Opinion ID: 1308063
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: different classes of people have standing to appeal examiner recommendation and council final decisions

Text: King County Code 20.24.210(B) provides for an appeal from the hearing examiner's recommendation. However, an analysis of this ordinance and the provisions of King County Code 20.24.240(A), granting review rights from the Council's final decision, reveals that the two ordinances grant standing to appeal to entirely different classes of people. The right of review of the Council decision is separate and distinct from the right of appeal from the examiner's recommendations. Therefore, the majority's application of the exhaustion doctrine in this case is improper. King County Code 20.24.210(B) states in part: Recommendations of the examiner in cases identified in Section 20.24.070 may be appealed to the council by an aggrieved party by filing a notice of appeal with the clerk of the council within fourteen calendar days of the date the examiner's written recommendation is mailed. (Italics mine.) Thus, the ordinance provides that an aggrieved party may appeal the recommendation of the hearing examiner to the County Council. The language of the ordinance changes when we examine King County Code 20.24.240(A), setting forth the right to seek judicial review in superior court of the Council's final decision : Decisions of the council in cases identified in Section 20.24.070 shall be final and conclusive action unless within twenty calendar days, or within thirty calendar days for decisions approving or denying plats, from the date of the council's adoption of an ordinance an aggrieved person applies for a writ of certiorari from the Superior Court in and for the county of King, state of Washington, for the purpose of review of the action taken ... (Italics mine.) The right of review from the Council's final decision is granted to aggrieved persons. It is an elementary rule of statutory construction that where certain language is used in one instance, and different language in another, there is a difference in legislative intent. Seeber v. State Pub. Disclosure Comm'n, 96 Wn.2d 135, 139, 634 P.2d 303 (1981). The use of the word party in the code section conferring a right of appeal from the examiner's recommendation is different from the use of the term person aggrieved in the section conferring the right of appeal from the Council's final decision. See Shore Acres Imp. Ass'n v. Anne Arundel Cy. Bd. of Appeals, 251 Md. 310, 247 A.2d 402 (1968). Statutes or ordinances which grant review rights to persons give standing to a broader class of people than those which grant appeal rights to parties. See Sterling v. County of Spokane, 31 Wn. App. 467, 472, 642 P.2d 1255, review denied, 97 Wn.2d 1041 (1982); 4 R. Anderson, Zoning § 25.10 (2d ed. 1977). These two ordinances, granting appeal rights from examiner recommendations and Council final decisions, provide alternative remedies to which the exhaustion doctrine does not apply. Scarborough v. Mayor & Coun., 303 A.2d 701 (Del. Ch. 1973).