Morel v. Commissioner of Public Health

• Decision Date: 31 December 2002
• Docket Number: (SC 16570)
• Citation: 811 A.2d 1256,262 Conn. 222
• Parties: VINCENTE MOREL v. COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC HEALTH
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

262 Conn. 222

811 A.2d 1256

VINCENTE MOREL v. COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC HEALTH

(SC 16570)

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued September 27, 2002.

Officially released December 31, 2002.

Borden, Norcott, Katz, Palmer and Vertefeuille, Js. Paul J. Lahey and Daniel Shapiro, assistant attorneys general, with whom, on the brief, were Richard Blumenthal, attorney general, and Richard J. Lynch, assistant attorney general, for the appellant (defendant).

Thomas K. McDonough, for the appellee (plaintiff).

Opinion

BORDEN, J.

The dispositive issue in this appeal¹ is whether the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the plaintiff's appeal from the decision of the defendant, under the Uniform Administrative Procedure Act (UAPA), General Statutes § 4-166 et seq., because that decision was not a final decision in a contested case within the meaning of § 4-166 (2) and (3).² The defendant, the commissioner of public health, appeals from the judgment of the trial court sustaining the appeal by the plaintiff, Vincente Morel, from the administrative decision of the defendant disqualifying the plaintiff from participating as a vendor in a certain federally funded nutrition program. The defendant claims that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the plaintiff's appeal because the decision appealed from was not a final decision in a contested case.³ We conclude that the decision of the defendant was not a final decision in a contested case within the meaning of the UAPA because the hearing held by the defendant was not statutorily required. Therefore, the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the trial court.

The defendant, after a hearing, disqualified the plaintiff for three years from participating in the program at issue and fined the plaintiff. The plaintiff appealed from that decision to the trial court, which sustained the appeal and remanded the matter to the defendant for further proceedings.

The record discloses the following facts and procedural history. The plaintiff, who owns a food store in Bridgeport known as Juncos Market, was a licensed vendor under the federal Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children, which is known as the WIC program. The WIC program is administered by the defendant pursuant to General Statutes § 19a-59c,⁴ §§ 19a-59c-1 through 19a-59c-6 of the Regulations of Connecticut State Agencies, and the United States Department of Agriculture regulations, 7 C.F.R. §§ 246.1 through 246.28 (1999). As a vendor in the WIC program, the plaintiff was authorized to provide approved food items to WIC participants in exchange for WIC vouchers.

In December, 1999, the defendant notified the plaintiff of his disqualification from the WIC program for three years, and of a $500 fine, for improprieties revealed by WIC "compliance purchases"⁵ on November 20, 1998, and September 25 and 29, 1999. Pursuant to the plaintiff's request, a hearing officer conducted a hearing. The defendant adopted the report of the hearing officer, issued a decision finding that the plaintiff had violated the regulations on the three dates in question, and imposed an automatic three year disqualification as required by the state regulations for the type of violations involved and a $500 fine.

The plaintiff appealed from the defendant's decision to the trial court. The plaintiff claimed that: (1) a certain compliance purchase report improperly had been admitted into evidence; (2) the imposition of an automatic three year penalty for class A violations, into which category the plaintiff's conduct fell, was contrary to federal regulations governing vendor abuse; and (3) an adverse inference should have been drawn from the failure of the defendant to produce certain evidence.

The trial court determined that the report of the investigator regarding the November, 1998 compliance purchase, which had been admitted into evidence, was not sufficiently trustworthy to constitute substantial evidence of that violation, and that there was insufficient evidence to support the finding of that violation. The trial court also determined that no adverse inference was required from the failure of the defendant to produce certain evidence. The trial court also determined, however, that the imposition of an automatic three year disqualification, based on the state regulations imposing such a penalty for the class of violations established by the evidence, was contrary to the federal regulations addressing vendor abuse. In the trial court's view, the federal regulations required that the defendant, in imposing the penalty for the violations found, must exercise his discretion on a case-by-case basis and, therefore, was required to "reevaluate the penalties for the class A violations which occurred on September 25, 1999, and September 29, 1999, in accordance with the requirements of 7 C.F.R. § 246.12k (ii)." Accordingly, the court rendered judgment sustaining the appeal on that issue only, and remanded the matter to the defendant for further proceedings consistent with its opinion. This appeal followed.

