Voss v. Goodman

• Decision Date: 18 March 2009
• Docket Number: No. S-08-0060.,S-08-0060.
• Citation: 203 P.3d 415,2009 WY 40
• Parties: Mark and Laura VOSS, Appellants (Defendants), v. Beverly B. GOODMAN, Appellee (Plaintiff).
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

203 P.3d 415

2009 WY 40

Mark and Laura VOSS, Appellants (Defendants), v. Beverly B. GOODMAN, Appellee (Plaintiff).

No. S-08-0060.

Supreme Court of Wyoming.

March 18, 2009.

Representing Appellants: Mark and Laura Voss, Pro se, of Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Representing Appellee: Gay Woodhouse and Deborah L. Roden of Gay Woodhouse Law Office, P.C., Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Before VOIGT, C.J., and GOLDEN, HILL, and BURKE, JJ, and YOUNG, DJ.

VOIGT, Chief Justice.

[¶ 1] Appellants, Mark and Laura Voss, request relief from a district court decision in a declaratory judgment action finding that the Albany County Board of County Commissioners (Board) did not have authority to grant Appellants temporary access across Appellee's, Beverly Goodman's, land during a private road condemnation case.

ISSUES

[¶ 2] 1. Did the district court have jurisdiction to issue declaratory judgment as to whether the Board had authority under Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 24-9-101 (LexisNexis 1999) to grant temporary access to Appellants during a private road condemnation action in which Appellants sought permanent access across Appellee's land?

2. Did the district court err when it determined that the Board did not have authority under Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 24-9-101 (LexisNexis 1999) to grant temporary access to Appellants during a private road condemnation action in which Appellants sought permanent access across Appellee's land?

3. Did the district court abuse its discretion when it denied Appellants leave to amend their Answer?

FACTS¹

[¶ 3] Appellants filed a petition to establish a private road across Appellee's land in 1999. In 2007, Appellants filed a Motion for Grant of Temporary Access Pending the Final Establishment of a Private Road for [Appellants'] Property. The Board granted that request. Appellee filed a Complaint for Declaratory Judgment and Injunctive Relief requesting that the district court interpret the statute and find that the Board had acted without authority in granting Appellants temporary access during the private road action. Appellee filed a Motion for Summary Judgment. Appellants filed a motion for leave to amend their Answer and a cross motion for summary judgment. The district court issued a decision letter dated October 29, 2007, in which it denied Appellants' request for leave to amend the Answer, granted Appellee summary judgment on the issues of declaratory and injunctive relief,² and denied summary judgment on the issue of damages. This appeal followed.

DISCUSSION

Jurisdiction

[¶ 4] We review the threshold question of jurisdiction under the Declaratory Judgments Act de novo. Heilig v. Wyo. Game & Fish Comm'n, 2003 WY 27, ¶ 8, 64 P.3d 734, 737 (Wyo.2003). The district court properly determined that it had jurisdiction to entertain this declaratory judgment action. The Declaratory Judgments Act sets forth the scope of declaratory judgment actions as follows:

Courts of record within their respective jurisdictions may declare rights, status and other legal relations whether or not further relief is or could be claimed. No proceeding is open to objection on the ground that a declaratory judgment or decree is prayed for. The declaration may be either affirmative or negative in form and effect, and such declarations shall have the effect of a final judgment.

Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 1-37-102 (LexisNexis 2007).

[¶ 5] We have interpreted the Act with respect to declaratory judgment related to administrative proceedings.

[T]here is a restriction on the availability of a declaratory judgment action with reference to its applicability to administrative matters. Where the action would result in a prejudging of issues that should be decided in the first instance by an administrative body, it should not lie. This is because, if it be otherwise, all decisions by the several agencies could be bypassed and the district court would be administering the activities of the executive branch of government. This restriction on the scope of declaratory judgments is akin to the requirement that administrative remedies must be exhausted before judicial relief is available.

Accordingly, where the relief desired is in the nature of a substitution of judicial decision for that of the agency on issues pertaining to the administration of the subject matter for which the agency was created, the action should not be entertained.

