Maschino v. Geo. A. Hormel & Co.

• Decision Date: 31 July 1985
• Docket Number: No. 84-871,84-871
• Citation: 372 N.W.2d 256
• Parties: Nicholas A. MASCHINO, Rod Utley, Terry L. Brehm, William J. Everett, Ronald T. Campbell, Robert J. Buelt, Richard D. Peterson, Sue N. Pannkuk, Brian McLoud, Mark R. Tracy, and Judith Foster, Appellants, v. GEO. A. HORMEL & COMPANY and Iowa Department of Job Service, Appellees.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 256

372 N.W.2d 256

Nicholas A. MASCHINO, Rod Utley, Terry L. Brehm, William J. Everett, Ronald T. Campbell, Robert J. Buelt, Richard D. Peterson, Sue N. Pannkuk, Brian McLoud, Mark R. Tracy, and Judith Foster, Appellants, v. GEO. A. HORMEL & COMPANY and Iowa Department of Job Service, Appellees.

No. 84-871.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

July 31, 1985.

C. Joseph Coleman, Jr., of Mitchell, Coleman, Perkins & Enke, P.C., Fort Dodge, for appellants.

James W. Cavanaugh, Austin, Minn., for appellee George A. Hormel & Co.

Blair H. Dewey, Des Moines, for appellee Iowa Dept. of Job Service.

Considered by UHLENHOPP, P.J., and HARRIS, McCORMICK, McGIVERIN, and WOLLE, JJ.

WOLLE, Justice.

The Iowa Department of Job Service (department) denied applications for unemployment benefits filed by the eleven claimants, former employees of Geo. A. Hormel & Company (Hormel). When Hormel closed its Fort Dodge plant where claimants were employed, they exercised options in their collective bargaining agreement first to transfer to other Hormel plants, then to return to the Fort Dodge plant where they were laid off. The district court on judicial review upheld the department's determination that the claimants were disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits because they had left their employment "voluntarily without good cause attributable to [their] employer." Iowa Code § 96.5(1) (1981). We reverse and remand, concluding from the agreed facts in the unusual record before us that the claimants were not disqualified because they did not quit but instead were terminated by Hormel.

The record in this case is unusual because the parties decided to expedite disposition of the judicial review proceedings by streamlining standard procedures. A "pretrial order" that was agreed upon by all parties, including the department, contained three basic provisions: (1) the separate cases of all eleven claimants were consolidated for submission to the district court; (2) the court was asked to decide a single narrow legal issue which would be determinative in all eleven cases--"that issue being a question of 'voluntary leaving' "; and (3) the legal question was to be answered on the basis of agreed facts consisting of the Hormel collective bargaining agreement and a relatively brief statement of the controlling circumstances common to all eleven claimants. In essence, the parties in pretrial proceedings culled from the agency record the facts common to all eleven claimants, condensed the facts into the agreed "issue of circumstance" plus the Hormel labor agreement, and agreed that the court should consider only those facts in deciding the single controlling legal issue.

Neither before the district court nor in this appeal has any party objected to that unorthodox pretrial procedure. Consistent with their agreement to expedite disposition of the cases, the parties have submitted this appeal on an Agreed Statement of the Case filed as the appendix, as permitted by Iowa Rule of Appellate Procedure 15(f). Pursuant to that rule we consider that the agreed statement contains "only so many of the facts averred and proved or sought to be proved as are essential to a decision of the issues presented." We decide this case on the basis of those agreed facts.

A caution is in order. While we encourage the use of pretrial proceedings and agreed statements of fact to expedite the work of counsel and the court, cases like this involving judicial review of agency decisions do not readily lend themselves to some procedures which are specifically designed for original actions.

Courts exercise only appellate jurisdiction in undertaking judicial review of administrative proceedings under the Iowa Administrative Procedure Act. Iowa Code § 17A.19 (1983); see Public Employment Relations Board v. Stohr, 279 N.W.2d 286, 290 (Iowa 1979). In reviewing agency decisions involving contested case proceedings, the district court may not consider additional evidence, its review being limited to the record made before the agency. Iowa Code § 17A.19(7) (1983). See Christensen v. Iowa Civil Rights Commission, 292 N.W.2d 429, 431 (Iowa 1980) (discovery not ordinarily allowed in judicial review proceedings); Dillehay v. Iowa Department of Job Service, 280 N.W.2d 422, 424 (Iowa 1979) (summary judgment is inappropriate in judicial review proceedings). In cases like this the district court reviews the record made before the department to determine whether the decision was affected by an error of law or "unsupported by substantial evidence in the record made before the agency when that record is viewed as a whole." Iowa Code § 17A.19(8); Taylor v. Iowa Department of Job Service, 362 N.W.2d 534, 537 (Iowa 1985); Cook v. Iowa Department of Job Service, 299 N.W.2d 698, 700-01 (Iowa 1980).

The parties and the district court are not entirely at liberty to present for judicial review a record different from that on which the agency has based its decision. Some provisions of our rules governing pretrial conferences are inapplicable to judicial review of contested case proceedings. See Iowa R.Civ.P. 136-38. Pretrial conference orders in these cases ought not be concerned with such evidentiary matters as judicial notice, factual issues to be litigated, exhibits or witnesses. Iowa R.Civ.P. 136(b) (listing numerous matters which may be considered at a pretrial conference to "aid, expedite or simplify the trial of any issue").

The district court would not have had authority in this case to provide by pretrial conference order that it would review a factual record different from that on which the agency based its ruling. The district court's pretrial order here, however, was not flawed in that respect. The order did not expand the evidentiary record made before the department. All parties, including the department itself, simply agreed to abbreviate the record, enabling the district court to focus on those facts in the agency record which were deemed by the parties pertinent to the dispositive legal question in the eleven consolidated cases. The pretrial order, never modified, was as binding on subsequent proceedings here as are the pretrial orders routinely entered in original actions commenced in the district court. Iowa R.Civ.P. 138; see Kester v. Bruns, 326 N.W.2d 279, 284 (Iowa 1982).

The parties' agreed statement of the case establishes that all eleven claimants were Hormel employees at its Fort Dodge plant when they were notified that on June 12, 1982 the plant would be closed. The claimants exercised their option to transfer to other Hormel plants pursuant to the following pertinent provisions of their collective bargaining agreement:

(a) Transfer Rights

A bargaining unit employee who meets the eligibility requirements specififed in this agreement or inter-plant transfers shall have the right to transfer to a bargaining unit job to which his or her inter-plant transfer seniority entitles him or her....

(b) Eligibility for Transfer

To be eligible for transfer, the employee must be a permanent bargaining unit employee who has been officially notified of a permanent separation as a result of the closing of the plant or a department, or who received a 52-week notice of layoff in the case of an annual wage employee....

That agreement further authorized a trial period of employment:

(f) Trial Period

Any employee who is transferred in accordance with this agreement on inter-plant transfers may at any time, within not to exceed six months from the date of the notification in writing [given by the employee to...