Westland Housing Corp. v. Commissioner of Ins.

• Decision Date: 06 December 1963
• Citation: 194 N.E.2d 714,346 Mass. 556
• Parties: WESTLAND HOUSING CORPORATION et al. v. COMMISSIONER OF INSURANCE.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 714

194 N.E.2d 714

346 Mass. 556

WESTLAND HOUSING CORPORATION et al. v. COMMISSIONER OF INSURANCE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued Oct. 11, 1963.

Decided Dec. 6, 1963.

Herbert P. Wilkins, Boston, for intervener, Massachusetts Workmen's Compensation Rating and Inspection Bureau (David W. Hays, Asst. Atty. Gen., for Commissioner of Insurance, with him).

John M. Reed, Boston, for Westland Housing Corporation.

Summer H. Bacock and Richard M. Harter, Boston, for National Council on Compensation Insurance, amicus curiae, submitted a brief.

Before SPALDING, WHITTEMORE, KIRK, SPIEGEL and REARDON, JJ.

SPIEGEL, Justice.

This is a petition for review brought under G.L. c. 30A, § 14, and G.L. c. 152, § 65M, 'so far as applicable,' by ten corporations to review a decision of the respondent, the Commissioner of Insurance. The respondent upheld the grouping of the ten petitioners for rating purposes in accordance with Rule 9 of § III ¹ of the 'Experience Rating Plan Manual' used by the rating bureau. A judge of the Superior Court entered a decree setting aside the decision of the respondent and ordering the Massachusetts Workmen's Compensation Rating and Inspection Bureau, an intervener in this suit, to 'establish rates for each of the petitioners as separate risks, as provided in the first clause of said Section III, Rule 9. ('Two or more separate risks shall not be combined for rating purposes.')' The respondent and the intervener appealed from this decree.

In this court for the first time the respondent and the intervener question the jurisdiction of the Superior Court to act on the petition for review of the decision of the Commissioner. They argue that there was no statutory authority for an adjudicatory proceeding reviewable under G.L. c. 30A, § 14, and no right to review under G.L. c. 152, § 65M.

The substantive issue cannot be reached unless it is determined that there was jurisdiction in the Superior Court to act on the petition for review of the Commissioner's decision. Carey v. Planning Bd. of Revere, 335 Mass. 740, 745, 139 N.E.2d 920.

Although we are urged to dismiss the petition for lack of jurisdiction, in the circumstances of this case we are reluctant to do so. The record is devoid of evidence from which we can decide the jurisdictional question. It is not for us to speculate. Carey v. Planning Bd. of Revere, supra, 335 Mass. 744, 139 N.E.2d 923.

The statutes under which the petitioners brought their petition in the Superior Court, G.L. c. 30A, § 14, and c. 152, § 65M, set forth the circumstances in which the court has jurisdiction. There can be no review under c. 30A, § 14, unless there was an adjudicatory proceeding. Springfield Hotel Ass'n. Inc. v. Alcoholic Beverages Control Commn., 338 Mass. 699, 702, 157 N.E.2d 219. In order to secure a review under § 65M, the petitioners must be parties 'aggrieved by any order or ruling of the * * * commissioner of insurance under any provision of sections sixty-five A to sixty-five L, inclusive.' The latter sections apply in general only to those employers originally assigned to their insurer, or to the voluntary pool, by the...