Ten Broek v. County of Washakie, 2003 WY 164, ¶ 8, 82 P.3d 269, 273-74 (Wyo.2003) (citations omitted). However,

[t]he purpose of declaratory judgment actions is to render disputes concerning the legal rights and duties of parties justiciable without proof of a wrong committed by one party against another, and thus facilitate the termination of controversies. Wyoming's declaratory judgment statute states that it is remedial and should be liberally construed and administered. We do not interpret it in a narrow or technical sense, and there remains the prerequisite that the party seeking declaratory relief present the court with an actual controversy. Trial judges may not dispense with the traditional rules prohibiting them from rendering advisory opinions or adjudicating hypothetical issues. An action for declaratory judgment cannot be a substitute for an appeal from administrative decisions but is available even though there is a statutory method of appeal if it concerns the validity and construction of agency regulations, or if it concerns the constitutionality or interpretation of a statute upon which the administrative action is, or is to be based.

Hirschfield v. Bd. of County Comm'rs of the County of Teton, 944 P.2d 1139, 1142 (Wyo. 1997) (citations and quotation marks omitted).

[¶ 6] The single issue before the district court in this case was whether the Board had the authority to grant Appellants temporary access during the private road condemnation case. Although evidence of irrelevant facts was presented, it is apparent from the decision letter that the district court limited its decision to the appropriate legal issue before it. This narrow issue of law falls into the category of an "interpretation of a statute upon which the administrative action is, or is to be based."

[¶ 7] Our interpretation of the Declaratory Judgment Act makes clear that "there remains the prerequisite that the party seeking declaratory relief present the court with an actual controversy. Trial judges may not dispense with the traditional rules prohibiting them from rendering advisory opinions or adjudicating hypothetical issues." Hirschfield, 944 P.2d at 1142 (citation omitted). We have established

four elements as being necessary to establish a justiciable controversy under the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act:

1. The parties must have existing and genuine, as distinguished from theoretical, rights or interests.

2. The controversy must be one upon which the judgment of the court may effectively operate, as distinguished from a debate or argument evoking a purely political, administrative, philosophical or academic conclusion.

3. It must be a controversy the judicial determination of which will have the force and effect of a final judgment in law or decree in equity upon the rights, status or other legal relationships of one or more of the real parties in interest, or, wanting these qualities to be of such great and overriding public moment as to constitute the legal equivalent of all of them.

4. The proceedings must be genuinely adversary in character and not a mere disputation, but advanced with sufficient militancy to engender a thorough research and analysis of the major issues.

Id. at 1142-43.

[¶ 8] The parties are disputing the right to exclusive use of their land and the right to adequate access for their land, respectively. The first order granting Appellant temporary access had expired but, at the time the action was entertained, another request for temporary access was pending. With respect to the first requirement, there can be no doubt that real and genuine rights and interests are at stake in this case. Concerning the second requirement, the judgment of a court may certainly operate to determine the rights between parties in a land dispute. The judgment of the district court will also serve effectively to resolve this dispute, fulfilling the third requirement for a justiciable controversy, because the district court serves as an appellate court for issues of law concerning the acts of the county commission in administrative actions and its decisions are binding on that commission. Ten Broek, 2003 WY 164, ¶ 8, 82 P.3d at 273. Finally, this case, which has already been litigated for more than ten years before multiple tribunals, including this Court, has certainly been litigated with sufficient "militancy" to ensure that "thorough research and analysis of the major issues" has been conducted. See Voss v. Albany County Comm'rs, 2003 WY 94, 74 P.3d 714 (Wyo. 2003). This case presented a justiciable question and the district court had jurisdiction to decide that question.

Summary Judgment — Interpretation of the Statute

[¶ 9] We review a grant of summary judgment entered in response to a petition for declaratory judgment de novo. Wyo. Cmty. Coll. Comm'n v. Casper Cmty. Coll. Dist., 2001 WY 86, ¶ 11, 31 P.3d 1242, 1247 (Wyo.2001). "We accord no deference to the district court on issues of law and may affirm the summary judgment on any legal grounds appearing in the record." Id. "The summary judgment can be sustained only when no genuine issues of material fact are present and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Id. There is no question of material fact in this case. The declaratory action was brought to determine whether the Board had the authority to grant temporary access over Appellee's land during the pending private road condemnation action. The parties admit that the Appellants requested temporary access and that the Board subsequently granted that temporary access across Appellee's land.

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