Title: Parodi v. Wyoming Dept. of Transp.

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

Parodi v. Wyoming Dept. of Transp.1997 WY 126947 P.2d 1294Case Number: 96-105Decided: 11/07/1997Supreme Court of Wyoming

EDWARD LEE PARODI, 

Appellant Petitioner), 

 

v. 

 

WYOMING DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, 

Appellee (Respondent).

 

Appeal 
from the District Court of Hot Springs County 

The 
Honorable Gary P. Hartman

 

 

 

Representing 
Appellant: 

Dan O. 
Caldwell III, Thermopolis.

 Representing 
Appellee: 

William U. 
Hill, Attorney General; Michael L. Hubbard, Deputy Attorney General; and 
Lawrence A. Bobbitt, III, Senior Assistant Attorney General, 
Cheyenne.

 

Before TAYLOR, C.J., and 
THOMAS, MACY, GOLDEN and LEHMAN, JJ. 

TAYLOR, Chief 
Justice. 

[¶1]      For Wyoming 
drivers whose licenses have been suspended, Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-105(f) (1994) 
empowers the Wyoming Department of Transportation to grant limited driving 
privileges once in any five year period. Appellant urges us to read Wyo. Stat. § 
31-7-105(e) as enabling a hearing examiner to ignore that five year restriction 
upon a showing of "good cause." Hearing examiners, however, cannot order the 
Wyoming Department of Transportation to violate the law. Therefore, we affirm 
the hearing examiner's denial of appellant's request for a second grant of 
limited driving privileges within five years.

 

I. 
ISSUE

 

[¶2]      Appellant, Edward 
Lee Parodi (Parodi), identifies a single issue:

Whether or not the limitations upon the issuance of 
limited driving privileges in the form of a probationary driver's license as set 
forth in W.S. § 31-7-105(f) apply to Hearing Examiners with the Office of 
Administrative Hearings who are acting under W.S. § 
31-7-105(e).

 

[¶3]      Appellee, the 
Wyoming Department of Transportation (the Department), articulates essentially 
the same question:

May a Hearing Examiner modify the suspension of a 
driver's license by granting a driver limited driving privileges when the driver 
has received limited driving privileges in a five (5) year 
period?

 

II. 
FACTS

 

[¶4]      Parodi was 
granted limited driving privileges by the Department when his driver's license 
was suspended in 1993. On May 10, 1995, Parodi was arrested for driving under 
the influence of alcohol. Because his blood alcohol content proved to be over 
.10%, the Department issued notice of a proposed ninety-day suspension of 
Parodi's license to drive pursuant to Wyo. Stat. § 31-6-102 
(1994).

 

[¶5]      Parodi did not 
contest his prior receipt of limited driving privileges, nor did he dispute the 
more immediate suspension of his license for driving under the influence of 
alcohol. He did, however, request and receive a contested case hearing before a 
hearing examiner from the Office of Administrative Hearings to argue that Wyo. 
Stat. § 31-7-105(e) empowers a hearing examiner to modify a suspension more than 
once within a five year period upon a showing of "good 
cause."

 

[¶6]      Noting, 
anecdotally, that he and other hearing examiners have consistently held that the 
limitations set forth in Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-105(f) do restrict a hearing examiner's 
authority to modify suspension of a driver's license pursuant to Wyo. Stat. § 
31-7-105(e), the hearing examiner upheld the Department's refusal to grant 
Parodi a second modified suspension within five years. The district court 
affirmed the decision and this appeal timely followed.

 

III. 
STANDARD OF REVIEW

 

[¶7]      Absent 
evidentiary dispute, the standard of review for contested case hearings is 
simply stated as whether an agency's conclusions are in accordance with the law. 
Amoco Production Co. v. Wyoming State Bd. 
of Equalization, 797 P.2d 552, 554 (Wyo. 1990) (citing Employment Sec. Com'n of Wyoming v. 
Western Gas Processors, Ltd., 786 P.2d 866, 871 (Wyo. 
1990)).

 

[¶8]      This court 
interprets statutes by inquiring into the ordinary and obvious meaning of the 
words employed by the legislature according to the manner in which those words 
are arranged. Sheridan Commercial Park, 
Inc. v. Briggs, 848 P.2d 811, 815 (Wyo. 1993). Statutes amenable to 
conflicting interpretations require resort to general principles of statutory 
construction in order to give effect to legislative intent. Moncrief v. Wyoming State Bd. of 
Equalization, 856 P.2d 440, 444 (Wyo. 1993). Whether the task be 
interpretation or construction, it remains a "cardinal rule" that statutes be read in pari materia so that no part 
will be rendered inoperative or superfluous. Matter of ALJ, 836 P.2d 307, 310 (Wyo. 
1992); Schulthess v. Carollo, 832 P.2d 552, 557 (Wyo. 1992).

