Opinion ID: 1288560
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: 2. The Certificate of Merit is Procedural Law

Text: It has been observed that [i]n order to ascertain whether there is an infringement on this Court's rulemaking authority, we must first determine whether the statute is substantive or procedural. If we find that the statute is `substantive and that it operates in an area of legitimate legislative concern,' then we are precluded from finding it unconstitutional. State v. Arbaugh, 215 W.Va. 132, 138, 595 S.E.2d 289, 295 (2004) (Davis, J., dissenting) (quoting Caple v. Tuttle's Design-Build, Inc., 753 So.2d 49, 53 (Fla.2000)). Furthermore, it has been recognized that: Substantive law prescribes norms for societal conduct and punishments for violations thereof. It thus creates, defines, and regulates primary rights. In contrast, practice and procedure pertain to the essentially mechanical operations of the courts by which substantive law, rights, and remedies are effectuated. Arbaugh, 215 W.Va. at 139, 595 S.E.2d at 296 (Davis, J., dissenting),(quoting State v. Templeton, 148 Wash.2d 193, 213, 59 P.3d 632, 642 (2002)). Pursuant to the above authorities, the certificate of merit requirement may only be invalidated under the Separation of Power's Clause and the Rule-Making Clause if the requirement is procedural law and not substantive law. The issue of whether a medical malpractice certificate of merit requirement is procedural or substantive law was squarely addressed by the Ohio Supreme Court in State ex rel. Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers v. Sheward, 86 Ohio St.3d 451, 715 N.E.2d 1062 (1999). In Sheward, a group of organizations and individuals filed an original action before the Ohio Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of legislation that, among other things, required a certificate of merit be filed in medical malpractice cases ninety days after an answer is filed to the complaint. Before addressing the merits of the case, the Sheward opinion observed that in an earlier case, Hiatt v. S. Health Facilities, Inc., 68 Ohio St.3d 236, 626 N.E.2d 71 (1994), the Court had struck down a statute which provided that in an action upon a medical, dental, optometric, or chiropractic claim, the complaint must be accompanied by [a certificate] of merit. Sheward, 715 N.E.2d at 1087. [2] It was said in Sheward that, as a result of the decision in Hiatt, the legislature enacted the post-complaint certificate of merit requirement and denominated it as substantive law. The Sheward Court was not persuaded by the legislature's designation of the new law as substantive. The opinion stated: In Rockey v. 84 Lumber Co. (1993), 66 Ohio St.3d 221, 611 N.E.2d 789, paragraph two of the syllabus, we held: The Ohio Rules of Civil Procedure, which were promulgated by the Supreme Court pursuant to Section 5(B), Article IV of the Ohio Constitution, must control over subsequently enacted inconsistent statutes purporting to govern procedural matters..... Respondent Montgomery argues that Hiatt is not determinative of [the new law's] validity because the General Assembly now sets forth its view that the certificate of merit is substantive and it sets forth its rationale for that conclusion. In Section 5(H)(1), the General Assembly states that its intent in enacting [new law] is to respond to the holding in Hiatt by clarifying the jurisdictional nature of certificate of merit requirements and creating a substantive requirement for medical, dental, optometric, chiropractic, and malpractice claims. The notion that the General Assembly can direct our trial courts to apply a legislative rule that this court has already declared to be in conflict with the Civil Rules simply by denominating it jurisdictional or substantive is so fundamentally contrary to the principle of separation of powers that it deserves no further comment.... .... [The new statute] is no ordinary piece of legislation that happens to inadvertently cross the boundaries of legislative authority. The General Assembly has circumvented our mandates, while attempting to establish itself as the final arbiter of the validity of its own legislation. It has boldly seized the power of constitutional adjudication, appropriated the authority to establish rules of court and overrule judicial declarations of unconstitutionality, and, under the thinly veiled guise of declaring public policy, establishing jurisdiction, and enacting substantive law, forbade the courts the province of judicial review. .... We hold that [the new law] usurps judicial power in violation of the Ohio constitutional doctrine of separation of powers and, therefore, is unconstitutional. Sheward, 715 N.E.2d at 1087, and 1096-97. The principle of law to be gleaned from Sheward is that a pre-complaint or post-complaint certificate of merit requirement involves procedural law, not substantive law. I agree with the reasoning of Sheward and therefore I do not hesitate in finding that the pre-complaint certificate of merit requirement imposed by our legislature is procedural law that implicates the Separation of Powers Clause and the Rule-Making Clause. See State ex rel. Kenamond v. Warmuth, 179 W.Va. 230, 232, 366 S.E.2d 738, 740 (1988) (Procedural statutes ... are effective only as rules of court and are subject to modification, suspension or annulment by rules of procedure promulgated by this Court.).