Republican Party of Conn. v. Merrill, No. 19010.

• Decision Date: 26 September 2012
• Docket Number: No. 19010.
• Parties: REPUBLICAN PARTY OF CONNECTICUT v. Denise W. MERRILL, Secretary of the State.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

307 Conn. 470

55 A.3d 251

REPUBLICAN PARTY OF CONNECTICUT

v.Denise W. MERRILL, Secretary of the State.

No. 19010.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Sept. 12, 2012.

Decided Sept. 26, 2012.^*

Proloy K. Das, with whom was Richard P. Healey, Hartford, for the appellant (plaintiff).

Gregory T. D'Auria, solicitor general, with whom were Jane R. Rosenberg and Maura Murphy Osborne, assistant attorneys general, and, on the brief, George Jepsen, attorney general, for the appellee (defendant).

ROGERS, C.J., and NORCOTT, PALMER, ZARELLA, EVELEIGH, HARPER and VERTEFEUILLE, Js.

ROGERS, C.J.

The primary issue to be resolved in this matter is the proper construction of General Statutes (Sup.2012) § 9–249a.¹ The plaintiff, the Republican Party of Connecticut, brought a declaratory judgment action in which it sought a determination that, because its candidate for the office of governor in the 2010 election received the highest number of votes under the designation of the Republican Party line on the ballot, the defendant, Denise W. Merrill, the secretary of the state, was required to list the candidates of the Republican Party first on the ballots for the 2012 election pursuant to § 9–249a (a). The defendant contended in response that the action was barred by sovereign immunity and that, because the Democratic Party candidate for the office of governor in the aggregate received the highest number of votes in the 2010 election, the candidates of the Democratic Party should be listed first on the 2012 ballots. The trial court granted the joint request of the parties to reserve the following questions for the advice of the Appellate Court or this court, pursuant to General Statutes § 52–235 and Practice Book § 73–1: (1) “Is the [plaintiff's] complaint barred by sovereign immunity?”; and (2) “Does ... § 9–249arequire that the [plaintiff's] candidates for office be placed on the first line of the ballots for the November 6, 2012 election?” ² After oral argument before this court, we ordered the parties to submit supplemental briefs on two questions, which we later reframed as follows: ³ “Did the plaintiff have an available administrative remedy in the present case? If so, did the plaintiff exhaust the administrative remedy?” Thereafter, on September [307 Conn. 474]26, 2012, we issued a summary decision in the form of an order in which we stated that the answer to the two questions on which we had ordered supplemental briefs was “yes,” the answer to the first reserved question was “no,” and the answer to the second reserved question was “yes.” We also indicated that a full written opinion would follow. This is that opinion.

The record reveals the following undisputed facts and procedural history. On July 26, 2012, Jerry Labriola, Jr., the chairman of the Republican Party, John McKinney, the Senate Republican leader, and Lawrence F. Cafero, Jr., the House of Representatives Republican leader (collectively, Republicans), in their capacities as party leaders as well as candidates for state office, sent a letter to the defendant in which they stated that Tom Foley, the Republican candidate for the office of governor in the 2010 election, had received 560,874 votes, all of which were on the Republican Party line, and Dannel Malloy, the Democratic candidate for the office of governor, had received 540,970 votes on the Democratic Party line and 26,308 votes on the party line for the Working Families Party. The Republicans also pointed out that, in the 2011 municipal elections, the Democratic Party had been listed first on the ballots. The Republicans contended that, under § 9–249a, the Republican Party should have been listed first on the ballots in the 2011 election and it should be listed first on the ballots in the 2012 election because Foley had “polled the highest number of votes in the last-preceding election” for the office of governor on the Republican Party line. General Statutes § 9–249a (a). In support of their argument, the Republicans relied on a similar situation that had occurred in New York in 1995, when it was determined that the party whose candidate had received the most votes on the candidate's party line in the preceding election should be placed first on the ballot.

On July 27, 2012, the defendant responded to the Republicans' letter. The defendant stated that the Republicans had failed to “differentiate between the appearance of a candidate on the ballot by ‘party’ nomination and by nominating petition with a ‘party designation.’ Taking this crucial difference into account results in the conclusion reached by my office in 2011: the Democratic Party is listed on the first row on the ballot followed by the Republican Party listed on the second row. Governor Malloy was a candidate of only a single ‘party’ on the ballot in 2010, that of the Democratic Party. Ballot access by Governor Malloy on the Working Families Party line was achieved by nominating petition with ‘party designation’ in 2010.”

