Kentucky Unemployment Ins. Com'n v. Carter, 84-SC-225-DG
| Decision Date | 11 April 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 84-SC-225-DG,84-SC-225-DG |
| Citation | 689 S.W.2d 360 |
| Parties | KENTUCKY UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE COMMISSION, Commonwealth of Kentucky, Movant, v. Matilee CARTER, Respondent. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
R. Hughes Walker, Lucy B. Richardson, Cabinet for Human Resources, Office of the Counsel, Frankfort, for movant.
David Justice, Ashland, for respondent.
The narrow issue we decide is whether, on appeal to the circuit court from a decision of the Kentucky Unemployment Insurance Commission (hereafter referred to as KUIC) pursuant to KRS 341.450, when an employer has been a party before the Commission, an aggrieved employee must join said employer as a party to the lawsuit. We conclude that the question must be answered in the affirmative and reverse the Court of Appeals.
Respondent voluntarily terminated her job with the Ashland Hospital Corporation, d/b/a King's Daughters' Hospital, claiming that her action was necessitated by good cause due to the conduct of her employer. She filed for unemployment compensation insurance benefits and when denied by the hospital, she appealed to the Department of Social Insurance. Following a hearing, a referee found that she was entitled to such benefits. The employer hospital appealed the referee's decision to KUIC, which reversed the decision of the referee, thus denying benefits.
Within twenty days of the entry of the order of KUIC, Carter sought statutorily authorized judicial review by filing a complaint in the Boyd Circuit Court. KUIC was named in the caption of the complaint as the sole respondent. The only relief sought was a reversal of KUIC's ruling denying her benefits. As conceded by respondent's counsel, the former employer "was not named as a party due to an oversight on the part of her attorney." In the recitation of facts, Carter identified her former employer as "King's Daughters' Hospital" but did not use its legally correct corporate name. Civil summons was issued and served only on the named respondent, KUIC, although an informational copy of the complaint was mailed to the hospital's attorney of record in the proceeding before the KUIC.
KUIC filed a motion to dismiss the complaint because of the failure to join the employer as a party. Prior to the trial court's decision on that motion, Carter tendered an amended complaint, joining the hospital. The trial court denied the motion to amend and dismissed the complaint. It noted that even in the tendered amended complaint, the name of the employer was "wrong."
Carter then appealed the trial court's order to the Court of Appeals, which reversed. In the opinion, that court recognized that under the appeal statute, KRS 341.450, the employer should have been joined as a party, but ruled that "given the circumstances of this case," there was substantial compliance with the statutes and that the trial court erred when it refused to accept the amended complaint and when it dismissed the original complaint. We disagree.
On appeal, KUIC contends that the judicial review section of the unemployment statute mandates that the employer be joined as a party and that the doctrine of substantial compliance in this case is not the law of the Commonwealth. We agree.
Judicial review of KUIC's decision is created, authorized and defined by an enactment of the Kentucky General Assembly. It appears as KRS 341.450, and is as follows:
Judicial review.--(1) Except as provided in KRS 341.460, within twenty (20) days after the date of the decision of the commission, any party aggrieved thereby may, after exhausting his remedies before the commission, secure judicial review thereof by filing a complaint against the commission in the circuit court of the county in which the claimant was last employed by a subject employer whose reserve account is affected by such claims. Any other party to the proceeding before the commission shall be made a defendant in such action. The complaint shall state fully the grounds upon which review is sought, assign all errors relied on, and shall be verified by the plaintiff or his attorney. The plaintiff shall furnish copies thereof for each defendant to the commission, which shall deliver one (1) copy to each defendant. (Emphasis added).
As stated, it is uncontroverted that Carter's employer, Ashland Hospital Corporation, d/b/a King's Daughters' Hospital, was a party in the action before the KUIC and in fact, instituted said action to challenge the decision of the referee. It is also a fact that the employer was not joined as a party to the suit filed by Carter in the circuit court. It was not named in the caption of the complaint, no summons was issued or served pursuant to CR 4.04, and no relief was sought against the employer in the prayer for relief. In other words, Carter did not join the employer, in spite of a crystal clear directive in the statute that "Any other party to the proceeding before the commission shall be made a defendant in such action." KRS 341.450.
It is argued by Carter that the mentioning of the employer (even though by an erroneous name) in the recitation of facts and the mailing of a copy of the complaint to the employer's attorney created substantial compliance with the statute. Even if we agreed with the claim, we find no authority before the court to authorize the doctrine of substantial compliance in a case where the appeal process is statutorily created and implemented. In the case of Board of Adjustments of City of Richmond v. Flood, Ky., 581 S.W.2d 1 (1978), the plaintiffs sought judicial review of the decision of the Board of Adjustment, under the aegis of a specific statute KRS 100.347. In direct violation of the terms of that statute, plaintiffs failed to name the Planning and Zoning Commission as a party defendant in their complaint. In ruling that the complaint was to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction, viz., failure to name all parties, we said:
There is no appeal to the courts from an action of an administrative agency as a matter of right....
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