Opinion ID: 1975227
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Board's misreading of Hessey I

Text: This case was also needlessly complicated by the Board's premature preparation of the summary statement, short title, and legislative form of the proposed initiative before all challenges to that initiative had been finally resolved. The Board erroneously read this court's opinion in Hessey I as holding conclusively that the proposed initiative was a proper subject under D.C.Code § 1-1320(b); as a result, it went on to formulate the summary statement, short title, and legislative form of the initiative in accordance with D.C.Code § 1-1320(c). [12] This interpretation of Hessey I simply ignored the fact that there were five more substantive challenges to the initiative which had not yet been adjudicated by the Board or by any court. Further court proceedings were surely foreseeable after our decision in Hessey I, and the Board's attempt to move the process along to the next step was unwarranted. In Hessey I we reversed the Superior Court's determination that the initiative was not a proper subject on the two grounds asserted. That reversal, however, did not terminate the case. After an appellate reversal of its ruling, a trial court may take any affirmative action so long as that action is not inconsistent with the appellate decision. We made this clear more than forty years ago in Pyramid National Van Lines, Inc. v. Goetze, 66 A.2d 693 (D.C. 1949): Where a judgment previously entered for a defendant is reversed without further order, the mandate to that effect does not preclude any other affirmative action unless specifically directed by the appellate court.... [T]he general rule is that the lower court is free to make any order or direction in further progress of the case not inconsistent with the appellate decision as to any question not presented or decided by such decision. Id. at 694 (citation omitted); see also Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Hill, 193 U.S. 551, 553-554, 24 S.Ct. 538, 539-40, 48 L.Ed. 788 (1904) (the rule is that a judgment of reversal is not necessarily an adjudication by the appellate court of any other than the questions in terms discussed and decided); 5B C.J.S. Appeal & Error § 1965 (1958). When a trial court judgment is reversed on appeal, such judgment is ... set aside and no longer remains in existence. The parties are then restored to the position they held before the judgment was pronounced and must take their places in the trial court at the point where the error occurred, and proceed to a decision. Doughty v. State Department of Public Welfare, 233 Ind. 475, 476, 121 N.E.2d 645, 646 (1954) (citation omitted). The trial court correctly relied on Pyramid Van Lines and Doughty in concluding that it had jurisdiction to reopen the case after the reversal in Hessey I and rejecting Mr. Hessey's argument to the contrary. It was the Board, however, that threw the major monkey wrench into the works by reading our decision in Hessey I far too broadly. Contrary to the Board's view, in Hessey I we did not rule on any of the opponents' five remaining challenges to the initiative, nor did we hold that the Taxpayers' Act was a proper subject of initiative under section 1-1320(b). The effect of our decision in Hessey I, under Pyramid Van Lines and other precedents, was simply to return the proposed initiative to the trial court with implicit directions not to reject it on the two grounds on which it had relied earlier. The Board, however, jumped to the wrong conclusion and prematurely prepared the summary statement, short title, and legislative form, instead of waiting for the court to rule on the other five challenges. Because it did not wait, the opponents of the initiative were forced to file a second action ( Price v. Board of Elections ) contesting the summary statement, short title, and legislative form while simultaneously challenging the substance of the proposed initiative. D.C.Code § 1-1320 plainly contemplates sequential, not simultaneous consideration of these matters; the question whether a measure is a proper subject of initiative should be answered in its entirety before the summary statement, short title, and legislative form are even prepared. Had the Board realized this, it surely would have addressed all seven challenges to the proposed initiative when they were first presented, and the trial court and this court presumably would have adjudicated all the challenges to the Taxpayers' Act when this case first came along two years ago. Our decision in Hessey I would thus have been the final word on whether the proposed measure was a proper subject. The Board's failure to consider all seven challenges in the beginning led to its later misstep after the reversal in Hessey I; in short, one mistake led to another. We hope that both can be avoided in future cases.