Thereafter, the plaintiff brought this action for declaratory and injunctive relief seeking a judicial determination that § 9–249a required the defendant to place the candidates for the Republican Party on the first line of the ballots for the November 6, 2012 election and a mandatory injunction requiring the defendant to comply with the statute. The parties then jointly requested that the trial court submit the reserved questions to the Appellate Court and indicated that, upon the granting of the request, they would request an immediate transfer of the reserved questions to this court. The trial court granted the request and we transferred the reservation to this court.

After oral argument on the reserved questions before this court, we ordered the parties to submit supplemental briefs on the two additional questions we previously set forth, which we subsequently reframed. The defendant contended in its supplemental brief that the plaintiff was required to request a declaratory ruling pursuant to General Statutes § 4–176(a)⁴ and that its failure to do so deprived the trial court of subject matter jurisdiction. The plaintiff submitted a brief in which it contended, inter alia, that it had exhausted its administrative remedies when the Republicans submitted the July 26, 2012 letter to the defendant.

We agree with the plaintiff that it exhausted its administrative remedies. Accordingly, we treat this action as an administrative appeal, with respect to which the state has waived its sovereign immunity by statute. On the merits of the plaintiff's statutory claim, we conclude that § 9–249a requires the defendant to list the plaintiff's candidates first on the ballot for the 2012 election.

I

We first address the question of whether the plaintiff exhausted its administrative remedies. As we have indicated, in her supplemental brief, the defendant contended that the plaintiff was required pursuant to § 4–176 to request from the defendant a declaratory ruling on the meaning and proper application of § 9–249a before the plaintiff could bring an action in the trial court. The plaintiff contends that it had no administrative remedy because, among other reasons, the power to interpret § 9–249a lies with the attorney general, pursuant to General Statutes § 3–125, not with the defendant. See footnote 16 of this opinion for the text of § 3–125. Alternatively, the plaintiff argues that it had, in fact, exhausted this administrative remedy. We conclude that the plaintiff was required to request a declaratory ruling from the defendant before it could seek redress in the trial court and that the Republicans' July 26, 2012 letter to the defendant constituted such a request.⁵ We also conclude that the defendant's July 27, [307 Conn. 477]2012 letter in response constituted a declaratory ruling. Accordingly, we conclude that the action is not barred by the exhaustion doctrine.

“The doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies is well established in the jurisprudence of administrative law.... Under that doctrine, a trial court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over an action that seeks a remedy that could be provided through an administrative proceeding, unless and until that remedy has been sought in the administrative forum.... In the absence of exhaustion of that remedy, the action must be dismissed.” (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Piteau v. Board of Education, 300 Conn. 667, 678, 15 A.3d 1067 (2011); see also id., at 684, 15 A.3d 1067 (“[i]f the available administrative procedure ... provide[s] the [plaintiff] with a mechanism for attaining the remedy that [he] seek[s] ... [the plaintiff] must exhaust that remedy” [internal quotation marks omitted] ).

Section 4–176(a) provides in relevant part that “[a]ny person may petition an agency ... for a declaratory ruling as to ... the applicability to specified circumstances of a provision of the general statutes....” An aggrieved party can appeal from a declaratory ruling to the Superior Court pursuant to General Statutes § 4–183. See General Statutes §§ 4–166(3)⁶ and 4–176(h).⁷In addition, if an agency declines to issue a declaratory ruling, the person who requested the ruling may bring a declaratory judgment action pursuant to General Statutes § 4–175(a). ⁸ The defendant is expressly authorized by statute to issue declaratory rulings. See General Statutes § 9–3.⁹

This court repeatedly has held that when a plaintiff can obtain relief from an administrative agency by requesting a declaratory ruling pursuant to § 4–176, the failure to exhaust that remedy deprives the trial court of subject matter jurisdiction over an action challenging the legality of the agency's action. See Polymer Resources, Ltd. v. Keeney, 227 Conn. 545, 557–58, 630 A.2d 1304 (1993) (plaintiff's claim for injunctive relief was barred by exhaustion doctrine when plaintiff failed to seek declaratory ruling from commissioner of department of environmental protection pursuant to § 4–176); ...