Opinion ID: 1375082
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Inapplicability of Burk and Tate to Exhaustion of Administrative Procedures

Text: Plaintiff argues that an interpretation of the Act such as we have adopted today conflicts with prior decisions by this Court. Plaintiff notes the decision of this Court in Burk. We do not depart from that decision. In fact, § 1901 of the Act merely codifies that cause of action in cases of discriminatory practices based on handicap. However, nothing in Burk would prohibit the legislature from requiring that an administrative solution be attempted first, so long as the statutory procedures allow final resort to the courts in the event of the dissatisfaction of the aggrieved party with the administrative result. Plaintiff also argues that this question should be decided by the reasoning used by this Court in Tate. We disagree. In Tate we held that the statutes governing discriminatory practices based on race were not exclusive and that a common-law Burk claim could be stated. Tate, 833 P.2d at 1230. Tate was decided based on the law as it existed in 1989. At that time, a decision that discrimination was redressable solely by administrative means would have resulted in the abrogation of the common-law Burk claim. The statute provided no private cause of action, therefore, an aggrieved party could not vindicate his rights in court without having a common-law claim. We could not conclude that racial discrimination was redressable solely by Commission (OHRC) proceedings. Tate, 833 P.2d at 1229. However, we noted the differences in remedies the Act provided for racial and handicap discrimination, but withheld judgment on the consequences of those differences. Id. at 1229-30. Since the addition of § 1901 to the Act, the OHRC no longer has the last word on handicap discrimination under the administrative scheme. Under § 1901, the aggrieved party may still file his common-law claims. However, that party must first attempt to resolve the charges as the legislature intended, through the statutory procedures. Since the statute provides a private cause of action as part of the statutory scheme, the right of the aggrieved party to seek redress from the courts is protected. Therefore, the reasoning behind Tate, though sound in its application to the racial discrimination provisions of the Act, does not apply in the instant case. Both Burk and Tate dealt with the issue of whether or not a common-law tort cause of action could be stated given the facts of the case. In contrast, the instant case deals with when that cause of action may be filed. We do not decide that plaintiff may not file a Burk or Tate claim for handicap discrimination, we only decide that he must first exhaust his administrative remedies. We conclude that § 1901 provides a private cause of action, subject to the exhaustion of the statutory procedures, for those dissatisfied with the administrative remedies. When a party's right of access to the courts is protected by following the statutory scheme, exhaustion of the procedures of that scheme is a condition precedent to filing an action with the courts. [4] CERTIFIED QUESTIONS ANSWERED. ALMA WILSON, C.J., and LAVENDER, SIMMS and HARGRAVE, JJ., concur. KAUGER, V.C.J., and SUMMERS, J., concur in result. OPALA, J., concurs in part, dissents in part. WATT, J., dissents.