Opinion ID: 1375718
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: motion to augment the commission's record

Text: The District argues that the Commission erred in refusing to augment the record with the 1980 Recommendation of Discharge. Idaho Code § 72-1368(g) provides in part: The record before the commission shall consist of the record of proceedings before the appeals examiner, unless it appears to the commission that the interests of justice require that the interested parties be permitted to present additional evidence. In that event, the commission may, in its sole discretion, conduct a hearing to receive additional evidence. . . . (emphasis added). This Court thus reviews the Commission's decisions regarding the submission of additional evidence for abuse of discretion. See, e.g., Harris v. Beco Corp., 110 Idaho 28, 713 P.2d 1387 (1986). We have noted previously that this section does not require the Commission to consider additional evidence: This section is not a carte blanche allowing . . . [a party] the unbridled right to present a substantially new case, absent some showing as to why the evidence had been unavailable earlier. Rogers v. Trim House, 99 Idaho 746, 750, 588 P.2d 945, 949 (1979) (quoting White v. Idaho Forest Indus., 98 Idaho 784, 785 n. 1, 572 P.2d 887, 888 n. 1 (1977)). The District in this case has not adequately explained why it was unable to present the 1980 Recommendation of Discharge at the hearing before the appeals examiner. Characterizing the discovery of the document as a pure accident, the District argues that it could not have discovered the document with the exercise of reasonable diligence because none of the District's current employees knew of the document's existence. The Commission disagreed with this assertion, noting that the District knew of the 1980 Agreement, which was entered into in response to the 1980 Recommendation of Discharge, prior to the hearing before the appeals examiner. This document listed the parties to the Agreement, some of whom could have been questioned regarding the circumstances which precipitated the Agreement. In fact, the record demonstrates that the District's counsel was aware of the Agreement and Recommendation of Discharge as early as August 3, 1993four months prior to the hearing before the appeals examiner. The transcript of the August 3 hearing conducted by the District which resulted in Folks' discharge indicates that the District's counsel specifically referred to these documents in his opening statement. From these facts, the Commission reasonably ruled that the District could have discovered the Recommendation of Discharge prior to the hearing with the exercise of minimal diligence. The Commission's finding that the District did not meet its burden of adequately explaining its failure to produce the Recommendation at the prior hearing thus does not constitute an abuse of discretion, and we affirm the Commission's ruling on the motion to augment.