Opinion ID: 1700759
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Heading: Authority of District Court.

Text: The nunc pro tunc proceeding in this criminal case was in essence a request for a declaratory ruling. Schumacher asked the district court to rule that section 321.209 did not apply to him. We have held that when a party seeks a declaratory judgment on a matter entrusted exclusively in the first instance to an administrative agency, the court must refuse to issue a ruling unless the action is indistinguishable in substance from a petition for judicial review and all of the jurisdictional prerequisites for judicial review of agency action have been met. City of Des Moines v. Des Moines Police Bargaining Unit Ass'n, 360 N.W.2d 729, 730 (Iowa 1985). Declaratory relief is not appropriate when there is a complete remedy otherwise provided by law that is intended to be exclusive. Id. at 731. We think an exclusive administrative remedy exists for the declaratory relief sought here. Section 321.209 expressly confers on the DOT the duty to revoke a driver's license when that driver has been convicted of a drug offense. Iowa Code §§ 321.209 (The department shall ... revoke the license... (emphasis added)), 4.1(30)(a) (The word `shall' imposes a duty.) (1993). The DOT's action in revoking a driver's license is agency action within the meaning of Iowa Code section 17A.2(2). Tindal v. Norman, 427 N.W.2d 871, 873 (Iowa 1988) (agency's performance of a statutory duty is agency action as defined in section 17A.2(2)). Any person who is adversely affected by agency action may seek judicial review of the agency decision. Iowa Code § 17A.19(1) (1993). Most important, the judicial review provisions of chapter 17A are exclusive. Id.; Hollinrake v. Monroe County, 433 N.W.2d 696, 699 (Iowa 1988) (exclusivity of judicial review provision applies to agency's action in carrying out its statutory duty). Clearly, Schumacher had an adequate administrative remedy to contest the DOT's revocation of his driver's license. Under chapter 17A, he could seek judicial review of the DOT's decision. Because this remedy is exclusive, the district court had no authority to issue a declaratory ruling unless Schumacher's application for nunc pro tunc order met the procedural prerequisites for judicial review under Iowa Code section 17A.19. We conclude that Schumacher's application did not meet the statutory prerequisites for judicial review. The primary deficiency in the application is that it did not name the DOT as the respondent as required by Iowa Code section 17A.19(4) (1993) (The petition for review shall name the agency as respondent....). Although we have found substantial compliance with this requirement where the agency was simply misnamed, Frost v. S.S. Kresge Co., 299 N.W.2d 646, 648 (Iowa 1980), and where a related department and the executive officer of the agency were named rather than the agency, Buchholtz v. Iowa Department of Public Instruction, 315 N.W.2d 789, 792-93 (Iowa 1982), we cannot find substantial compliance here. Only the parties to the criminal case were named in the caption of Schumacher's application. No employee of the DOT or a related entity was named as a respondent so as to alert the DOT that the application sought relief from agency action. To find substantial compliance here would effectively nullify the requirement that the agency be named as a respondent. Therefore, we hold that Schumacher did not substantially comply with section 17A.19(4). [1] Without the authority obtained in judicial review proceedings, the district court here was without power to consider Schumacher's application for nunc pro tunc order. This conclusion is similar to our holding in Iowa Department of Transportation v. Iowa District Court for Buchanan County, 504 N.W.2d 897 (Iowa 1993). In that case, the district court in a criminal proceeding directed the DOT to remove from the defendant's driving record a 1982 conviction for operating while intoxicated. Iowa Dist. Ct. for Buchanan County, 504 N.W.2d at 897. The county attorney did not object to the court's order, entered long after the criminal conviction became final. Id. The DOT brought a certiorari action challenging the district court's jurisdiction to enter the order. Id. at 897-98. We concluded that the district court exceeded its authority in ordering the DOT to remove the defendant's conviction from his driving record because there was no statute that gave the district court in a criminal case the power to do so. Id. at 898. The same reasoning applies here. There is no statute that gives the district court in a criminal proceeding the authority to decide whether a license revocation under chapter 321 is appropriate. The district court here acted illegally in doing so. Mandile v. State, 547 So.2d 1062, 1062 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1989) (trial court lacked authority in criminal case to suspend defendant's driver's license under mandatory revocation statute similar to section 321.209; appellate court concluded that only the department of highway safety and motor vehicles has that power); see Commonwealth v. Bassion, 568 A.2d 1316, 1320 (Pa.Super.Ct.1990) (court in criminal case has no authority to enter an order dealing with license suspension proceedings).