I

We first address a preliminary question regarding our own subject matter jurisdiction over the defendant's appeal from the judgment of the trial court.⁶ That question is whether the remand by the trial court was itself a final judgment for purposes of appeal to this court. We conclude that the trial court's remand was a final judgment for purposes of appeal.

In Schieffelin & Co. v. Dept. of Liquor Control, 202 Conn. 405, 410, 521 A.2d 566 (1987), we held that, for purposes of appeal to this court, a trial court's remand of an administrative appeal under the UAPA was subject to the finality test articulated by the second prong of State v. Curcio, 191 Conn. 27, 31, 463 A.2d 566 (1983), namely, "whether the trial court's order so concludes the rights of the parties that further proceedings cannot affect them." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) In applying that test to a judicial remand in a UAPA appeal, we distinguished "between two kinds of administrative remands. A trial court may conclude that an administrative ruling was in error and order further administrative proceedings on that very issue. In such circumstances, we have held the judicial order to be a final judgment, in order to avoid the possibility that further administrative proceedings would simply reinstate the administrative ruling, and thus would require a wasteful second administrative appeal to the Superior Court on that very issue. See, e.g., Watson v. Howard, 138 Conn. 464, 468, 86 A.2d 67 (1952); Santos v. Publix Theatres Corporation, 108 Conn. 159, 161, 142 A. 745 (1928). A trial court may alternatively conclude that an administrative ruling is in some fashion incomplete and therefore not ripe for final judicial adjudication. Without dictating the outcome of the further administrative proceedings, the court may insist on further administrative evidentiary findings as a precondition to final judicial resolution of all the issues between the parties. See General Statutes § 4-183 (e). Such an order is not a final judgment. See, e.g., Burdick v. United States Finishing Co., 128 Conn. 284, 288-89, 22 A.2d 629 (1941); Luliewicz v. Eastern Malleable Iron Co., 126 Conn. 522, 524, 12 A.2d 779 (1940)." Schieffelin & Co. v. Dept. of Liquor Control, supra, 410.

In Schieffelin & Co., the plaintiff had sought statutorily required permission to terminate certain liquor distributorships held by certain corporate defendants. Id., 406-407. The administrative agency, however, did not rule on whether the plaintiff had established the requisite good cause for such terminations, because the plaintiff had failed to comply with a procedural notice requirement. Id., 407. The plaintiff filed an administrative appeal under the UAPA to the trial court, which ruled that: (1) the plaintiff had complied with the notice requirement; but (2) on the state of the record, the court could not rule on whether the plaintiff had established the requisite good cause for termination. Id., 407-408. It therefore remanded the case to the agency for an evidentiary inquiry into the issue of good cause. Id., 411. Upon subsequent appeal to this court by the defendants, we held, applying the standard articulated previously in this opinion, that the trial court's remand order was not a final judgment for purposes of appeal to this court. Id., 412. We viewed the case as closely resembling "the category of cases in which, because the administrative record is incomplete, appellate review of a judicial order of administrative remand is premature." Id., 410. Thus, we held that the remand order was not a final judgment "[b]ecause there [had] not yet been a definitive administrative determination of the plaintiff's claimed right to terminate the distributorships of the individual defendants. . . ." Id., 411-12.

We recently reaffirmed the Schieffelin & Co. rule in Lisee v. Commission on Human Rights & Opportunities, 258 Conn. 529, 537-38, 782 A.2d 670 (2001). In Lisee, the plaintiff had filed a complaint with the named defendant, the administrative agency, claiming that the corporate defendant, Aetna Retirement Services, Inc., her former employer, had discriminated against her based on her disability. Id., 530-31. The agency found no probable cause for the plaintiff's claim and dismissed her complaint. Id., 531-32. The plaintiff appealed to the trial court, to which, prior to the hearing on the appeal, the agency had made a request that the matter be remanded for further investigation and a new probable cause determination, based upon its assertion that it had failed to interview certain witnesses and review certain records. Id., 532. The trial court granted the agency's request and remanded the case for further evidence, pursuant to General Statutes § 4-183 (h).⁷ Id., 533. Upon the employer's appeal to this court, we...