Case Title: Rizzo v. Virginia Retirement System

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 1998-02-27T00:00:00Z

Document:
PRESENT:  All the Justices 
 
ANTHONY M. RIZZO, JR. 
 
 
 
       OPINION BY 
v.  Record No.  970596 
JUSTICE CYNTHIA D. KINSER 
 
 
 
     February 27, 1998 
VIRGINIA RETIREMENT SYSTEM, ET AL. 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
In this appeal, we determine when the ninety-day limitation 
in Code § 9-6.14:11(D), during which an agency is required to 
render a case decision, begins to run.  Because we find that the 
ninety days must be counted from the date that the agency 
representative held a fact-finding conference, we will reverse 
the judgment of the Court of Appeals. 
I. 
This case involves the claim of Anthony M. Rizzo, Jr., for 
disability retirement benefits under the Virginia Retirement 
System (VRS).  As a VRS member, Rizzo applied for disability 
retirement benefits on November 14, 1988.  Following an initial 
denial of his claim and subsequent judicial appeals that 
resulted in a remand to VRS,1 a VRS agency representative 
                     
 
1 After denial of his claim in a final case decision by VRS 
dated September 19, 1991, Rizzo appealed to the Circuit Court of 
Orange County.  In an order dated April 29, 1993, the court set 
aside the denial and remanded the case to VRS for further 
proceedings to include a new hearing.  VRS then appealed to the 
Court of Appeals, which, in an unpublished memorandum opinion 
dated July 12, 1994, affirmed, insofar as is pertinent here, the 
circuit court’s judgment.  In accordance with the judgment of 
conducted an informal fact-finding proceeding pursuant to Code § 
9-6.14.11(D) on April 25, 1995.2  At this proceeding, Rizzo 
incorporated all the evidence from the previous administrative 
hearing and introduced additional psychiatric evidence from Dr. 
Robert Stanley Brown, Jr. 
Over Rizzo’s objection, the agency representative sent the 
transcript of the hearing to VRS on May 24, 1995, and asked VRS 
to forward the transcript to the Medical Board3 since it 
contained Dr. Brown’s testimony regarding Rizzo’s condition.  On 
June 19, 1995, VRS transmitted Dr. Brown’s testimony to the 
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the Court of Appeals, the circuit court then remanded Rizzo’s 
claim to VRS. 
 
 
2 VRS requested the agency representative “to conduct a 
fact-finding hearing” in a letter dated December 29, 1994.  The 
agency representative also referred to the proceeding as a 
“hearing” but conducted it as an informal fact-finding 
proceeding rather than a formal hearing as defined in Code § 9-
6.14:4(E). 
  
  
3  The Board of Trustees of VRS employs the Medical Board 
pursuant to Va. Code § 51.1-124.23.  The Medical Board reviews 
reports of medical examinations, investigates health and medical 
statements submitted in connection with disability retirement, 
and reports its conclusions and recommendations to VRS.  Code § 
51.1-124.23(B).  The Medical Board also has certain additional 
responsibilities in regard to disability retirement.  Code § 
51.1-156(E). 
Title 51 of the Code, “Pensions and Retirement,” was 
repealed effective July 1, 1990, but was replaced by Title 51.1, 
“Pensions, Benefits and Retirement,” on that date.  Even though 
Rizzo applied for disability retirement benefits in November 
1988, the differences in the recodification are not material for 
purposes of the present opinion.  Hence, the current version 
will be cited. 
 
