Opinion ID: 885758
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Waivable Private Rights

Text: ¶ 22 In Rothwell, this Court cited five cases to illustrate laws considered to be for a private benefit and, thus, waivable. Two of these cases deal with waiver of notice requirements, two with unemployment compensation benefits and the last with waiver of the protections of a statute of limitations. ¶ 23 In H. Earl Clack Co. v. Staunton (1937), 105 Mont. 375, 72 P.2d 1022, we held that a statutory notice requirement enacted for the benefit of subcontractors could be waived. In another notice case, we held that waiver of a statutory notice requirement was proper where a taxpayer had the opportunity to appear and oppose a tax increase. Anaconda Copper Mining Co. v. Ravalli County (1919), 56 Mont. 530, 186 P. 332. ¶ 24 In H. Earl Clack Co., a contractor attempted to avoid a contract on that grounds that it contained a waiver of a statutory notice provision designed to protect subcontractors. In determining that the notice provision could be waived, the Court seemed to rely on the fact that the contract actually provided subcontractors with the protections that the statutory notice provision was intended to provide. H. Earl Clack Co., 105 Mont. at 383, 72 P.2d at 1025. In Anaconda Copper Mining, the relevant statute provided that taxpayers must receive notice prior to a reassessment. The taxpayer claimed that since it had not received proper notice the assessment was void. The Court held that the purpose of the notice requirement was to ensure that the taxpayer had the opportunity to be heard prior to the reassessment. Since the taxpayer in this case actually appeared and argued its case before the Board of Assessment, the Court determined that the notice requirement could be and was waived. Anaconda Copper Mining Co., 56 Mont. at 534-35, 186 P. at 334. These cases suggest that, where the statutory policy is maintained, despite the waiver, the Court has tended to find a waivable right. They also indicate that, for the purposes of applying the waiver rule of § 1-3-204, MCA, the term private benefit is not synonymous with individual benefit. Subcontractors and taxpayers are clearly large classes. ¶ 25 In Matter of Gaither (1990), 244 Mont. 383, 797 P.2d 208, this Court determined that a widow had the right to waive or abandon her right to receive her deceased husband's workers' compensation benefits because the right to receive those benefits was personal to her. Likewise, in Shea v. North-Butte Min. Co. (1919), 55 Mont. 522, 179 P. 499, we held that an employee's election not to be bound by the Workers' Compensation Act did not constitute a waiver in violation of public policy because the law in existence at that time allowed employees to elect not to be bound by the Act, thereby preserving their right to prosecute an action for damages against an employer for injuries suffered during the course of employment. Finally, in Parchen v. Chessman (1914), 49 Mont. 326, 142 P. 631, this Court determined that contractual agreements lengthening or shortening the time for bringing suit are not against public policy even if such an agreement might foreclose a right of action available under the statutory limitation period. While it is difficult to glean a common rationale from these cases, they do indicate that this Court has interpreted § 1-3-204, MCA, to permit waiver of statutory rights created to serve broad public purposes and to benefit large classes of citizens. ¶ 26 The dissent argues that, because the good time allowance statute was enacted for a public purpose and protected more than just Campbell, waiver of the opportunity to earn good time credits violates public policy. As should be clear from our discussion above, however, the existence of a public purpose and multiple beneficiaries do not seem to be factors which distinguish nonwaivable public rights from waivable private ones. Nor can we conclude that the good time allowance statute was motivated by any of the public reasons that seemed to underlie our decisions in the employment or due care cases cited above. Those cases turned on the need to correct an inequality between one class of individuals and another that the statute was designed to protect (e.g. employers/employees). They employed the nonwaiver rule as a means of ensuring that the imbalance the statute was designed to correct would not be defeated by waiver. ¶ 27 This logic does not apply to good time. The good time statute was enacted to ease prison crowding and to provide prisoners with an incentive for good behavior. It was not enacted to protect inmates from prison administrators or to somehow put these groups on a more equal footing. Furthermore, allowing an inmate to waive his interest in the opportunity to earn good time credits does not defeat any protectionist purpose of the good time allowance statute. That is especially true where, as here, an inmate has chosen to relinquish the benefits of one legislatively-created incentive program for another. ¶ 28 Nor is it a general rule that prisoners may not waive their rights. This Court and the United States Supreme Court have repeatedly upheld waiver of even constitutional rights under appropriate circumstances. State v. Okland (1997), 283 Mont. 10, 941 P.2d 431 (right to counsel); State v. Hill, 2000 MT 308, 302 Mont. 415, 14 P.3d 1237 (Fifth Amendment rights); Barker v. Wingo (1972), 407 U.S. 514, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (speedy trial). ¶ 29 We note the case of Ostafin v. North Dakota (N.D.1997), 564 N.W.2d 616, in which the Supreme Court of North Dakota held that waiver, in a plea agreement, of the right to earn good time violates public policy. Although the dissent cites this case with approval, we find this authority unpersuasive. ¶ 30 Ostafin dealt with waiver of the right to good time as part of a plea agreement. The resulting sentence included the condition that the Defendant's sentence shall not be reduced for `good conduct' under [North Dakota's good time allowance statute]. Ostafin, 564 N.W.2d at 617, n. 1. Citing one of its earlier decisions, the court stated that: [T]he deduction of good time credits from a sentence is a matter not within the discretion of the courts, but within the discretion of the penitentiary administration to encourage good conduct of prisoners. The legal maxim, a law established for a public reason cannot be contravened by a private agreement, supports our decision that a defendant cannot waive a right the legislature has given to prison administration to utilize for the purpose of inducing good behavior in prison. Ostafin, 564 N.W.2d at 617. ¶ 31 This reasoning is inapplicable to Campbell's case. First, the inmate in Ostafin was attempting to waive what the court said did not belong to him. In contrast, the right at issue here belongs to Campbell, not prison administrators. It is Campbell's own liberty interest in good time credits that is the subject of his putative waiver. To the extent that good time is also, as the dissent suggests, a right the legislature has created for the benefit of prison administrators, the reasoning of Ostafin is still inapplicable. Any administrative benefit was waived by the Department itself when it adopted Boot Camp rules which preclude good time. ¶ 32 Second, the court's decision in Ostafin was based on its conclusion that the sentencing court invaded the authority of prison administrators when it included good time ineligibility as part of a prison sentence. In Campbell's case, it was the Department, statutorily empowered with the authority to make rules for the establishment and administration of the Boot Camp program, that determined Campbell was ineligible for good time credits while in Boot Camp. The judicial invasion of administrative authority upon which the Ostafin court relied is completely absent in Campbell's case. ¶ 33 For the foregoing reasons, we find no grounds to conclude that Campbell could not voluntarily waive his interest in good time credits.