Court Opinion

ID: 9930510
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-07 00:05:19.47442+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:19:02.006880
License: Public Domain

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                                             l' au\                                          02/06/2024

            IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STA lb OF MONTANA                                Case Number: OP 24-0070

                                         OP 24-0070

 ZAYNE HERT; AMBER HERT and
 KELLY HERT, Legal Parents to Zayne Hert,

              Petitioners,

       v.
                                                                      ORDER
 MONTANA SIXTEENTH JUDICIAL
 DISTRICT COURT, ROSEBUD COUNTY,
 HON. NICKOLAS C. MURNION, Presiding,
                                                                                FiR - 62J24
              Respondent.                                                      Bo    n Greenwood
                                                                            Cloe.c of Supreme Court
                                                                                      of Montana

       Petitioners Zayne Hert and his parents Amber Hert and Kelly Hert ("Zayne,"
"Amber," "Kelly," and collectively "Herts") seek a writ of supervisory control over the
Sixteenth Judicial District Court, Rosebud County, in that court's Cause No. DV-23-53.
The Herts allege that supervisory control is necessary because the District Court erred in
denying their emergency motion for preliminary injunction.
       Zayne is a fifth-year senior at Colstrip High School. During the 2020-2021 school
year, Zayne participated in remote learning. Due to his grades, Zayne did not participate
in high school activities during that school year. The Herts decided it would be in Zayne's
best interest to complete an additional year of high school in lieu of taking on a larger class
load. Kelly met with the athletic director of the Colstrip High School in the Spring of 2021
to determine if Zayne would be eligible to participate in high school activities, specifically
basketball, during the 2023-2024 school year, which would be Zayne's fifth year of high
school. Although there was initial belief or hope that Zayne would be eligible to participate
in basketball during the 2023-2024 school year, in the spring of 2023, Colstrip High School
Principal Robin Nansel informed the Herts that the Montana High School Association
(IVIHSA) had determined that Zayne would not be eligible to participate in basketball
during the 2023-2024 school year. At the end of the 2022-2023 school year, Zayne had
been enrolled in Colstrip High School for four years and eight consecutive semesters, and
was no longer eligible to play basketball under MESA' s "semester rule," which limits a
student athlete's eligibility to play to "four (4) consecutive years [eight (8) consecutive
semesters] after entering the ninth grade." MHSA By-Laws, Art. II, Sec. 8.1.
       The Herts asked the MFISA to reconsider its determination or consider a waiver,
and the MHSA Board held a hearing on the matter on August 16, 2023. On August 17,
2023, the MHSA Director sent a letter to Principal Nansel that affirmed its previous
determination that Zayne would not be eligible to participate in basketball during the
2023-2024 school year. That same day, Amber emailed the MHSA Director and requested
additional information about the basis for MHSNs determination and whether Zayne had
exhausted all remedies to appeal the MHSA' s determination.           The MHSA Director
responded to Amber via email, but did not directly answer all the questions she had posed.
       On November 1, 2023, the Herts filed a Verified Complaint for Judicial Review,
Declaratory Relief, and Preliminary and Permanent Injunctive Relief in the District Court.
On November 9, 2023, the Herts further filed an Emergency Motion for Preliminary
Injunction in this matter. Although the Hens' petition before this Court implies that
nothing of import happened until the District Court held an evidentiary hearing on January
17, 2024, the District Court ruling that is the subject of the present petition indicates the
court initially set an evidentiary hearing on November 29, 2023, but vacated the hearing
because the Herts filed a First Amended Complaint for Judicial Review, Declaratory
Relief, and Preliminary and Permanent Injunctive Relief on November 28, 2023, which
added an additional defendant, and that a defendant moved to dismiss the case pursuant to
M. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) because the Herts had failed to identify the appropriate defendant in
either the original complaint or the first amended complaint. The Herts then filed a Second
Amended Complaint on November 29, 2023, which properly identified the defendants.
       On December 1, 2023, Principal Nansel, a named Defendant, moved to dismiss
pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), and on December 14, 2023, MHSA did so as well. The District
Court conducted a combined hearing regarding the motions to dismiss and the emergency

