Opinion ID: 2630864
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to timely appeal

Text: ¶ 17 The superior court held, and the court of appeals agreed, that Smith failed to timely appeal the Commission's decision that he had overspent his campaign limits and therefore must forfeit his office. We agree that Smith failed to timely appeal. ¶ 18 Determining the procedure for review of administrative decisions involves the interpretation of rules and statutes, which we review de novo. Pima County v. Pima County Law Enforcement Merit Sys. Council, 211 Ariz. 224, 227, ¶ 13, 119 P.3d 1027, 1030 (2005). We apply the same rules in construing both statutes and rules. State ex rel. Romley v. Martin, 205 Ariz. 279, 281, ¶ 6, 69 P.3d 1000, 1002 (2003). To determine whether Smith's appeal was timely, some procedural background is necessary. ¶ 19 On March 25, 2005, following its investigation of Smith's campaign spending, the Citizens Clean Elections Commission issued an Order and Notice of Appealable Agency Action. That preliminary order concluded that Smith had violated the Clean Elections Act and must forfeit his seat in the legislature. The order would have been final had Smith elected to take no further action in the case. But the order advised Smith that he could appeal pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act, A.R.S. §§ 41-1092 to -1092.12 (2004 & Supp.2005), within thirty days, and Smith pursued this avenue of redress by requesting a hearing before an administrative law judge (ALJ). ¶ 20 On August 22, 2005, following a two-day hearing, the ALJ issued a lengthy decision concluding that the Commission had carried its burden of proving its case and recommending to the Commission that Smith's appeal be denied. The Commission adopted that recommendation three days later, on August 25, 2005, incorporating in its Final Order the ALJ's detailed findings of fact and conclusions of law and issuing sanctions of repayment of public funds, a fine, and forfeiture of office. ¶ 21 Smith sought review of the August 25 order in two ways: First, he filed a Motion for Rehearing or Review on September 23, 2005; that motion was denied on October 4. Second, on September 26, 2005, he filed a complaint for judicial review in superior court.
¶ 22 The statute providing for judicial review of Citizens Clean Election Commission rulings, A.R.S. § 16-957(B), provides that [t]he violator has fourteen days from the date of issuance of the order assessing the penalty to appeal to the superior court. Smith's appeal, filed September 26, was filed more than fourteen days after the Commission's August 25 order assessing the penalty of removal from office. Smith, however, argues that for several reasons his appeal was nonetheless timely. ¶ 23 Smith first argues that the Commission's March 25 order waived the jurisdictional appeal time set forth in A.R.S. § 16-957(B) and gave Representative Smith extended appellate deadlines that became applicable five months later, on August 25, after the Commission's ruling became final. His claim is not clear, but he appears to contend that permitting him to pursue redress through the administrative process rather than requiring him to appeal the March 25 preliminary order immediately to superior court precludes the Commission and the courts from demanding timely adherence to the fourteen-day time limit imposed by A.R.S. § 16-957(B) following the final administrative determination. This argument misapprehends the administrative review structure and misconstrues the record. ¶ 24 The administrative rules that supplement the statutory processes for obtaining review of administrative actions by the Clean Elections Commission, A.A.C. R2-20-214 to -231, provide any person who has been administratively sanctioned the due process right to challenge the decision within the administrative structure, pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), A.R.S. §§ 41-1092 to -1092.12. The March 25 order notified Smith of this right, after which Smith requested and was afforded this process. The Commission's March 25 notice to Smith that he could file an administrative appeal did not nullify the fourteen-day time limit for seeking judicial review once the administrative hearing process had resulted in a final administrative order. Rather, the order simply stayed the effectiveness of the Commission's order while Smith exhausted the available administrative process. ¶ 25 It is well settled that the time for filing an appeal, whether by appeal or by complaint for judicial review following the conclusion of the administrative process, is jurisdictional. See Ariz. Comm'n of Agric. & Horticulture v. Jones, 91 Ariz. 183, 187, 370 P.2d 665, 668 (1962); Ariz. Dep't of Econ. Sec. v. Holland, 120 Ariz. 371, 372, 586 P.2d 216, 217 (App.1978). The Commission has no power to waive it because the failure to timely appeal deprive[s] th[e] court of jurisdiction to review the [administrative] decision. Holland, 120 Ariz. at 372, 586 P.2d at 217; see also Jones, 91 Ariz. at 188, 370 P.2d at 669. ¶ 26 Smith points to no language in the Commission's March 25 order purporting to excuse the time limits of A.R.S. § 16-957(B), and we find none. The order advises Smith only that he has the right to administratively appeal the preliminary determination that he has violated campaign finance rules by invoking the procedures set forth in the Administrative Procedures Act. It confirmed the procedure that existed as a matter of law. The Commission did not waive the provisions of A.R.S. § 16-957(B) by any language in the March 25, 2005 order. [3]
