Town of Falmouth v. Civil Service Com'n

• Decision Date: 07 December 2006
• Citation: 857 N.E.2d 1052,447 Mass. 814
• Parties: TOWN OF FALMOUTH v. CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION & another.<SMALL><SUP>1</SUP></SMALL>
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 1052

857 N.E.2d 1052

447 Mass. 814

TOWN OF FALMOUTH v. CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION & another.¹

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued October 4, 2006.

Decided December 7, 2006.

David Hadas, Assistant Attorney General, for Civil Service Commission.

Sheila E. McCravy for Mark Deutschmann.

Tim D. Norris for the plaintiff.

Present: MARSHALL, C.J., GREANEY, IRELAND, SPINA, COWIN, SOSMAN, & CORDY, JJ.

SPINA, J.

Based on an incident between the defendant police Officer Mark Deutschmann and a sixteen year old Falmouth resident, the town of Falmouth suspended Deutschmann for 180 days. After a de novo hearing, the Civil Service Commission (commission) reduced Deutschmann's suspension to sixty days. The town, as appointing authority, appealed from the commission's reduction of the suspension to the Superior Court, where the decision of the commission was affirmed. The Appeals Court reversed the judgment and ordered that the decision of the commission be vacated because it found that Deutschmann's appeal was not timely. Falmouth v. Civil Serv. Comm'n, 64 Mass.App.Ct. 606, 834 N.E.2d 1210 (2005). We granted Deutschmann's application for further appellate review.

On appeal, the defendants argue that G.L. c. 31, § 2(g), authorizes the commission to adopt and apply the so-called "postmark rule" to initial filings that commence appeals pursuant to G.L. c. 31, § 43. We agree that the commission properly interpreted the statute in enacting the postmark rule, but we conclude that the commission was not justified in reducing Deutschmann's suspension to sixty days from the town's initial 180-day finding.

1. Background. This dispute arose from an encounter that occurred on July 30, 1998, between Officer Mark Deutschmann and sixteen year old Robert Brenowitz. On that date, Deutschmann's wife telephoned the police station to report to her husband, Officer Deutschmann, that their children and the children's playmates were being bothered by three juveniles walking past their yard. Deutschmann, responding to that call, went home to speak with his wife. He then located the three youths and confronted them, singling out Brenowitz on the basis of his wife's description. Brenowitz was detained by Deutschmann and transported a short distance for the purposes of isolating him from his friends before being questioned and released. The discrepancies in testimony before the commission centered around the level of force used by Deutschmann. According to Brenowitz, the defendant grabbed his neck, threw him up against the cruiser, and threatened his life several times. Testifying for the first time at the commission hearing, Deutschmann's version of the event stands in direct conflict with these claims.² He testified that he only pushed Brenowitz in the chest to prevent him from leaving the scene, that he did not throw him against the side of the cruiser, and that he responded to Brenowitz's baiting to hit him: "I'm so mad right now, but if I was to hit you, I'd probably kill you."

Robert Brenowitz filed a complaint against Deutschmann, prompting the Falmouth police department to open an investigation. The investigation found enough evidence to warrant a hearing by the town administrator pursuant to G.L. c. 31, § 41. This hearing resulted in the defendant's suspension for 180 days, based on the administrator's finding of violations of police department regulations concerning use of force, arrest, and transportation procedures and the determination that his behavior constituted conduct unbecoming an officer. The decision was hand delivered to Deutschmann on December 7, 1998. Falmouth v. Civil Serv. Comm'n, supra at 607, 834 N.E.2d 1210.

By letter dated December 17, 1998, Deutschmann appealed from the town's decision to the commission by mail. Although the envelope in which the letter was mailed is not in the record, the letter was stamped as being received by the commission six days later, on December 23, 1998.³ After denying a motion to dismiss for want of jurisdiction by the town, the commission held a de novo hearing and made its ruling that the suspension should be reduced to sixty days.

2. Postmark rule. General Laws c. 31, § 43, allows for a hearing before the commission "[i]f a person aggrieved by a decision of an appointing authority made pursuant to [§ 41] shall, within ten days after receiving written notice of such decision, appeal in writing to the commission. . . ." There is no disagreement that Deutschmann's statutory ten-day period to appeal from the town's decision, excluding weekends as required under the statute, expired on December 21, 1998. Rather, the dispute here is whether Deutschmann's notice of appeal, dated December 17, 1998, but not received by the commission until December 23, satisfies the statutory deadline.

