Opinion ID: 1136261
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: whether the employee appeals board, pursuant to its statutory authority, can transfer a pending action to a state court of competent jurisdiction because it lacked subject matter jurisdiction to grant the relief requested by appellants.

Text: Appellants contend that the EAB did not have the authority to provide the requested relief and therefore, the EAB's actions were correct and reasonable in removing the employees' proceedings from the Board's jurisdiction. The State Defendants counter, arguing that the lower court correctly held that the EAB, as an administrative body, lacked any statutory authority to order a transfer of a pending, state civil service employment matter to circuit court, and that the lower court properly vacated the EAB Order of Transfer and dismissed the court complaint based thereon. The statewide system of personnel administration, established by Miss. Code Ann. Sections 25-9-101 through 25-9-151, provides for a comprehensive scheme of personnel administration with regard to state service employees and sets forth a carefully integrated scheme of administrative and judicial review of the adverse employment decisions of state agencies. This system establishes a structure and practice of personnel administration to ensure the fair and efficient use of employees in state service. Miss. Code Ann. § 25-9-101 (Supp. 1990). As this Court noted in Hood v. Miss. Dep't of Wildlife Conservation, 571 So.2d 263, 267 (Miss. 1990): Employees affected by adverse decisions may appeal to the Employee Appeals Board (EAB) for de novo hearing, then to circuit court for judicial review on the record, and finally to this Court. Miss. Code Ann. §§ 25-9-131 and 25-9-132 (Supp. 1990). Review by the circuit court is limited to determinations of whether the EAB's actions are supported by substantial evidence, are arbitrary or capricious, or are in violation of some statutory or constitutional right of the employee. Miss. Code Ann. [§ 25-9-132(2)] (Supp. 1990). Appeal to the circuit court must be within thirty days of the board's decisions and a bond is required. [Miss. Code Ann. § 25-9-132(1) (Supp. 1990).] In Hood we discussed Miss. Forestry Comm'n v. Piazza, 513 So.2d 1242 (Miss. 1987), which addresses the state civil service procedure. Piazza, 513 So.2d at 1246. An employee of the Mississippi Forestry Commission sued in chancery court to enjoin his transfer to another district. Piazza, 513 So.2d at 1243. Reversing the grant of a permanent injunction, this Court held that whether the Forestry Commission could authorize an involuntary transfer was a matter for the State Personnel Board, and its alter ego, the Employee Appeals Board. Piazza, 513 So.2d at 1249. Hood, 571 So.2d at 268. Piazza would seem to preclude all of the Plaintiffs' claims arising from their treatment. The EAB was wholly competent to consider every claim the Plaintiffs assert in the present complaint, including the grounds for their Section 1983 claims. The remedial process provided such employees necessarily vests the employee's department, agency or institution, and ultimately the EAB, with full authority to hear not only the merits vel non of any charge of inefficiency or other good cause, but also any other matter of fact or law the employee may assert affecting his employment. We take Section 25-9-131(3)'s directive that the appeals procedure there provided replace any existing statutory procedure as declaring this the employee's exclusive remedy. Hood, 571 So.2d at 268. The Plaintiffs may have presented before the Department of Health and thereafter before the EAB every ground for relief they assert in the present complaint, including their federal claims. Section 1983 merely serves as a method for asserting claims of violation of constitutional rights, the act containing no substantive provisions in and of itself. Id. (citing Chapman v. Houston Welfare Rights Organization, 441 U.S. 600, 618, 99 S.Ct. 1905, 1916, 60 L.Ed.2d 508 (1979); Estate of Himelstein v. City of Fort Wayne, Indiana, 898 F.2d 573, 575 (7th Cir.1990); Trigg v. Fort Wayne Community Schools, 766 F.2d 299, 300 (7th Cir.1985)). The Hood Court continued: [t]he more relaxed administrative appellate process before EAB is quite conducive to a full airing of the employee's constitutional claims. On judicial review the circuit court is specifically charged to consider whether EAB's action abridged some ... constitutional right of the employee. Miss. Code Ann. § 25-9-132 (Supp. 1990). On final review, the employee's administrative remedies thus exhausted, he may before the Circuit Court pursue all avenues of relief Section 1983 makes available. Hood, 571 So.2d at 268 (citing Presnell v. Pell, 298 N.C. 715, 260 S.E.2d 611 (1979); Johnston v. Gaston County, 71 N.C. App. 707, 323 S.E.2d 381 (1984)). The Plaintiffs in the case sub judice were state service employees of the State Department of Health, Miss. Code Ann. § 25-9-107(b), whose employment grievances had been brought before the EAB. Several days of evidentiary hearings