¶ 27 Smith claims that the Complaint for Judicial Review he filed in superior court on September 26 should be considered a premature appeal that sprang to life after the Commission subsequently issued its October 4 order denying Smith's Motion for Rehearing or Review. He maintains that the appeal was timely because, while it was filed eight days before the ruling appealed from, it nonetheless came within fourteen days of the Commission's issuance of the order assessing the penalty. ¶ 28 On August 25, 2005, the Clean Elections Commission adopted the ALJ's decision and recommendation and entered the Commission's Final Order, which assessed penalties requiring repayment of $34,625.09 to the Clean Elections Fund, imposing a civil penalty of $10,000, and requiring Smith to forfeit his public office. ¶ 29 Smith had the right to seek judicial review of that decision pursuant to the Judicial Review of Administrative Decisions Act (JRADA), A.R.S. §§ 12-901 to -914 (2003), which allows thirty-five days to file an appeal. A.R.S. § 12-904(A). The provisions of the JRADA do not apply, however, if a more definite procedure is set forth in the act creating or conferring power on an agency or a separate act. A.R.S. § 12-902(A)(1). If more definite provisions exist, those more specific provisions control. Id.; see also Ariz. State Tax Comm'n v. Phelps Dodge Corp., 116 Ariz. 175, 177, 568 P.2d 1073, 1075 (1977) (observing that specific statutes displace general statutes). In this case, the Clean Elections Act itself contains a definite term for appeals: A.R.S. § 16-957(B) requires that appeals be taken no later than fourteen days from the date of issuance of the order assessing the penalty. The time to appeal is jurisdictional; any appeal not filed within the stated period is barred. A.R.S. § 12-902(B). ¶ 30 The penalty-assessing order in this case was issued on August 25, 2005. Smith's appeal should therefore have been filed on or before September 8. Smith filed nothing between August 25 and September 8. ¶ 31 On September 23, however, Smith filed a Motion for Rehearing or Review. He did so pursuant to an invitation in the last paragraph of the Commission's August 25 Final Order, which contains the following directions to the aggrieved party: Pursuant to A.R.S. § 41-1092.09, any party that is aggrieved by this Order may file with the Commission, not later than thirty (30) days after service of this decision, a written motion for rehearing or review.... In the alternative, any party may file an action for judicial review in the Superior Court of Arizona, pursuant to A.R.S. § 16-957(B) and A.A.C. R2-20-228. Under the JRADA, a motion for rehearing tolls the time to appeal. See A.R.S. § 12-901(2) (providing that no administrative order is final until any motion for rehearing or review has been decided). Smith therefore claims that his time to appeal was extended until the disposition of the rehearing motion. ¶ 32 Smith's argument fails because A.R.S. § 16-957(B) expressly requires that an appeal must be taken no later than fourteen days from the date of issuance of the order assessing the penalty. In this case, the penalty-assessing order was issued on August 25, 2005, and Smith did not file an action within fourteen days of that date. Moreover, when that time expired, Smith had not yet filed his motion for rehearing or review. His time to appeal therefore lapsed. ¶ 33 Even if section 12-901(2) applied, however, and would have extended the time to appeal if a timely motion for rehearing had been filed, Smith's motion for rehearing was filed too late to extend the time to appeal. Because the JRADA time provisions do not control when an administrative agency's statute provides a definite appeal time, it follows that the Citizens Clean Elections Act's fourteen-day appeal provision for seeking judicial review cannot be extended by a rehearing motion filed after the fourteen days have expired. The Commission may, by its August 25 order, have bound itself to consider Smith's rehearing motion, but it could not have conferred jurisdiction on the superior court to consider an untimely appeal. ¶ 34 We recognize that Smith might have been misled by the language in the Commission's August 25 Final Order regarding the filing