State v. Frye, 1--474A69
| Decision Date | 14 August 1974 |
| Docket Number | No. 1--474A69,1--474A69 |
| Citation | 315 N.E.2d 399,161 Ind.App. 247 |
| Parties | STATE of Indiana, Appellant (Respondent Below), v. Egbert Harold FRYE, Appellee (Petitioner Below). |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
Theodore L. Sendak, Atty. Gen., James Bopp, Jr., Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellant.
Hugh V. Banta, Rockville, for appellee.
This appeal comes to us in an action where no evidence was adduced at the hearing before an administrative agency. We have only facts before us as shown by the pleadings.
Petitioner-appellee Frye was a chaplain at the Rockville Training Center in Parke County. Frye instituted the complaint proceedings under IC 1971, 4--15--2--35, Ind.Ann.St. § 60--1336 (Burns 1973 Supp.) and a grievance appeal was filed before the State Employees' Appeals Commission on December 10, 1973.
In connection with the appeal before the State agency, Frye's attorney sent a letter to the Rockville Training Center (Center), requesting certain information. The Center responded by its refusal to provide the information requested on the grounds that the same was not material to the complaint. No complaint or objection was made to the informal pleading which was in the form of a letter and which had been designated as 'interrogatories' and is now considered as such by the parties and will be so considered by this court.
The State agency refused to order the proper officials of the Center, a part of the Department of Corrections, to voluntarily furnish Frye, employee-appellee, with the answers to the interrogatories. The agency further held no hearing in regard to the objections to the discovery and discovery was refused by the Commission on the basis of materiality.
Following the above proceedings and after Frye had been informed through his attorney that the Center would not cooperate Frye did, on December 26, 1973, select his forum, the Parke Circuit Court, under Ind.Rules of Procedure, Trial Rule 37(A)(2), and requested names of certain people, inmates and employees of the Rockville Training Center.
On January 23, 1974, in the Parke Circuit Court the Center filed its motion to dismiss on which a hearing was had on January 25, 1974; the motion to dismiss was overruled and a judgment entered decreeing the respondent shall furnish to the petitioner the discovery sought.
Thereafter, the Center timely filed its motion to correct errors, which was by the court overruled.
The motion to correct errors had one specification which presents for review the following issue: Did the trial court err in issuing an enforcement order for discovery in a cause before an administrative agency prior to a determination by the administrative agency of the propriety of objections made to the discovery?
The trial court issued its discovery order under authority of Ind.Rules of Procedure, Trial Rule 28(F), which reads as follows:
The parties hereto agree that TR. 28(F) does not explicitly state who in the first instance is to make the determination required under TR. 26(B)(1) as to whether or not objected to discovery is 'relevant to the subject-matter involved in the pending action.' Appellant urges that the State Employees' Appeals Commission is empowered to make such determinations, if needed; that IC 1971, 4--15--1.5--6, Ind.Ann.Stat. § 60--1398e(a) (Burns' 1973 Supp.) required the State Employees' Appeals Commission to conduct its hearing in accordance with the Administrative Adjudication Law. This law, it is urged, gives the agency the power to issue subpoenas, rule upon offers of proof and receive relevant oral or documentary evidence, take or cause depositions to be taken, regulate the course of the hearing and conduct of the parties, . . . (and) dispose of procedural motions and similar matters. IC 1971, 4--22--1--7, Ind.Ann.Stat. §§ 63--3007 (Burns' 1961 Repl.)
It is our opinion that the statutes above referred to, more specifically § 63--3007, is broad enough in its authorization of power to take or cause depositions to be taken, to include the power to cause the answering of proper interrogatories submitted by a party and, therefore, under said statutes, the State Employees' Appeals Commission is authorized to pass upon and dispose of objections to discovery in those instances where objections are made to interrogatories properly submitted.
The State Employees' Appeals Commission is not governed by the rules of 'procedure and practice in all courts of the state of Indiana . . .' There is nothing in the Rules purporting to extend them to administrative bodies from whom appeals to courts may be had.
In Clary v. National Friction Products, Inc. (1972), Ind., 290 N.E.2d 53, 55, Justice Prentice said:
'. . . The rules of trial procedure, which, as stated in Trial Rule 1, govern the procedure and practice in all courts of the state of Indiana are not applicable to proceedings before the administrative agencies nor to the proceedings requisite to invoking the jurisdiction of reviewing judicial authority.'
However, the law as established in Clary is not controlling in the case at bar, as, pursuant to and under the authority of the above cited statutes from the Public Employees Retirement Act, the State Employees' Appeals Commission has the requisite authority to 'take or cause depositions to be taken', which authority, in our opinion, is necessarily all inclusive of the power to order the answering of interrogatories as being a part of the authority to take or cause depositions to be taken.
We have some authority in Indiana on the issue involved here, in the case of Indiana Steel Products Co. v. Leonard, Admx. (1954), 124 Ind.App. 592, 599, 177 N.E.2d 372, 118 N.E.2d 374. In this, a compensation case, this court held that because the Workmen's Compensation Act did not provide for and the rules of the Industrial Board did not provide for the taking of conditional examinations, that the court could see no reason why a party in these cases may not have the benefit of a conditional examination if taken in conformity with the law authorizing them in civil actions.
Appellant posits that the Commission was not asked to make such a determination and did not do so prior to the time appellee Frye requested the enforcement order from the Parke Circuit Court, thereby omitting a crucial step in the procedure.
Appellant would have us follow the Federal practice for guidance in this matter, as it contends there are no Indiana cases which clarify this...
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