Vernon Village, Inc. v. Carothers, No. 13923

• Decision Date: 15 January 1991
• Docket Number: No. 13923
• Citation: 585 A.2d 76,217 Conn. 130
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: VERNON VILLAGE, INC., et al. v. Leslie CAROTHERS, Commissioner of Environmental Protection, et al.

Page 76

585 A.2d 76

217 Conn. 130

VERNON VILLAGE, INC., et al. v. Leslie CAROTHERS, Commissioner of Environmental Protection, et al.

No. 13923.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Nov. 6, 1990.

Decided Jan. 15, 1991.

John L. Giulietti, Vernon, for appellants (plaintiffs).

John M. Looney, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee (named defendant).

Mark J. Zimmermann, Hartford, with whom were Joel M. Fain, Vernon and, on the brief, Cynthia J. Rummel, Hartford, for appellees (defendant Precision Plating Corp., et al.).

Before PETERS, C.J., and GLASS, SANTANIELLO, FRANCIS X. HENNESSY and MENT, JJ.

GLASS, Justice.

The dispositive issue in this case concerns the applicability and the effective date of Public Acts 1988, No. 88-317 (act), which substantially revised chapter 54 of the General Statutes, the Uniform Administrative Procedure Act (UAPA). Particularly, our focus is upon the provisions of the act that extend the time period for filing an administrative appeal from pollution abatement orders issued by the commissioner of the department of environmental protection (DEP). The trial court determined that the act was inapplicable to the plaintiffs' administrative appeal, and accordingly dismissed the appeal in view of the plaintiffs' failure to appeal from the challenged pollution abatement orders within the required time period under the law in effect prior to its revision by the act. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The underlying dispute arose from a determination by the commissioner of the DEP (commissioner) that the respondents, Precision Plating Corporation and Warren J. Gottier, had polluted state ground waters with the chemical chromium while operating an industrial park located on Hartford Turnpike in Vernon. On the basis of this determination, the commissioner issued pollution abatement orders to the respondents on February 14 and March 12, 1986, directing them to investigate and take remedial action to minimize or eliminate the chromium contamination and to supply certain properties located on Hartford Turnpike with potable drinking water.

Within thirty days of the issuance of the orders, the respondents requested a hearing before the commissioner. The commissioner conducted hearings on July 26 and August 31, 1989, at which the respondents and the DEP appeared as parties. In addition, Anita, John and James Giulietti, Joanne Giulietti Hollis (Giuliettis), Vernon Village, Inc., and High Manor Mobile Home Park, all of whom own property located on Hartford Turnpike, participated in the hearings as intervenors. On September 29, 1989, the commissioner mailed her final decision to all of the parties. Forty days later, on November 8, 1989, the plaintiffs, the Giuliettis and Vernon Village, Inc., filed an administrative appeal challenging the decision in the Superior Court. ¹

The defendants, including the respondents and the named defendant, the commissioner, ² promptly moved to dismiss the plaintiffs' appeal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. In their motion, the defendants claimed that the plaintiffs had failed to file their appeal within fifteen days of the issuance of notice of the commissioner's decision as required by General Statutes § 22a-437 ³ as it existed prior to its revision by the act. ⁴ The plaintiffs argued in response that their appeal was governed by the act, and that § 30(a) ⁵ of the act repealed General Statutes § 22a-437, and provided that appeals from pollution abatement orders must be filed in accordance with § 23(c) ⁶ of the act. Under § 23(c), the time period for appealing from a final decision of an agency is forty-five days. Since the plaintiffs had filed their appeal before the expiration of the forty-five day period, they claimed that the appeal was timely under the act.

The trial court found that, by its terms, the act applied only to agency proceedings that had commenced on or after July 1, 1989, and had no retroactive effect. The court then determined that the act was inapplicable to the plaintiffs' appeal, thereby implicitly finding that the agency proceedings involved in the matter had commenced before July 1, 1989. Consequently, the court concluded that the plaintiffs' appeal was governed by § 22a-437 as it existed before its revision by the act, and since the appeal had been filed after the expiration of the appeal period under that statute, the court dismissed the appeal as untimely.

