Opinion ID: 1345017
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: This court has jurisdiction to review final agency action resulting from formal adjudicative proceedings. Utah Code Ann. § 63-46b-16(1). The Commission argues that this court lacks jurisdiction to review the attorney fees order because it does not represent a final agency action. We conclude that the record established that the order was final and that all parties viewed it as such until review. The Commission divided the questions presented by this court's remand in Stewart, 885 P.2d 759, into two parts: one addressing attorney fees, the other addressing the appropriate rate of return and customer reimbursement. The Commission issued the attorney fees order first and the refund order second. The refund order does not change any aspect of the attorney fees order. The Utah Administrative Procedures Act does not specifically define final agency action. However, it does say that an agency will contemplate reconsideration of an order only if the order would otherwise constitute final agency action. Utah Code Ann. § 63-46b-13. We can thus assume the Commission considered the attorney fees order to be a final agency action by virtue of its failure to indicate that the action was not final at the time of the rehearing request. The Commission merely denied the request for rehearing by nonaction instead of notifying petitioners that they would have to apply for rehearing at a later date. Moreover, the reconsideration of the refund order undertaken thereafter does not address the attorney fees order except to acknowledge it as final and appealable. The refund order specifically discusses what will happen if either party appeals the attorney fees order. [1] It never suggests that it supersedes or somehow subsumes the attorney fees order; it purports to modify only the earlier order and stipulation regarding the refund. Thus quite clearly, at the time of appeal, all parties understood the order on attorney fees to constitute an appealable final agency action. We see no reason to regard it differently. Because of the nature of agency proceedings, final actions often take place seriatim, disposing completely of discrete issues in one order while leaving other issues for later orders. Such orders will be final as to any issue fully decided by that order and appealable any time from the date of that order to the last day to appeal the last final agency action in the case. For assistance in defining final agency action more explicitly, we look to other state and federal laws which employ the term. The U.S. Supreme Court has held, with regard to the Administrative Orders Review Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2342 (1988): [T]he relevant considerations in determining finality are whether the process of administrative decisionmaking has reached a stage where judicial review will not disrupt the orderly process of adjudication and whether rights or obligations have been determined or legal consequences will flow from the agency action. Port of Boston Marine Terminal Ass'n v. Rederiaktiebolaget Transatlantic, 400 U.S. 62, 71, 91 S.Ct. 203, 209, 27 L.Ed.2d 203 (1970); see also Franklin v. Massachusetts, 505 U.S. 788, 797, 112 S.Ct. 2767, 2773-74, 120 L.Ed.2d 636 (1992) (interpreting Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 704 (1988)). Similarly, the Model State Administrative Procedure Act defines final agency action negatively as the whole or a part of any action which is not preliminary, preparatory, procedural, or intermediate with regard to subsequent agency action of that agency or another agency. 1981 Model State Admin. P. Act § 5-102(b)(2). The attorney fees order in this case meets both of these definitions. When the Commission failed to grant a rehearing on the order, it reached the end of its decision-making process on this issue. Hence judicial review at this point will not interfere with the Commission's proceedings. Moreover, the language of the order makes clear that the Commission determined obligations of the parties with which the parties must immediately comply. In addition, this order clearly falls under the Model Act's definition of final because it is not even arguably preliminary, preparatory, procedural, or intermediate. This ruling is consistent with prior Utah cases. The Utah cases on finality found no final order in the following circumstances: (1) a remand for further proceedings, Sloan v. Board of Review, 781 P.2d 463, 464 (Utah Ct.App.1989); (2) an order converting informal proceedings into formal ones, Merit Elec. & Instrumentation v. Department of Commerce, 902 P.2d 151, 153 (Utah Ct.App. 1995); and (3) a denial of a motion to dismiss, Barney v. Division of Occupational & Professional Licensing, 828 P.2d 542, 544 (Utah Ct.App.1992). These cases do not involve actions in the nature of a seriatim final order; they all involve preliminary, preparatory, procedural, or intermediate decisions. Thus our holding today merely clarifies the definition of final agency action rather than changing it. We emphasize, however, that this rule applies only to administrative determinations. It does not in any way affect the rules of appealability governing cases from the district court and the court of appeals.