2
Medical Board and asked it to examine the new evidence, review 
for the second time the previous medical evidence, and comment 
on all of it.  Then on June 28, 1995, the Medical Board decided 
that Dr. Merritt W. Foster, Jr., a consulting psychiatrist, 
should review the evidence.  Almost a month later, VRS directed 
the Medical Board to proceed with Dr. Foster’s analysis.  On 
September 27, 1995, the Medical Board forwarded Dr. Foster’s 
report to VRS, and VRS sent the report to the agency 
representative on October 4, 1995. 
Before the Medical Board received Dr. Foster’s report, 
Rizzo notified VRS on August 11, 1995, more than ninety days 
after the April informal fact-finding proceeding, that a 
decision was due.  In response, VRS informed Rizzo that it would 
endeavor to have the Medical Board “move forward.”  On September 
27, 1995, Rizzo again notified VRS that a decision was due.  
Finally, on October 6, 1995, Rizzo informed the agency 
representative and VRS that, pursuant to Code § 9-6.14:11(D), 
there was a decision now “‘deemed to be in his favor’” for the 
following reasons: 
 
(1) more than 90 days elapsed since the date of the 
informal fact-finding proceeding on remand . . . (2) 
after the lapse of such period and by at least 21 
August 1995 . . . the VRS received our notice that “a 
decision is due”, notwithstanding which (3) no final 
decision of the System, from its board of trustees, 
was made within a further 30 days from the System’s 
receipt of our notice. 
 
 
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Therefore, Rizzo requested VRS to calculate and pay him the 
benefits he sought.  VRS responded on October 22, 1995, by 
stating that, under Code § 9-6.14:11(D), the “proceeding” 
envisioned was not concluded until VRS received the Medical 
Board’s report. 
 
On November 6, 1995, the agency representative submitted a 
recommendation to VRS that Rizzo be awarded disability 
retirement benefits.  On the same day, however, VRS issued its 
final case decision denying Rizzo benefits.  This case decision 
came 195 days after the agency representative had conducted the 
informal hearing. 
Rizzo then appealed again to the Circuit Court of Orange 
County and filed a motion for summary judgment.  In his motion, 
Rizzo argued, inter alia, that VRS failed to render a decision 
within the prescribed time limits and, therefore, in accord with 
Code § 9-6.14:11(D), a decision had been “deemed” in his favor.  
After hearing argument by both parties, the circuit court stated 
the following reasons for granting Rizzo’s motion: 
 
[T]he General Assembly, by using the phrase “from the date 
of the informal fact-finding proceeding” in the statute 
intended that the 90 day period begin to run in a case such 
as the case at bar when the agency representative holds the 
fact-finding hearing.  Otherwise, the agency representative 
and the agency’s medical board would wholly control the 
time of decision and the limitation in the statute would be 
practically meaningless. 
 
 
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VRS appealed, and the Court of Appeals reversed.  
Distinguishing between the responsibility of VRS to gather facts 
and its responsibility to render a decision, the Court of 
Appeals concluded that the “legislature intended [the time 
limitations of Code § 9-6.14:11(D)] to begin running at the 
close of the fact-gathering stage of the adjudication process,” 
in this case, when VRS received the Medical Board’s report.  
Virginia Retirement System v. Rizzo, 23 Va. App. 698, 705, 479 
S.E.2d 535, 538 (1997). 
The Court of Appeals denied Rizzo’s subsequent petition for 
a rehearing en banc.  We awarded Rizzo an appeal. 
II. 
 
VRS is established pursuant to Chapter 1 of Title 51.1 of 
the Virginia Code and is administered by a Board of Trustees. 
Code § 51.1-124.22.  Part of the responsibilities and duties of 
VRS is to determine entitlement to retirement benefits, 
including disability retirement.  See Code § 51.1-156. 
As an agency empowered to make regulations and decide 
cases, VRS is subject to the Administrative Process Act (APA), 
Code §§ 9-6.14:1 to .14:25.  The purpose of the APA is to 
“supplement . . . basic laws conferring authority on agencies . 
 
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. . [to] decide cases . . . .” 4  Code § 9-6.14:3.  It does not 
“supersede or repeal additional procedural requirements in such 
basic laws.”  Id.
The APA establishes two procedures that an agency can 
utilize to render a “case decision”5 - an informal procedure and 
a formal or trial-like procedure.  VRS utilized the informal 
procedure to decide Rizzo’s claim.6  The informal procedure 
requires agencies to “ascertain the fact basis for their 
decisions of cases through informal conference or consultation 
proceedings.”  Code § 9-6.14:11(A).  During such “conference-
consultation procedures,” the parties have the right to notice 
thereof, to appear in person or by a representative for the 
“informal presentation of factual data, argument, or proof,” to 
have notice of any contrary fact basis or information, to 
                     
4 Basic law “means provisions of the Constitution and 
statutes of the Commonwealth of Virginia authorizing an agency 
to make regulations or decide cases or containing procedural 
requirements therefor.”  Code § 9-6.14:4(C). 
 