The plaintiffs appealed to the Appellate Court, and we transferred the appeal to this court in accordance with Practice Book § 4023. Although the plaintiffs have raised a number of claims for our review, they acknowledge that the dispositive issue on appeal is whether the trial court properly concluded that the act was inapplicable to their administrative appeal. Indeed, the plaintiffs concede that if the act "does not apply to the instant case ... the trial court's decision should be sustained." We agree that the issue of the applicability of the act dictates the outcome of this appeal, and therefore, we need not consider any of the other issues raised by the plaintiffs. ⁷

The issue before us is a narrow one. If the act applies to the plaintiffs' administrative appeal, the appeal was timely filed within the forty-five day appeal period provided for under §§ 23(c) and 30(a) of the act and should not have been dismissed. If the act is inapplicable to the appeal, the trial court properly dismissed the appeal since it was filed beyond the expiration of the fifteen day appeal period in General Statutes § 22a-437 prior to its revision by the act.

The act is a comprehensive piece of legislation that contains 107 sections. Sections 24 and 107 pertain to the applicability and the effective date of the act. Section 24(a) provides: "This chapter, as amended by this act, and sections 8, 11, 13, 15, 18, 20, 21 and 22 of this act apply to all agency proceedings commenced on or after the effective date of this act. Each agency proceeding commenced before the effective date of this act is governed by the law in effect when the proceeding was commenced." The final section of the act, § 107, provides: "This act shall take effect July 1, 1989, and shall be applicable to all agency proceedings commenced on or after such date."

The plaintiffs advance two alternative arguments in support of their claim that the act applies to their appeal. First, they assert that the first clause of § 107 deems the provisions of the act concerning appellate review of administrative decisions applicable to all appeals filed on or after July 1, 1989, without regard to the date that the underlying agency proceedings had commenced. In the alternative, the plaintiffs contend that because the hearings with respect to the commissioner's orders were agency proceedings that had commenced after July 1, 1989, the commencement of those hearings triggered the application of the act. We will consider these alternative claims in sequence.

I

The plaintiffs claim that the first clause of § 107, rather than § 24(a), governs the application of the provisions of the act concerning judicial review of administrative decisions, and deems these provisions immediately applicable on July 1, 1989. According to the plaintiffs, §§ 107 and 24(a) should be construed as independent provisions, each specifying a different standard for determining the application and the effective date for certain of the other provisions in the act. The claimed distinction between these sections is premised upon the fact that § 24(a) refers to agency proceedings, while the first clause of § 107 includes no such reference. The plaintiffs reason that because the definition of the word "agency" in the UAPA specifically excludes courts; see General Statutes § 4-166(1); the term "agency proceedings" in § 24(a) cannot encompass the "court proceedings" involved in an administrative appeal. Thus, the plaintiffs assert that the first clause of § 107 independently governs all of the provisions of the act concerning appellate review of administrative decisions, and renders them immediately effective on July 1, 1989, without regard to the date that the underlying agency proceedings had commenced in a particular case. Accordingly, the plaintiffs conclude that aside from the date that the agency proceedings had commenced in this case, § 23(c) of the act became effective on July 1, 1989, and their subsequent appeal was timely filed under that section.

We are unpersuaded that § 24(a) and the first clause of § 107 were designed to provide different standards for determining the application and the effective date of various provisions of the act. Section 24(a) provides: "This chapter, as amended by this act ... [applies] to all agency proceedings commenced on or after the effective date of this act." (Emphasis added.) Section 107 provides: "This act," which undoubtedly amends chapter 54, "shall take effect July 1, 1989...." (Emphasis added.) From the emphasized language, it is readily apparent that both sections were intended to govern the application and the effective date of all of the other provisions of the act. Viewing the sections as independent provisions would therefore lead to the anomalous result that under § 107, all of the provisions of the act are immediately effective on July 1, 1989, without regard to the date that the underlying agency proceedings had commenced, and at the same time, under § 24(a), all of the provisions of the act are inapplicable in cases where the underlying proceedings had commenced before July 1, 1989.

The illogical consequence of the plaintiffs' position demonstrates that the legislature could not have intended § 24(a) and the first clause of § 107 to provide wholly separate determinants for the application and the effective date of the act. See Texaco Refining & Marketing Co. v. Commissioner, 202 Conn. 583, 593, 522 A.2d 771 (1987). In discerning what the legislature did intend with respect to the application and the...