Opinion ID: 1702773
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: whether the circuit court erred in reversing the board of review's dismissal of burton's appeal as untimely.

Text: ¶ 13. The Appeals Referee entered his decision on November 19, 1999, and indicated that a request for review had to be filed within fourteen days and addressed to Mississippi Employment Security Commission, Board of Review, P.O. Box 1699, Jackson, MS XXXXX-XXXX. Burton was also mailed a Notice of Overpayment of Benefits dated November 29, 1999, which indicated that an appeal had to be filed within fourteen days and addressed to Mississippi Employment Security Commission, P.O. Box 23088, Jackson, MS XXXXX-XXXX The MESC received Burton's request for review dated December 2, 1999, addressed to Mississippi Employment Security Commission, Board of Review, P.O. Box 23088, Jackson, MS XXXXX-XXXX, on December 4, 1999, apparently one day late and at the wrong address. ¶ 14. The Board of Review dismissed Burton's appeal as untimely. Burton appealed to the Lauderdale County Circuit Court which reversed the Board of Review's dismissal as untimely and remanded for a decision on the merits. According to Burton, he mailed his request for review to both P.O. Box 1699 and P.O. Box 23088. However, there is no record of the MESC ever receiving or acknowledging receipt of the P.O. Box 1699 request for review. Southwood never appealed the circuit court's decision to reverse and remand Burton's case back to the Board of Review. ¶ 15. Southwood argues that the circuit court's decision to remand Burton's claim was interlocutory and thus not appealable and cites in support our decision in Wilson v. Miss. Employment Security Comm'n, 643 So.2d 538 (Miss.1994). In Wilson, the Lauderdale County Circuit Court remanded a case back to the MESC after finding the record insufficient to support the employer's discharge of its employee. Id. at 539. We dismissed the appeal on the grounds that it was interlocutory. Id. at 540. The circuit court in Wilson did not explicitly affirm or reverse the decision of the MESC. Rather, it reversed and remanded for more information. ¶ 16. In J.R. Logging v. Halford, 765 So.2d 580 (Miss.Ct.App.2000), a workers' compensation case, Presiding Judge Southwick of the Court of Appeals, in a concurring opinion, aptly explained the fine distinction to be drawn between an appeal from a final order and an interlocutory appeal in administrative agency cases. The employee, Halford, was injured and entered into a settlement with his employer. 765 So.2d at 582. Halford later attempted to reopen his claim alleging a mistake of fact, but the administrative law judge denied the petition. Id. After the commission affirmed, Halford appealed to circuit court which reversed, finding the commission's finding was clearly erroneous. Id. The Court of Appeals subsequently reversed the circuit court and affirmed the denial of Halford's petition to reopen his claim. Id. ¶ 17. Presiding Judge Southwick's separate opinion addressed the procedural aspects of the case. His analysis began with our 1991 opinion in Bickham v. Dep't of Mental Health, 592 So.2d 96 (Miss.1991), a consolidation of two workers' compensation cases in which the commission sent one case to an administrative law judge to determine whether an employee could reopen her claim and another case to an administrative law judge to hear a claim which had been reopened. He noted both cases had been appealed prior to any action being taken by the ALJ or commission and that we found both appeals to be improper interlocutory appeals because no final decision had been entered. 592 So.2d at 586. ¶ 18. Wilson was likewise analyzed, and Presiding Judge Southwick noted that we did not determine that the MESC had erred but only that the employer did not produce evidence to support the employee's discharge. 765 So.2d at 587. He further interpreted our holding in Wilson: I conclude that the reason the circuit court decision in Wilson was not final was because it neither accepted nor rejected the MESC action. Instead, it asked for more information. Ultimately the circuit court might approve what the MESC decided as to benefits. Had the Wilson circuit court instead decided that the MESC definitely erred and sent the case back for further proceedings to determine the proper benefits, I believe that would be a final judgment subject to further review at the Supreme Court. To me that is the better view of Wilson, else no reversal and remand by an appellate court (which is the status of the circuit court in reviewing those agency decisions) would be a final judgment. Id. (emphasis added). We agree with this interpretation. ¶ 19. Here, the original circuit court reverse and remand was not concerned with the merits of Burton's claim; it was reversed on a procedural issue, namely, the timeliness of an appeal and remanded for a decision on the merits. There is not, as there was in Wilson, a circuit court determination that the record was insufficient to decide whether the employer had produced enough evidence to support the discharge of its employee. See 643 So.2d at 539. The MESC's decision to bar review of Burton's appeal on timeliness grounds was indicative of the finality of the agency's decision, and the circuit court held that it was error to do so. The circuit court's reverse and remand on the issue of timeliness was therefore not interlocutory in nature, and Southwood should have appealed that decision.