Opinion ID: 1569035
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether Wal-Mart's appeal to the ALJ was timely filed.

Text: ¶ 9. Mississippi Code Section 71-5-517 provides fourteen days in which to file an appeal from a claims examiner's initial determination to the ALJ. Miss. Code Ann. § 71-5-517 (Rev.2000). This fourteen-day period is to be strictly construed. Wilkerson v. Miss. Employment Sec. Comm'n, 630 So.2d 1000, 1002 (Miss. 1994). ¶ 10. Here, the fourteen-day period started running on June 6, 2008, the date the notice of the claims examiner's initial determination was mailed to Brown and Wal-Mart. Id.; Miss. Employment Sec. Comm'n v. Parker, 903 So.2d 42, 44 (Miss. 2005). Thus, the appeal deadline was June 20, 2008, fourteen calendar days later. Miss.Code Ann. § 71-5-517. Wal-Mart's appeal letter was postmarked and mailed on June 20, 2008, but it was not stamped Received by the MDES appeals department until June 25, 2008. Brown asserts that, for the purposes of filing an appeal under Section 71-5-517, the operative date is the date the appeal is received, and thus, Wal-Mart's appeal to the ALJ was untimely filed. ¶ 11. MDES asserts that, after this Court decided Wilkerson and Parker, it instituted a policy that it would consider an appeal timely filed if it was postmarked by the fourteenth (14th) day. In Wilkerson, we struck down an unpublished, internal policy of the Mississippi Employment Security Commission (MESC), [3] which allowed an additional three days in which to file an appeal. Wilkerson, 630 So.2d at 1002. This Court found that the statutory scheme does not contain a provision which gives the Commission the power to modify the statute by arbitrarily or capriciously adding three days to the time for appeal. Id. In Parker, we held that, because MESC is not a circuit, chancery, or county court, the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure are not applicable to its administrative hearings or appeals[.] Parker, 903 So.2d at 44-45. Thus, we held that the claimant was not afforded an additional three days, pursuant to Mississippi Rule of Civil Procedure 6(e), in which to file an appeal. Id. MDES argues that the postmark policy is a reasonable policy created to ensure that all interested parties' rights are preserved when they file an appeal to the ALJ or Board of Review via the mail. [4] ¶ 12. Nevertheless, MDES's new postmark policy is an internal policy, the likes of which this Court overruled in Wilkerson. In fact, this Court specifically instructed in Wilkerson that MDES should modify the appeal-filing procedures only by published rule and not by an unwritten practice subject to ad hoc and sporadic application. Wilkerson, 630 So.2d at 1002. In fact, the statutory scheme governing MDES expressly provides that appeals should be governed by prescribed regulations. Specifically, Section 71-5-525 provides that: The manner in which appealed claims shall be presented and the conduct of hearings and appeals shall be in accordance with regulations prescribed by the board of review for determining the rights of the parties, whether or not such regulations conform to common law or statutory rules of evidence and other technical rules of procedure. Miss.Code Ann. § 71-5-525 (Rev.2000). Hence, if MDES wishes to define the date an appeal is filed as the date it is postmarked, we think it should, at a minimum, do so by published rule. Id.; Wilkerson, 630 So.2d at 1002. ¶ 13. It appears to this Court that MDES's current published rules define the date of filing an appeal as the date of delivery. Specifically, the applicable section of the Mississippi Administrative Code relating to MDES appeals states, in pertinent part, that: (A) Time for Filing: Pursuant to Sections 71-5-517 and 71-5-519 of the Law, an interested party must file an appeal for an initial or amended determination within fourteen (14) days of the date the determination was mailed to the last known address. If the last day to appeal falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or other legal holiday, or day in which the Agency is closed for business, then the time allowed to appeal shall run until the end of the next business day. (B) Method of Filing: Appeals shall be filed using methods and procedures the Agency has established. Those methods... specifically include the following: (1) delivery by the United States Postal Services to the address provided on the determination or decision being appealed; (2) faxing to the number provided in the determination or decision being appealed; (3) in-person at any WIN Job Center; (4) electronically at the address provided in the determination or decision being appealed; or (5) telephonically by calling the number provided on the determination or decision being appealed. XX-XXX-XXX Miss.Code R. § 200.01 (Weil 2008) (emphasis added). As can be seen, MDES's regulation includes only one method of filing applicable to the mail, and that method requires delivery to MDES. Id. It does not say mailing to MDES. [5] Therefore, according to MDES's published regulations, an appeal from an initial determination is not filed until it is delivered to ( i.e., received by) the MDES. Id. ¶ 14. Applying this rule to the instant case, Wal-Mart's appeal was untimely filed. The claims examiner's initial determination, mailed on June 6, 2008, specifically informed Wal-Mart that its appeal must be filed no later than June 20, 2008. Wal-Mart's appeal letter, although postmarked on June 20, 2008, was not stamped Received by MDES until June 25, 2008. Because it was not delivered until June 25, it was not filed until June 25 under the terms of Section 200.01 of MDES's regulations. Hence, pursuant to Section 200.01, Wal-Mart's appeal from the initial determination was filed five days late. But this does not end the inquiry.