 
 
5 The APA defines “case decision,” in pertinent part, as 
“any agency proceeding or determination that, under laws or 
regulations at the time, a named party as a matter of past or 
present fact, . . . [is] in compliance with any existing 
requirement for obtaining or retaining a license or other right 
or benefit.”  Code § 9-6.14:4(D). 
 
6 An agency is required to use the formal procedure when its 
“basic laws provide expressly for decisions upon or after 
hearing.”  Code § 9-6.14:12(A).    
 
 
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receive a prompt decision, and to be advised, generally in 
writing, of the basis for an adverse decision.  Id.
At issue in this appeal is the time frame in which VRS was 
required to render a decision in Rizzo’s case under the informal 
procedure.  The relevant subsection states the following: 
 
 
In any informal fact-finding proceeding in which a 
hearing officer, as described in § 9-6.14:14.1, is not used 
or is not empowered to recommend a finding, the board, 
commission, or agency personnel responsible for rendering a 
decision shall render that decision within ninety days from 
the date of the informal fact-finding proceeding or from a 
later date agreed to by the named party and the agency.  If 
the agency does not render a decision within ninety days, 
the named party to the case decision may provide written 
notice to the agency that a decision is due.  If no 
decision is made within thirty days from agency receipt of 
the notice, the decision is deemed to be in favor of the 
named party. 
 
Code § 9-6.14:11(D). 
Rizzo argues that the ninety days in this subsection 
commenced when the agency representative conducted the fact-
finding proceeding on April 25, 1995.  VRS contends that the 
ninety days did not start to run until it received the Medical 
Board’s report.7  According to VRS, the term “fact-finding 
proceeding” used in subsection D is more expansive than the term 
“conference or consultation proceedings” found in subsection A.  
Thus, argues VRS, the General Assembly used the term “fact-
                     
 
7 At oral argument, VRS argued that the ninety days did not 
begin to run until it received the agency representative’s 
recommended decision.   
 
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finding proceeding” in conjunction with the time limitations 
because the basic laws of some agencies may require other fact-
finding steps after the informal conference or consultation has 
taken place.  In the present case, VRS maintains that its basic 
law requires the Medical Board’s review of evidence and 
therefore, the ninety days could not commence until VRS received 
that report. 
The argument by VRS that the ninety days did not begin to 
run on April 25, 1995, is not in accord with the overall 
framework of the APA.  In Code § 9-6.14:11, agencies are 
directed to use informal conference or consultation proceedings 
to determine the fact basis for their decisions.  We find 
nothing in Code § 9-6.14:11 to suggest that the General 
Assembly, by using the term “fact-finding proceeding” in 
subsection D as opposed to the phrase “conference or 
consultation” in subsection A, thereby intended to create a 
separate fact-gathering stage.  To determine otherwise and to 
accept the position of VRS would result in a fact-gathering 
stage subject to no time constraints. 
The term “fact-finding proceeding” is not defined in the 
APA; thus, it must be “given its ordinary meaning, given the 
context in which it is used.”  Commonwealth of Virginia, Dept. 
of Taxation v. Orange-Madison Coop. Farm Serv., 220 Va. 655, 
658, 261 S.E.2d 532, 533-34 (1980).  “The context may be 
 
