Opinion ID: 2083424
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Supreme Court's Constitutional Jurisdiction

Text: Kline misconstrues the effect of section 176.1812 by arguing that the legislature cannot eliminate or reduce the jurisdiction given to this court under Minnesota's constitution. While it undoubtedly is true that the legislature could not enact laws that would reduce this court's subject matter jurisdiction, section 176.1812 does not attempt to do so. Instead, the section authorizes unions and employers, by private agreement, to create ADR systems that waive the right to resort to this court's jurisdiction. The section has no impact on and does not alter this court's jurisdiction under the constitution. Of course, the judicial branch has an inherent interest in providing a forum for the resolution of justiceable controversies, but the judiciary does not require, or even permit, parties to bring claims that are not justiceable, as where the parties have waived their right to court review. This principle was best articulated by the Maryland court as follows: The scope of a judicial proceeding may be narrowed by the agreement of the parties and thus without an act of the Legislature. In the absence of procedural rules or statute, the parties themselves may, by agreement, limit the issues that a court will consider within a given dispute. Examples of such agreements include a proceeding on stipulated facts, the pre-trial entry of a consent order defining the issues for trial, or a more formal arbitration agreement under which the parties agree to limited judicial review of the arbitration determination. Sadler v. Dimensions Healthcare Corp., 378 Md. 509, 836 A.2d 655, 675 n. 12 (2003). It also was recognized by this court in Falgren v. State Bd. of Teaching, 545 N.W.2d 901, 906 (Minn.1996). There we held that a teacher who chose to have his discharge heard before an arbitrator rather than his school board was entitled only to the narrow judicial review of the arbitrators award provided by the MUAA and had waived his right to the broader judicial review that would have been available on appeal from a decision of the school board. Id. at 905-06.