Opinion ID: 1366072
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Dissent's Theory

Text: Normally, demonstrating that petitioner's contentions are not well taken would end the case. Here, however, there is an additional player. The dissent has formulated a new theory, never really advanced by petitioners  and certainly never advanced to the Board as a basis of a claim to entitlement to a more formal hearing. We shall now address that theory. The essence of the dissent's argument is that, because someone (in this instance, the publisher) could be entitled to a contested case hearing in this case, petitioners are entitled to one. The dissent reaches this conclusion entirely on the strength of one of the definitions of party in ORS 183.310(6): `Party' means: (a) Each person or agency entitled as of right to a hearing before the agency   . This argument confuses two different concepts. The first misunderstanding concerns what has occurred before the agency to date. So far, all that has occurred is that a textbook has been offered for approval, been approved by the Commission and, after an opportunity was afforded for public comment, approved by the Board. No one, not even the publisher, has had a contested case hearing. It is true that the publisher's constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press [12] and the free expression of opinion [13] are among the individual legal rights, duties or privileges that cannot be finally determined without contested case procedures. But there is no occasion for any such hearing as yet, and may never be. Even if there were an occasion for a hearing, the hearing would not be automatic. The Board would be entitled to announce a tentative decision to deny approval of the textbook, subject to the publisher then asking for a hearing if it felt the reasons for denial were not legally sound. This case would then (but only then) become a proceeding involving the refusal to    issue a license where the licensee or applicant for a license demands such hearing. ORS 183.310(2)(a)(C). And, even with the advent of such a contested case hearing, petitioners' participation would not be automatic. This brings us to the second misunderstanding. The definition of party in ORS 183.310(6)(a) relied upon by the dissent is just that  a definition. It does not, standing alone, define or confer a right on anyone. The person    entitled as of right to a hearing referred to in that definition must depend on some other law to define both the right and the hearing. There can be many kinds of hearings, with a contested case being just one kind. Thus, unless the other law that identifies the person also declares that the person is entitled to a contested case hearing (as such a hearing is elsewhere defined in the APA), the definition of party relied on by the dissent is not relevant. Moreover, as already demonstrated in this opinion (and as the dissent appears to recognize), there is no other law that meets these criteria. The definition of contested case in ORS 183.310(2)(a)(A)  the only subsection of that definition that even uses the word party, demonstrates this point. We repeat the subsection here for convenience: (2)(a) `Contested case' means a proceeding before an agency: (A) In which the individual legal rights, duties or privileges of specific parties are required by statute or Constitution to be determined only after an agency hearing at which such specific parties are entitled to appear and be heard[.] (Emphasis supplied.) The use of such before the second reference to specific parties makes it clear that the second use of the phrase specific parties is not intended to expand the scope of that phrase from its first use in the definition. To be entitled to be a party to a contested case, a person's individual legal rights, duties or privileges must be at issue. As already demonstrated, that cannot be said of petitioners. The dissent attempts to bootstrap its way around the foregoing by rationalizing that the agency's grant to petitioners (and to anyone else in Oregon or elsewhere, without any criteria for narrowing the potential field) of the right to say something  the right to be heard, in a very broad and general sense  somehow transformed petitioners (and, as noted, anyone else of any description who also wanted to put in two cents worth, whatever its pertinence or value) into parties. Parties to the hearing envisioned by the Board's rule, perhaps. But no law makes that hearing a contested case. And, without a law making it a contested case, petitioners are not helped. The other relevant law also demonstrates the fallacy of the dissent's theory. The legislature has declared a specific public policy dealing with the participation in contested cases by entities other than those automatically entitled to a hearing. That policy is found in another subsection of ORS 183.310(6): (6) `Party' means:    (c) Any person requesting to participate before the agency as a party or in a limited party status which the agency determines either has an interest in the outcome of the agency's proceeding or represents a public interest in such result.    (Emphasis supplied.) The dissent ignores this subsection of the statute (and the public policy it embodies). That policy may be summarized this way: Even where there is already going to be a contested case hearing (and that is not true here), those not entitled by statute or Constitution to the hearing but who nonetheless wish to participate may be allowed to do so if the agency determines they have an interest in the outcome or they represent a public interest in such result. This screening process is designed to make such hearings manageable, where they otherwise are going to occur. The dissent, however, would allow these petitioners a hearing when there otherwise would not be one and without any advance examination to determine if they are truly interested participants, or merely gadflies. Indeed, given the dissent's approach, the true gadflies will be hoping that no contested case is scheduled; if it were, they would doubtless be denied party or limited party status. As long as it is not, they can compel a fullscale hearing entirely on their own initiative. The dissent in reality is attempting to create a fifth category of contested case under the definition in ORS 183.310(2)(a). That, however, is something only the legislature can do. Petitioners have no more right to a contested case hearing under this fictitious category than they have under the categories they have relied on themselves. The decision of the Board was not an order in a contested case.