State ex rel. Gunstone v. Washington State Highway Commission, 39313

• Decision Date: 07 December 1967
• Docket Number: No. 39313,39313
• Citation: 434 P.2d 734,72 Wn.2d 673
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Washington ex rel. Lloyd M. GUNSTONE and Hazel Gunstone, husband and wife et al., Respondents, v. WASHINGTON STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION, George D. Zahn, Chairman, James M. Blair, Sr., and Harold Walsh, Members, Appellants.

Page 673

72 Wn.2d 673

434 P.2d 734

STATE of Washington ex rel. Lloyd M. GUNSTONE and Hazel Gunstone, husband and wife et al., Respondents, v. WASHINGTON STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION, George D. Zahn Chairman, James M. Blair, Sr., and Harold Walsh Members, Appellants.

No. 39313.

Supreme Court of Washington, Department 1.

Dec. 7, 1967.

John J. O'Connell, Atty. Gen., John J. Champagne, Asst. Atty. Gen., Olympia, for appellants.

Parr, Baker, Alexander & Cordes, Clifford F. Cordes, Jr., Olympia, for respondents.

PER CURIAM.

Certain property owners who object to the location of an access road as proposed by the State, and insist that an alternate route is preferable, presented their views at a hearing before the State Highway Commission as provided by RCW 47.52.133. The Commission's decision being adverse to them, they invoked the precedure provided by the Administrative Procedure Act (RCW 34.04) to secure a judicial review of the decision of the Commission.

The superior court, reviewing the action of the Commission, could have done one of three things: (1) affirmed the decision of the State Highway Commission; (2) remanded the case to the State Highway Commission for further consideration; (3) reversed the decision of the State Highway Commission; RCW 34.04.130(6). ¹ However, its authority to reverse was, and is, limited by that statute to those stituations where substantial rights of petitioners may have been prejudiced for any one of the six reasons designated in the statute (see footnote 1).

The trial court remanded the case to the State Highway Commission for further consideration.

Instead of giving the matter further consideration, the State Highway Commission chose to appeal. The appeal is based on the erroneous assumption that to justify a remand for further consideration, the petitioners had to establish that their rights had been prejudiced in one of the six ways designated in the statute. That statute cannot properly be so interpreted. The six grounds--((a) through (f)) which constitute the basis for a reversal--have nothing to do with a remand for further consideration.

The provision for such a remand would seem to be intended as a safety valve, permitting the reviewing court to require a second look at situations and conditions which might not warrant a reversal, but which, to the court reviewing the record, would indicate to it that the State Highway Commission may have acted on incomplete or inadequate information; or may have failed to give adequate consideration to an alternate route; or may have weighted its evaluation of the matter under consideration with the theory of the complete infallibility of its own engineers.

A remand for further consideration is not a determination that the State Highway Commission is wrong; but it is an indication that the disinterested court, which has reviewed the record, is not satisfied on the basis of that record that the State Highway Commission is right.

The present situation offers an excellent example of why a reviewing court might be dissatisfied. The petitioners offer a right of way without cost for their proposed alternate access route. The opinion of the state's engineers is that the additional construction costs on...