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motion for preliminary injunction on January 17, 2024. On January 25, 2024, the court
issued its Findings of Facts, Conclusions of Law and Order Denying Emergency Motion
for Preliminary Injunction, Denying MHSA's Motion to Dismiss, and Granting Nansel's
Motion to Dismiss. The Herts petitioned this Court for writ of supervisory control on
February 5, 2024.1
       Supervisory control is an extraordinary remedy that is sometimes justified when
urgency or emergency factors exist making the normal appeal process inadequate, when
the case involves purely legal questions, and when the other court is proceeding under a
mistake of law and is causing a gross injustice, constitutional issues of state-wide
importance are involved, or, in a criminal case, the other court has granted or denied a
motion to substitute a judge. M. R. App. P. 14(3). Whether supervisory control is
appropriate is a case-by-case decision. Stokes v. Mont. Thirteenth Judicial Dist. Court,
2011 MT 182, ¶ 5, 361 Mont. 279, 259 P.3d 754 (citations omitted). Consistent with Rule
14(3), it is the Court's practice to refrain from exercising supervisory control when the
petitioner has an adequate remedy of appeal. E.g., Buckles v. Seventh Judicial Dist. Court,
No. OP 16-0517, 386 Mont. 393, 386 P.3d 545 (table) (Oct. 18, 2016); Lichte v. Mont.
Eighteenth Judicial Dist. Court, No. OP 16-0482, 385 Mont. 540, 382 P.3d 868 (table)
(Aug. 24, 2016).
       The Hats argue that urgency or emergency factors make the normal appeal proces's
inadequate because the basketball season will be over before disposition will be had via
direct appeal. Indeed, the Herts argue that "[a]ny additional delay in granting relief—
including seeking additional response in this matter—will permanently extinguish any
interest Zayne has under the Montana Constitution" because the basketball season began
in November 2023 and was "well over half' finished when they filed this petition on

I Although the Herts caption their petition before this Court as "Petition for Writ of Supervisory
Control & Emergency Relief Pursuant to [M. R. App. P.] Rule 14(3), Request for Stay and
Preliminary Injunctive Relief," the text of the petition neither requests a stay nor additional
injunctive relief beyond that which granting their petition for writ of supervisory control would
afford them.

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February 5, 2024. The District Court found that basketball season started on November 18,
2023.
        Here, the subject order is a preliminary injunction.2 M. R. App. P. 6(3)(e) provides
that an order granting an injunction is an appealable order. Caldwell v. Sabo, 2013 MT
240, 'If 18, 371 Mont. 328, 308 P.3d 81 ("An order granting an injunction is immediately
appealable, notwithstanding that the merits of the controversy remain to be determined.").
We have routinely held that an adequate remedy of appeal exists, and supervisory control
unwarranted, where the subject order is a preliminary injunction. Brown v. Thirteenth
Judicial Dist. Court, No. OP 20-0296, 400 Mont. 560, 465 P.3d 1162 (table) (June 2, 2020).
Moreover, a party may request expedited briefing in an appeal. Mirro v. Mont. Sixth
Judicial Dist. Court, No. OP 23-0639, Order (Mont. Nov. 7, 2023).
        While we are cognizant of the time concern here, the petition offers no explanation
regarding the delay in filing their complaint, when MHSA rendered its decision in August
2023, months prior to the start of the basketball season. We have previously ruled that a
party cannot manufacture urgency or emergency to fulfill the necessary criteria to justify a
writ of supervisory control. State v. Mont. First Judicial Dist. Court, No. OP 22-0315, 409
Mont. 557, 512 P.3d 1178 (table) (June 14, 2022).
        Finally, even if we were to accept the Herts' contention that the urgency of this
matter supported entertaining the writ, due process considerations and our Appellate Rules
would prevent us from summarily granting the petition without a response, as the Herts
request. Under M. R. App. P. 14(7)(a), we may either order a summary response be filed,
or we may dismiss the petition without ordering a response, but the Rule does not provide
for this Court to grant a petition for writ upon the petition alone. The petition challenges
only the procedure used to arrive at MESA' s decision, not the application of the eligibility
rules. At this juncture, even if we ordered responses on an expedited basis and concluded
there was merit to the procedural arguments, there is no realistic possibility that the

2 Although the subject order further dismissed Principal Nansel from this matter, the Herts do not
raise any arguments regarding that dismissal in their petition for writ of supervisory control.

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procedure could be corrected such that a new decision allowing Zayne to participate in the
current basketball season, assuming he could demonstrate entitlement under the rules,
could issue before the season concluded in the next several weeks.
       The burden of persuasion is on the petitioner to convince the Court to issue a writ.
Disability Rights Mont. v. Mont. Judicial Dists. 1-22, No. OP 20-0189, 400 Mont. 556
(Apr. 14, 2020) (citing Miller v. Eleventh Judicial Dist. Court, 2007 MT 58, ¶ 14, 336
Mont. 207, 154 P.3d 1186). In this case, we conclude the Herts have not met this burden.
       IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that the petition for writ of supervisory control is
DENIED and DISMSSED.
       The Clerk is directed to provide immediate notice of this Order to counsel for
Petitioner, all counsel of record in the Sixteenth Judicial District Court, Rosebud County,
Cause No. DV-23-53, and the Honorable Nickolas C. Murnion, presiding Judge.
      DATED this Lc —day of February, 2024.

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