before the EAB on the grievances had already been held before the grievants abandoned their cause in the EAB and that body transferred the matter to the circuit court for disposition as an original suit. It is a fundamental rule that administrative agencies may exercise only those powers that are granted by statute. Miss. Public Service Comm'n v. Miss. Power & Light Co., 593 So.2d 997 (Miss. 1991); Farrish Gravel Co. v. Mississippi State Highway Comm'n, 458 So.2d 1066, 1068 (Miss. 1984). In Farrish, this Court pointed out that government agencies have only such powers that are expressly granted to them, or necessarily implied in their grant of authority. Any acts which are not so authorized are void. Id. at 1068. The Appellants have not cited in their appellate brief, and the lower court could not find, any statute which gives the EAB, as an administrative agency, the authority to transfer a pending state employment-related grievance to any court for determination. In fact, just the opposite is readily found. The statutes creating the EAB plainly indicate that the EAB's ultimate authority is limited to issuing a final decision, Miss. Code Ann. § 25-9-131(2), in which case the appellate jurisdiction, as compared to the original jurisdiction, of the circuit court may be invoked by the aggrieved employee to review the EAB decision. Miss. Code Ann. § 25-9-132. The EAB cannot, consistent with the statute, simply pass the buck and transfer a state service employment matter to the circuit court. The statute clearly contemplates that the EAB will render final decisions which can be appealed to the circuit court. This Court in Hood held that for state law purposes the statutory method of administrative appeal and judicial review provided by the state civil service statute is the exclusive remedy for grievances related to state employment and may not be bypassed by filing an original action. See also Miss. Forestry Comm'n v. Piazza, 513 So.2d 1242 (Miss. 1987) (the only rights which plaintiff could have under his employment with the state, if any, are contained within the act creating the State Personnel Board). As the State Defendants and the trial court below both recognized, to permit the EAB to transfer a state employment matter to the Circuit Court for adjudication as an original suit would constitute a bypass of the exclusive statutory method of review and remedy, a bypass that is prohibited by Hood. If such a transfer from the EAB to Circuit Court can occur simply because an imaginative state service employee demands some kind of damages relief that the EAB (or the courts) could not statutorily give, then a bypass of the EAB/judicial review procedures, which is prohibited by Hood, will become commonplace, and the EAB will be encouraged to transfer pending grievances on its docket to the courts. Post hoc forum jumping by state service employees, as between EAB and the courts, will take place, as it did in the instant case. This Court has further held that any power sought to be exercised [by an administrative agency] must be found within the four corners of the statute under which the agency proceeds. Miss. Milk Comm'n v. Winn-Dixie Louisiana, 235 So.2d 684, 688 (Miss. 1970). There is absolutely nothing within the four corners of the statute creating the EAB which gives it any authority to ship state employment matters to circuit court for adjudication. The transfer here is contrary to the plan of the EAB statutes, which envision a final decision by the EAB, and subsequent appellate jurisdiction by the circuit court if any appeal be taken. This Court's decision in Hood further confirms that where the Legislature has created a civil service scheme which provides an express statutory method of judicial review and appeal of the decisions of administrative bodies, that statutory method may not be ignored in favor of an original action in chancery court or circuit court. See also, Scott v. Lowe, 223 Miss. 312, 78 So.2d 452 (1955); Tennant v. Finane, 227 Miss. 410, 86 So.2d 453 (1956). The Appellants' contention that statutory authority for a transfer by the EAB is found in Miss. Code Ann. Section 25-9-131 is specious. That Section provides that the EAB may modify the action of the department, agency or institution but may not increase the severity of such action on the employee. This language plainly concerns what remedial action(s) the EAB may take with regard to the employing state agency. It does not provide any authority to the EAB with respect to transfer to the courts. The EAB's statutory authority and duty is rendering decisions which are final, so that the decision may be appealed to circuit court in the manner authorized by statute. Miss. Code Ann. §§ 25-9-125, 25-9-132. Accordingly, because no aspect of the statutes creating the EAB gives it authority to transfer a pending state employment matter to circuit court, and because such a transfer is contrary to Hood and the statutory method of administrative appeal and judicial review, the lower court's vacating the order of transfer and dismissing the complaint is affirmed.