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examined by considering the other language used in the statute.”  
City of Virginia Beach v. Board of Supervisors of Mecklenburg 
Co., 246 Va. 233, 236-37, 435 S.E.2d 382, 384 (1993).  
Accordingly, we conclude that the phrase “any informal fact-
finding proceeding” in subsection D refers to the “conference or 
consultation proceedings” first mentioned in subsection A of the 
same section.  In this case, that proceeding was the informal 
conference that the agency representative held on April 25, 
1995. 
Furthermore, Code § 9-6.14:11(D) says that the agency shall 
render a decision “within ninety days from the date of the 
informal fact-finding proceeding.”  (Emphasis added).  The term 
“date” indicates that the ninety-day limitation begins to run 
from a given, ascertainable time, not ninety days after the end 
of an indeterminate fact-gathering or fact-finding process. 
Moreover, we believe that if VRS and its Medical Board were 
allowed to control the commencement of the ninety-day decision 
period through a fact-gathering stage that has no boundaries as 
to time, the APA and its carefully designed parallel time 
limitations would be meaningless.  The time limitations 
established in the APA are contingent on whether a hearing 
officer is utilized.  When a “hearing officer, as described in § 
9-6.14:14.1, is not used or is not empowered to recommend a 
 
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finding,”8 the agency must render a decision within ninety days 
from either “the date of the informal fact-finding proceeding,” 
Code § 9-6.14:11(D), or the “date of the formal proceeding.”  
Code § 9-6.14:12(G).  However, when a hearing officer is used in 
either the formal or informal procedure and makes the initial 
decision in the form of a recommendation to the agency, the 
hearing officer, not the agency, gets ninety days “from the date 
of the case decision proceeding” in which to render a decision.  
Code § 9-6.14:14.1(D).  The agency must then render its decision 
“within thirty days from the date that the agency receives the 
hearing officer’s recommendation.”  Code §§ 9-6.14:11(E) and 9-
6.14:12(H).  This thirty-day limitation applies whether the 
procedure used is informal or formal. 
The larger block of time granted the initial decision-
maker, whether the agency or its representative as in this case, 
or a hearing officer, is indicative of the General Assembly’s 
recognition that the initial decision-maker will necessarily 
need more time to perform such tasks as hearing oral testimony 
and reviewing documents.  If a hearing officer is used and 
recommends a decision, an agency then will need less time to 
                     
 
8 Under Code § 9-6.14:14.1(A), a hearing officer must meet 
certain standards, and the Executive Secretary of this Court 
prepares and maintains a list of such individuals.  The parties 
in this appeal agree that the agency representative utilized by 
VRS was not a hearing officer. 
 
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render a final case decision.  The intention of the General 
Assembly to afford the initial decision-maker more time is 
further evidenced by the provisions that restart the running of 
the ninety days if the board members or agency personnel cannot 
carry out their official duties.  Code §§ 9-6.14:11(F) and 9-
6.14:12(I). 
Thus, the General Assembly clearly specified when an agency 
has thirty days or ninety days to render a final case decision.  
To permit VRS to control the time within which it will render a 
decision by allowing it to deem fact-gathering to be ongoing 
ignores both the structure and the intended purpose of the 
multiple time limitation provisions in the cited sections of the 
APA. 
The one overriding objective of the General Assembly 
evident in the structure of the APA is that an agency not 
operate free of time constraints when making a case decision.  
The General Assembly sought to avoid precisely what happened in 
this case, a claimant waiting 195 days after the informal 
conference for a decision.  The time limitations in the APA, 
regardless of the procedure used, reflect the General Assembly’s 
desire that agencies make timely decisions.  We believe that our 
decision is in accord with that objective.  See Dowdy v. 
Franklin, 203 Va. 7, 10, 121 S.E.2d 817, 819 (1961) (“[W]e give 
weight to the object of the statute and the purpose to be 
 
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accomplished thereby.”).  Our decision also provides claimants 
with an ascertainable date from which to calculate the ninety 
days. 
Furthermore, counting the ninety days from the date of the 
informal conference or consultation, or the formal hearing, does 
not, as VRS insisted, conflict with the basic laws of VRS.  
Although the Medical Board is required to review all medical 
reports and statements and to report its findings and 
recommendations to VRS, the Medical Board is subject to control 
by VRS.  Thus, VRS can require the Board to perform its work 
within the ninety days when, as in this case, it needs an 
additional review of medical evidence.  Thus, neither the 
Medical Board’s work nor any other provision in the basic laws 
of VRS conflicts with the time constraints of the APA. 
Finally, VRS argued that the doctrine of sovereign immunity 
requires that Code § 9-6.14.11(D) be interpreted in favor of the 
sovereign.  VRS claims that the default provision mandating a 
decision in favor of the claimant when the agency fails to make 
a timely decision, even though the merits of the claim have not 
been adjudicated, adversely affects the sovereign’s pecuniary 
interests.  We find nothing in the doctrine of sovereign 
immunity that requires a departure from the recognized 
principles of statutory construction. 
 