of a motion for rehearing or review. But even assuming that he was misled by the August 25 order to believe that a motion for rehearing or review filed after the appeal time has run can stay the effect of an otherwise final order, the fact remains that even after the Commission denied the motion on October 4, 2005, Smith took no action in the fourteen days following that date to appeal his case. The record reflects that Smith did nothing until he amended his September 26 complaint on October 28, twenty-four days after the latest possible appealable order. Thus his appeal time expired. ¶ 35 If, on the other hand, the August 25 order is viewed as the final order assessing a civil penalty, Smith filed his September 26 complaint thirty-one days after the August 25 order and his amended complaint, dated October 28, 2005, more than two months after the August 25 order. Under any state of the facts, Smith failed to timely appeal the Commission's order, and it became final. [4] This court is not free to ignore the clear statutory language of A.R.S. § 16-957(B) and create jurisdiction in the superior courts where the legislature has provided to the contrary. ¶ 36 Smith seeks to avoid the consequences of the late filing of his appeal by arguing that the September 26 complaint was timely because it was within fourteen days of the October 4 order denying rehearing or review. Section 16-957(B), however, does not require that a notice of appeal be filed within a certain number of days of a ruling; it says that the violator has fourteen days from the date of issuance of the order assessing the penalty to appeal. Id. (emphasis added). From means after. Until an order has been entered, there can be no appeal. See A.R.S. § 12-909 (requiring complaint in appeal from an administrative decision to contain a statement of the findings and decision sought to be reviewed). ¶ 37 Smith asserts that Barassi v. Matison holds that an appellate court may exercise jurisdiction over a premature appeal if the appellant displayed an intent to appeal, appellees were not prejudiced, and the appeal was only mistakenly filed early. 130 Ariz. 418, 636 P.2d 1200 (1981). Barassi, however, creates only a limited exception to the final judgment rule that allows a notice of appeal to be filed after the trial court has made its final decision, but before it has entered a formal judgment, if no decision of the court could change and the only remaining task is merely ministerial. Compare id. at 422, 636 P.2d at 1204 (notice filed after issuance of minute entry but before entry of the order), and Comeau v. Ariz. State Bd. of Dental Exam'rs, 196 Ariz. 102, 106, ¶ 16, 993 P.2d 1066, 1070 (App.1999) (notice filed after court issued unsigned minute entry, but before clerk entered the judgment), with Baumann v. Tuton, 180 Ariz. 370, 372, 884 P.2d 256, 258 (App.1994) (holding that notice of appeal filed while a motion for a new trial was pending in the trial court did not confer jurisdiction on the appellate court). ¶ 38 Smith does not fall under the Barassi exception. Before filing his complaint for judicial review, he had requested that the Commission review his case or, in the alternative, grant him a new hearing. These are substantive matters requiring the discretion of the decision-maker. They are not ministerial tasks. We noted in Barassi that appellate courts should dismiss a case for lack of jurisdiction while such a motion was still pending in the trial court. Barassi, 130 Ariz. at 422, 636 P.2d at 1204. [5] Smith's reliance on Barassi is thus unavailing. ¶ 39 Beyond this limited exception, Arizona courts have consistently and with good reason held that premature notices of appeal are ineffective because they disrupt court processes. Baumann, 180 Ariz. at 372, 884 P.2d at 258. The better practice is to give litigants the opportunity to persuade the trial court of its error so that the trial court's ruling on a pending motion may cure any error and obviate the necessity for an appeal. Id. (citation omitted); see also, e.g., Flagstaff Vending Co. v. City of Flagstaff, 118 Ariz. 556, 561, 578 P.2d 985, 990 (1978). Requiring timely notices of appeals following entry of final judgments also prevents two courts from assuming jurisdiction and acting at the same time. See Clifton Power Corp. v. Fed. Energy Reg. Comm'n, 294 F.3d 108, 110 (D.C.Cir.2002). Sound reasons thus support the rule that one may appeal only from a final judgment. ¶ 40 In short, an appeal will lie only from a final administrative order. Any person who fails to seek review within the time and in the manner provided in this article ... shall be barred from obtaining judicial review of the decision. A.R.S. § 12-902(B) (emphasis added). In concluding that Smith's action was barred, the superior court and court of appeals simply followed established law. Even under the most charitable interpretation of the record, Smith's appeal was untimely.