Opinion ID: 2618323
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the very nature of the trustees' demand lies dehors the district court's adjudicative cognizance

Text: A demand for payment from the court found, which rests solely on provisions of a statute regulating the court fund, [8] the county law library funds or some other aspect of court-managed funds [9] and thus lacks independent underpinning in the private law of obligations, is a public-law claim to be pressed not by district court litigation but rather directly against the court fund's governing board. [10] The demand is incapable of conversion into a cause of action for the district court's process of ordinary judicature. A public-law-based court fund claim moves along a procedural track vastly different from an action on a claim governed by the Pleading Code, 12 O.S.Supp. 1984 § 2001 et seq., and by the rules of practice applicable to the ordinary process of adjudication. [11] A claim like that the Trustees attempted to press below must first be presented to the court fund board, [12] and if denied, the claimant may then demand a post-rejection hearing before that board. [13] Mandamus in the Supreme Court constitutes the only available corrective relief from the board's denial of a claim. [14] The Trustees did not follow this procedure. They brought a suit that does not lie  an action for declaratory judgment on a public-law-based court-fund claim rejected by the court clerk. Their claim for money transfer cannot be translated into a cause of action for declaratory judgment. According to the Trustees' brief, their demand is not against the court fund or its board but solely against the clerk and the administrative director of the courts. We need not pause to decide here whether the clerk could have made the payout sought below without a prior board approval. Suffice it to say that all court fund demands refused by the court clerk must be pressed before the board. If court-fund assets are to be paid out, a claim deemed assertable against a recalcitrant or delinquent clerk must be presented to the board. Statutes that prescribe the clerk's duties vis-a-vis the court fund [15] are to be construed with other cognate provisions which plainly vest in the board the power to govern and manage transactions and assets and hence invest it with the exclusive authority over any claim rejected by the clerk that is to be satisfied by resort to the fund. [16] The clerk was sued here in his official capacity. The Trustees' demand against him is not rested on a private-law plea but rather consists of a public-law claim which must be satisfied, if at all, by a board-ordered payout. Even if we were to assume for argument's sake that the clerk does have some statutory authority to pay without the board's prior affirmative approval some minor routine statutorily-authorized items of expense, this claim, previously refused by the court clerk based on a chief justice's directive, nonetheless lies clearly dehors the purview of the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act and the district court's cognizance.