Opinion ID: 1316453
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Statutorily-Required Test Cases

Text: This is the second occasion within a year that the Legislature has included within a piece of legislation a statutory directive that a test case lawsuit should be brought to address constitutional and other legal issues arising out of the legislation's provisions. The first occasion was in House Bill 4702 (HB 4702), also enacted in 1998. HB 4702 directed the West Virginia Investment Management Board to invest pension funds in the construction of state regional jails and correctional institutions. See generally, State ex rel. W.Va. Regional Jail & Correctional Facility Authority v. W.Va. Investment Management Board, 203 W.Va. 413, 508 S.E.2d 130 (1998). As a part of HB 4702, new W.Va.Code, 12-6-21(f) [1998] directed that there be, as a condition precedent to any such investment of pension funds, an action initiated in the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals regarding the [investment] ... and to otherwise determine the constitutionality of the provisions of Enrolled House Bill 4702.... Pursuant to this statutory directive, a writ of mandamus was brought by the Regional Jail Authority against the Investment Management Board, asking this Court to require that the pension funds be invested as required by HB 4702. Regional Jail, supra. We granted the writ and approved of the loan, but we did not discuss the suit's origin in a statutory directive. In the instant case, pursuant to a similar statutory directive, the PERS Board has refused to transfer the pre-July 1, 1998 deputy pension funds, in order to create a test case. The Investment Management Board had similarly refused to act in the Regional Jail case. Both the provisions of W.Va.Code, 12-6-21(F) [1998] that gave rise to the Regional Jail opinion, and the provisions of W.Va. Code, 7-14D-8(d) [1998] that gave rise to the instant case, are legislative directives that this Court's opinion as to the constitutional or other legal acceptability of legislation be obtained by means of a test case. In both cases, the pleadings ostensibly pit a petitioner with an interest in the funds and statute in question against a respondent that will not comply with the mandate of the law. And in both cases, the respondent's unwillingness to comply with the law comes not out of conviction, but as the result of a statutory directive. In both cases, the nominally adverse postures of the parties are a legal fiction used to create a case and a ruling by this Court on the legal acceptability of a piece of legislationin other words, a classic advisory opinion. Generally and consistently, this Court has held that we are not a body that gives advisory legal opinions. Courts are not constituted for the purpose of making advisory decrees or resolving academic disputes. Syllabus Point 2, in part, Harshbarger v. Gainer, 184 W.Va. 656, 403 S.E.2d 399 (1991). Nevertheless, this general principle of not issuing advisory opinions has important exceptions, as we recognized in State ex rel. Alsop v. McCartney, 159 W.Va. 829, 834-35, 228 S.E.2d 278, 281 (1976): Experience dictates that there are occasions on which courts must undertake something in the nature of advisory opinions. We have done this in cases involving elections because of the expense attendant upon campaigns and the deleterious effect on representative government which uncertainty in elections causes. State ex rel. Maloney v. McCartney , [159] W.Va. [513], 223 S.E.2d 607 (1976). Similarly we have rendered essentially advisory opinions when it was necessary to permit bond counsel to authorize the marketing of bonds for public authorities. State ex rel. City of Charleston v. Coghill, 156 W.Va. 877, 207 S.E.2d 113 (1973). The need for certainty before the investment of enormous amounts of human effort and before the investment of vast sums of money has led us to an ad hoc reappraisal of the common law requirement of a true adversary case or controversy as a condition precedent to court review. Nonetheless, before this Court will undertake to adjudicate any matter directly affecting the public in general or groups, classes, and interests both unknown and unknowable, it must appear conclusively that every issue which could be raised in a proceeding to settle rights was raised and that those undertaking to perform the role of devil's advocate in a proceeding of this nature, which is in no way adversary in the conventional sense of a case or controversy, have pursued their task with greater than average diligence and in the utmost good faith. In addition, in cases which are primarily concerned with a declaration of rights, the Court retains the prerogative to raise related issues on its own initiative and to demand as a condition precedent to a formal decision that the issues which it has raised be briefed and argued. As Alsop recognizes, one problem with friendly, or test case lawsuits is that the nominally adverse parties are not truly at each other's throats. The parties do not have the gut-level adversarial incentive that causes a litigant to bring forward all possibly meritorious arguments that might defeat their opponent's claims. As a result, all of the potential issues may not get a zealous and full airing, and courts may be significantly handicapped in their deliberations and rulings. Recognizing this danger, we follow the principles set forth in Alsop and approach friendly lawsuits that essentially seek advisory opinions with caution. [2] Additionally and importantly, neither Alsop (nor any other case that our research has found, in West Virginia or elsewhere) gives us guidance regarding cases where a legislature has directed in a statutory provision that an agency of government must take actionincluding refusal to comply with other duly enacted provisions of the lawso that a test case will result. Without engaging in an extended discussion of the issue, a wide range of possible objections to and concerns about such directives come to mind. For example, could such directives violate the constitutional separation of powers, [3] insofar as the Legislature is attempting to direct the judiciary to rule on a case? Can the Legislature direct this Court when to apply and when not to apply the exception to the disfavoring of advisory opinions set forth in Alsop, supra? What would occur if this Court declined to accept such a case, or declined to rule on such a case after accepting it? We have recognized in exceptional circumstances that it may be this Court's proper role to entertain an occasional friendly, test case lawsuitalbeit cautiously. Alsop, supra. But given the apparent novelty in our jurisprudence of explicit statutory directives creating such lawsuitsand the arrival of two such novel lawsuits on this Court's doorstep in the last yearwe conclude that this Court must attempt to speak firmly and clearly regarding statutory test case directives. If we do not speak on this issue, what will prevent similar directives from being included in legislation regularly, whenever the Legislature has constitutional or other uncertainties about their enactments? At least at first blush, it appears to us that such a development would constitute an undesirable and probably impermissible alteration of our tri-partite constitutional scheme of government. We hold, therefore, that statutory judicial review provisionsthat make implementation of a statute contingent upon judicial construction, review, or approval of the statute; that attempt to mandate judicial construction, review or approval of a statute prior to its effectiveness; or that have the purpose of creating a test casemay violate the separation of powers doctrine contained in Article V, Section 1 of the West Virginia Constitution. Such statutory provisions are disfavored and courts are not obliged to accept and/or rule in proceedings that arise as a result of such provisions. In appropriate cases, such provisions, if they are unconstitutional or are otherwise legally impermissible, may be severed from the statutes in which the provisions are contained. In the instant case (and in the Regional Jail case), the Legislature did not have the benefit of our position on the problems raised by such provisions. Having accepted the instant case, and seeing no compelling reason not to examine the substantive issues raised in the petition, we follow the approach of Alsop and cautiously examine the merits of this test case. B.