 

[¶9]      Finally, an 
administrative agency has and may properly exercise only those powers granted by 
the legislature. Preferred Energy 
Properties v. Wyoming State Bd. of Equalization, 890 P.2d 1110, 1113 (Wyo. 
1995).

 

"Stated in another manner, an administrative body has 
only the power and authority granted by the constitution or statutes creating 
the same * * *. Such statutes must be strictly construed or `any reasonable 
doubt of existence of any power must be resolved against the exercise thereof' * 
* *."

Hupp v. Employment Sec. Com'n of 
Wyoming, 715 P.2d 223, 225 (Wyo. 
1986) (quoting Tri-County Elec. Ass'n, 
Inc. v. City of Gillette, 525 P.2d 3, 8-9 (Wyo. 
1974)).

 

IV. 
DISCUSSION

 

[¶10]   Parodi's position is that the last 
sentence of Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-105(e) empowers a hearing examiner to order 
modification of driver's license suspensions more than once in any five year 
period. Examination of that sentence would, at first blush, appear to support 
Parodi's case:

 

Upon hearing, the hearing examiner shall either 
rescind or uphold the action or upon a showing of good cause, may continue or 
modify a suspension of the license.

 

Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-105(e). 
Taken out of context, the language in question seems to suggest that a hearing 
examiner may continue or modify suspension of a driver's license unfettered by 
any restrictions, save the demonstration of some unspecified variety of "good 
cause."

 

[¶11]   The difficulty with Parodi's 
argument, of course, is that the language in question must be taken in the 
context of the surrounding Driver's License Act (Wyo. Stat. §§ 31-7-101 through 
31-7-313 (1994)), lest the hearing examiner be left with no law whatsoever to 
guide the decision-making process. It is the Department, rather than the hearing 
examiner, which administers the Driver's License Act, pursuant to Wyo. Stat. § 
31-7-103, and the legislature has imposed clear limits on that 
administration:

 

The [Department's] discretion to continue or modify 
any order of suspension to allow driving privileges is limited as 
follows:

(i) It shall be extended only in cases where failure 
to do so would cause an undue hardship;

(ii) It shall be extended only once to any person in 
a five (5) year period[.]

Wyo. Stat. § 
31-7-105(f).

 

[¶12]   Resolution of the apparent conflict 
between Wyo. Stat. §§ 31-7-105(e) and 31-7-105(f) depends not so much upon rules 
of statutory construction as it does upon an understanding of the respective 
roles played by the hearing examiner and the Department. The hearing examiner 
occupies a quasi judicial role pursuant to Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-105(b). The 
Department, on the other hand, is a party to the proceedings as defined by 
Wyo. Stat. § 16-3-101(b)(vi) (Rpl. 1997), the other party being Parodi. The 
appellation is crucial because the purpose of a contested case hearing is "a 
determination of all factual and legal issues between the parties." JM v. Department of Family Services, 922 P.2d 219, 224 (Wyo. 1996) (emphasis added).

 

[¶13]   Just as judicial review confers no 
new or enhanced jurisdiction upon the courts, so the mere request for a 
contested case hearing cannot empower the hearing examiner to order done what 
the Department cannot do, ab initio. 
See Tri-County Elec. Ass'n, Inc., 525 P.2d  at 9. The hearing examiner determines, through the contested case hearing, 
whether or not the Department has exercised its powers in a lawful manner. 
Absent factual disputes, the hearing examiner determines whether the Department 
has acted within its lawful authority. See Wyo. Stat. § 16-3-101(b)(ii) and Amoco Production Co., 797 P.2d  at 554. 
By the simplest of logic, what is beyond the lawful authority of the Department 
to accomplish is, a fortiori, equally 
beyond the authority of the hearing examiner to order the Department to 
accomplish.

 

[¶14]   Parodi's reading of Wyo. Stat. § 
31-7-105(e) would impermissibly nullify the clear limits imposed upon 
modification of license suspensions by Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-105(f), rendering that 
subsection inoperative and superfluous. However, if Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-105(f) is 
read to limit the hearing examiner's discretion as well as the Department's, the 
two subsections may be given the simultaneous force and effect demanded by our 
rules of statutory construction. Furthermore, the potential for wildly disparate 
interpretations of "good cause" is avoided by reference to the limitations 
articulated in Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-105(f).

 

V. 
CONCLUSION

 

[¶15]   The limitations imposed on the 
Department by Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-105(f) circumscribe with equal force and effect 
the authority of the hearing examiner in contested case hearings brought 
pursuant to Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-105(b). To hold otherwise would be to eviscerate 
Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-105(f) and contravene our rule that doubts as to 
administrative authority will be construed against the existence of such 
authority.

 

[¶16]   The decision of the hearing 
examiner is affirmed.