The commission argues that Deutschmann's appeal was timely on the basis of its rules of practice and procedure then in place.⁴ Rule 2.4(a)(3) states: "Papers placed in the U.S. mail shall be deemed filed on the date so postmarked." The commission further contends that the promulgation of this rule was a valid exercise of its authority under G.L. c. 31, § 2(g), which allows the commission "[t]o adopt such rules of procedure as necessary for the conduct of its proceedings." In the commission's view, the letter from Deutschmann, dated December 17, 1998, constitutes a timely appeal under rule 2.4(a)(3).

The town responds that a plain reading of G.L. c. 31, § 43, requires the commission to receive the appeal within ten days of the appointing authority's decision. According to the town, we need not invalidate rule 2.4(a)(3) in order to agree with its position because the commission's rule applies only to filings that occur after the appeal has been initiated — to allow otherwise would be an impermissible expansion of the commission's jurisdiction.

The disagreement in this matter focuses on the phrase "appeal in writing," as used in G.L. c. 31, § 43.⁵ Were we to conclude that this statutory language was clear, our inquiry would end by giving effect to its plain and ordinary meaning. Milford v. Boyd, 434 Mass. 754, 756, 752 N.E.2d 732 (2001). Our reading of this language, however, does not evince the unambiguous meaning the town would assign to it. "When a statute is `capable of being understood by reasonably well-informed persons in two or more different senses,' it is ambiguous." AT & T v. Automatic Sprinkler Appeals Bd., 52 Mass. App.Ct. 11, 14, 750 N.E.2d 505 (2001), quoting Cohen v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 41 Mass.App.Ct. 748, 753, 673 N.E.2d 84 (1996). Such statutory language is at issue here.

The relevant question left unanswered by G.L. c. 31, § 43, is the precise manner in which an appeal is deemed to have been perfected so as to comply with the ten-day deadline. The town argues that an appeal must be filed, i.e., received, in the commission's office within the ten-day period.⁶ Section 43 does not specify any particular act required to perfect an appeal. The statute's plain language does not state that the appeal must be "filed" in a particular place within ten days. Contrast Harper v. Division of Water Pollution Control, 412 Mass. 464, 466, 589 N.E.2d 1239 (1992) (appeal in nature of judicial review under G.L. c. 30A, § 14[1], requires filing complaint "in the court" within specified time).

This court has recognized the particular significance of the word "filed" in the context of an appeal. Generally, it connotes the "receipt" of the appeal, absent an express intent to the contrary. See Garrett v. Director of the Div. of Employment Sec., 394 Mass. 417, 420, 475 N.E.2d 1221 (1985). The absence of the word "filed" in the relevant sentence of § 43 is persuasive evidence of a legislative intent that an appeal need not be actually received (filed) within the ten-day appeal period.⁷ Although the statute permits the construction urged by the town, it does not require that construction. It also permits the construction adopted by the commission.

In its adoption and application of rule 2.4(a)(3), the commission has taken the equally plausible view that an appeal is deemed to have been perfected on the day of the postmark. The reasonableness of this interpretation is underscored not only by the commission's long-standing use of the postmark rule in this context,⁸ but also by the ubiquity of the rule in analogous circumstances.⁹ See 801 Code Mass. Regs. § 1.01(4)(b) (1998) (standard adjudicatory rules of practice and procedure, which have now replaced commission's rules of practice and procedure); 452 Code Mass. Regs. § 1.02 (1997) (interpreting "filed" in G.L. c. 152, §§ 10A and 11C, to require postmark by deadline); 110 Code Mass. Regs. § 10.35(1)(c) (1993) (postmark rule for filings with Department of Social Services hearing officer); 310 Code Mass. Regs. § 1.01(3)(a)(3) (2004) (postmark rule in Department of Environmental Protection's adjudicatory process); 972 Code Mass. Regs. § 1.02 (2005) (definition of "[d]ate of [r]eceipt" is earlier of either arrival or date of postmark in context of appeals to Old King's Highway Regional Historic District Commission).

Given the two equally plausible readings of the statutory language, we defer to the commission's reasonable interpretation. We are guided by the familiar principle that "[a] state administrative agency in Massachusetts has considerable leeway in interpreting a statute it is charged with enforcing." Nuclear Metals, Inc. v. Low-Level Radioactive Waste Mgt. Bd., 421 Mass. 196, 211, 656 N.E.2d 563 (1995), quoting A. Cella, Administrative Law and Practice § 747 (1986).¹⁰ In reviewing such an interpretation, "we must apply all rational presumptions in favor of the validity of the administrative action and not declare it void unless its provisions cannot by any reasonable construction be interpreted in harmony with the legislative mandate." Massachusetts Fed'n of Teachers, AFT, AFL-CIO v. Board of Educ., 436 Mass. 763, 771, 767...