Opinion ID: 1991260
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The State Documents Law

Text: BG & E next argues that the standards through which the Commission implemented § 54F(f)(4) constituted rules illegally promulgated in violation of the State Documents Law, Maryland Code (1957, 1982 Repl.Vol.) Art. 41, §§ 256B-256T. [13] The State Documents Law requires, inter alia, that notice of proposed agency rulemaking and the text of proposed agency rules be published in the Maryland Register, § 256F(b)(2), (3), and that the text of the adopted agency rules be published in both the Maryland Register and the Code of Maryland Regulations, §§ 256C(b)(2), 256F(b)(1). The Commission was made subject to the State Documents Law by chapter 858 of the Acts of 1978. The word rule is defined for purposes of the State Documents Law by reference to the Administrative Procedure Act, Maryland Code (1957, 1982 Repl.Vol.) Art. 41, §§ 244-256A. [14] Section 244(c) of the Administrative Procedure Act broadly defines rule as follows:  `Rule' includes every regulation, standard, guideline, or statement of policy or interpretation of general application and future effect, including the amendment or repeal thereof, adopted by an agency, whether with or without prior hearing, to implement or make specific the law enforced or administered by it or to govern its organization, procedure, or the practice before such agency, but does not include regulations concerning only the internal management of the agency and not directly affecting the rights of or procedures available to the public, responses to petitions for adoption of rules issued pursuant to § 248 of this article, or declaratory rulings issued pursuant to § 250 of this article. Section 85(a) of the Public Service Commission Law provides that [e]very decision and order of the Commission in any contested proceeding shall be based upon a consideration of the record, shall be in writing and shall state the grounds for the Commission's conclusions. Thus, the Commission is required to articulate the standards through which it applied the applicable law to the relevant facts in reaching its decision in a contested proceeding. Furthermore, such standards will often have a degree of general application and future effect. Although the principle of stare decisis has limited applicability to administrative agencies, as a practical matter agencies frequently do use their prior decisions as precedents, and the standards through which a statute is implemented in one proceeding may well reappear in later proceedings. See 4 K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise § 20:9,:11 (2d ed. 1983); 73A C.J.S. Public Administrative Law & Procedure § 157 (1983). To conclude, however, that every time an agency explains the standards through which it applies a statute in a contested proceeding it is promulgating rules, and must therefore comply with the notice requirements of the State Documents Law, would be patently unreasonable. The administrative adjudicatory process is designed primarily to resolve concrete disputes between parties, rather than to establish abstract principles of general applicability. BG & E's interpretation would impose a tremendous, and unnecessary, burden upon state agencies, rendering the administrative adjudicatory process all but unworkable. Statutes should be construed to avoid such absurd consequences. See In re Special Investigation No. 281, 299 Md. 181, 200, 473 A.2d 1 (1984); Mazor, supra, 279 Md. at 361, 369 A.2d 82; Blocher v. Harlow, 268 Md. 571, 584, 303 A.2d 395 (1973); 2A N. Singer, Sutherland on Statutes and Statutory Construction § 45.12 (rev. 4th ed. 1984). In the cases before us, the Commission did not abstractly formulate new rules of binding and universal future effect, but simply articulated the standards through which it interpreted and implemented § 54F(f)(4) during the course of specific contested proceedings, as it was required to do by § 85(a). The standards were applied only to the facts and circumstances of those proceedings, and necessarily determined the legal rights and obligations of only the parties to the proceedings. We hold, therefore, that the standards through which the Commission implemented § 54F(f)(4) did not constitute rules within the meaning of the State Documents Law, but were simply part of the grounds for the Commission's conclusions announced in compliance with § 85(a). See generally 2 K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise § 7:2 (2d ed. 1979).