by appellant when judicial review of an administrative decision is sought.

II.

Appeals from administrative agencies to a circuit court are governed by section 14 of the Hawaii Administrative Procedure Act (HRS § 91-14) and Rule 72 of the Hawaii Rules of Civil Procedure. Life of the Land v. Land Use Commission, 58 Haw. 292, 568 P.2d 1189 (1977). HRS § 91-14 evinces a purpose to grant broad rights to judicial review as it permits "any person aggrieved" by a final decision or order of a government agency to seek review, provided he institutes proceedings in the circuit court within thirty days of service of the decision or order. ⁴ The procedural rule implementing this statutory right is Rule 72, H.R.C.P., and it provides that a request for review may be instituted "by filing a notice of appeal in the circuit court" within the thirty-day period specified by law. ⁵ The rule further requires prompt service of such notice upon each appellee, the designation of the record to be presented to the reviewing court, and the filing of a statement of the case and prayer for relief. ⁶ By its terms, "appellee" includes "every governmental body or official (other than a court) whose decision, order or action is appealed from, and every other party to the proceedings." ⁷

Following the foregoing legislative policy and a principle of statutory construction that "(s)tatutes governing appeals are liberally construed to uphold the right of appeal," Credit Associates of Maui v. Montilliano, 51 Haw. 325, 329, 460 P.2d 762, 765 (1969), we have applied the pertinent statute to facilitate the judicial review of administrative decisions and orders. Standing to appeal an agency decision as an "aggrieved" person, for example, has not been conditioned upon formal intervention in the agency proceeding. In re Application Of Hawaiian Electric Co., Ltd., 56 Haw. 260, 535 P.2d 1102 (1975); East Diamond Head Association v. Zoning Board, 52 Haw. 518, 479 P.2d 796 (1971). Participation in a hearing as an adversary without formal intervention has been held sufficient to give rise to appeal rights. ⁸ Rule 72, also, has not been regarded as a road block to judicial review in any sense. Life of the Land v. Land Use Commission, supra.

In Life of the Land v. Land Use Commission, and issue presented for determination was whether Rule 72's mandate for service of a notice of appeal upon each appellee "is a jurisdictional one, with noncompliance resulting in the deprivation of the circuit court's jurisdiction over the appeal." Id. 58 Haw. at 296, 568 P.2d at 1193. Since the powers of the circuit court relative to review of administrative decisions "substantially parallel" our authority over appeals, we sought guidance from prior decisions establishing jurisdictional prerequisites for appeals to this court. A further reason for turning to these decisions for direction was the apparent "substantive parallelism" between Rule 72 and Rules 73 and 75, H.R.C.P., the court rules governing appeals to this court. ⁹ The "cumulative effect of these decisions" was succinctly summarized by Justice Lewis in her concurring opinion in In re Goodfader, 45 Haw. 317, 345, 367 P.2d 472, 488 (1961), when she said:

While under Rule 73(a) service of the notice of appeal is not a jurisdictional step (Clifford v. Clifford, 43 Haw. 48; Laupahoehoe Sugar Company v. Lalakea, 27 Haw. 682), appellant must bring into court all necessary parties or hazard dismissal. Lufkin v. Grand Hotel Co., 24 Haw. 744, 748. Appellant has the burden of complying promptly with all the requirements of Rules 73 and 75. Clifford v. Clifford, supra. These requirements include service by appellant on all affected parties (see Rule 5(a)) of the notice of appeal and other papers specified in the rules.

The holding in Life of the Land v. Land Use Commission, supra, 58 Haw. at 298, 568 P.2d at 1194, in accord with the above, was that service of a notice of appeal was "not a jurisdictional step." Implicit therein was a belief that Rule 72 imposes no more than a modicum of jurisdictional requisites. However, appellants were forewarned that they hazarded possible dismissal by not bringing all necessary parties into court and effecting prompt compliance with the requirements of the rule.

III.

Jordan, whose standing to seek review of Decision No. 72 is beyond cavil, filed a notice of appeal, accompanied by a designation of the record and a statement of the case, all within thirty days of the decision. He made prompt service of these documents on both HGEA and HPERB. The record discloses his compliance with all requirements stated by Rule 72. HGEA does not claim to have been without knowledge of any aspect of the appeal. It agrees a timely notice of appeal vests a circuit court with appellate jurisdiction over an agency decision. But it nonetheless asserts Jordan's notice...