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Therefore, we conclude that the ninety-day period 
prescribed by Code § 9-6.14.11(D) commenced to run in the 
present case on April 25, 1995.  Since VRS did not render a case 
decision within ninety days or within the thirty days after 
Rizzo advised VRS that a decision was due, a decision “is deemed 
to be in favor of” Rizzo.  Code § 9-6.14:11(D).  Accordingly, we 
will reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and enter 
final judgment here reinstating the judgment of the circuit 
court. 
Reversed and final judgment. 
 
CHIEF JUSTICE CARRICO, with whom JUSTICE COMPTON and JUSTICE 
HASSELL join, dissenting. 
 
 
 
I disagree with the majority’s holding that the date from 
which the ninety-day limitation began to run in this case was 
the commencement of the informal fact-finding proceeding.  I can 
find nothing in Code § 9-6.14:11 that mandates this holding, 
and, moreover, I think it would be more consistent with the 
applicable statutory provisions to hold that the limitation 
began to run from the end of the informal fact-finding 
proceeding, rather than its beginning. 
 
The apparent basis for the majority’s holding is that there 
is no difference between the term “informal conference or 
consultation proceedings,” as used in subsection A of Code § 9-
6.14:11, and the term “informal fact-finding proceeding,” as 
 
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used in subsection D.  Disavowing any difference, the majority 
says that the term “’fact-finding proceeding’ . . . must be 
‘given its ordinary meaning, given the context in which it is 
used.’”  The majority then concludes that the term “informal 
fact-finding proceeding” in subsection D means the same thing as 
“conference or consultation proceedings” mentioned in subsection 
A and, in this case, “that proceeding was the informal 
conference that the agency representative held on April 25, 
1995.” 
 
However, “’[w]hen the General Assembly uses two different 
terms in the same act, it is presumed to mean two different 
things.’”  Klarfeld v. Salsbury, 233 Va. 277, 284-85, 355 S.E.2d 
319, 323 (1987) (quoting Forst v. Rockingham Poultry Mktg. 
Coop., Inc., 222 Va. 270, 278, 279 S.E.2d 400, 404 (1981)).  I 
would conclude, therefore, that, in the context in which the two 
terms are used in the Administrative Process Act, an informal 
fact-finding proceeding, while it may include an informal 
conference or consultation proceeding, is intended to mean the 
whole fact-finding process involved in a particular case.  And, 
in the particular case now before us, the process included 
receipt by VRS of the report of the Medical Board pursuant to 
Code §§ 51.1-124.23 and –156.  Until receipt of that report, the 
fact-finding process was not complete and the VRS could not 
 
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render a decision on Rizzo’s application for disability 
retirement. 
 
Since VRS is not free to render a decision in a disability 
retirement case like the present one until the fact-finding 
process ends upon receipt of the Medical Board’s report, it is 
only logical, in my opinion, to have the ninety-day limitation 
begin to run from the end of the fact-finding process, rather 
than its beginning.  I do not share the majority’s fear that, 
unless the limitation is made to run from the commencement of 
the fact-finding process, the VRS and the Medical Board would 
manipulate the process and render meaningless the time 
limitations established in the APA.  It is presumed that public 
officials will discharge their functions correctly, Hladys v. 
Commonwealth, 235 Va. 145, 148, 366 S.E.2d 98, 100 (1988), and I 
am willing to accord VRS and the Medical Board that presumption. 
 
Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the Court of 
Appeals. 
 
 
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