Court Opinion

ID: 9633321
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:43:03.727373+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:16:24.295582
License: Public Domain

Larson, J.,
dissenting: I respectfully dissent from the decision herein which improperly and unnecessarily adds another chapter to our questionable body of law? where we have applied the doctrine of unique circumstances to save an appeal which is otherwise clearly untimely.
The majority states BOTA erroneously issued nearly 3,400 orders stating the parties had 30 days to petition for reconsideration, when a clear reading of K.S.A. 77-529(a) and K.S.A. 74-2426(b) make a 15-day period statutorily jurisdictional. We are further told that over 100 petitions for reconsideration were filed, with ap*318proximately half of them granted. Such a set of circumstances is not, in my mind, unique.
We have specifically held: “An administrative rule or regulation which goes beyond that which the legislature has authorized, or which violates the statute, is void. Lakeview Village, Inc., v. Board of Johnson County Comm'rs, 232 Kan. 711, Syl. ¶ 7, 659 P.2d 187 (1983). K.A.R. 94-2-11(a), which states that “any party wishing reconsideration of an order issued by [BOTA], shall within 30 days after the issuance of the order file a motion for rehearing,” falls directly under the Lakeview Village rule. K.A.R. 94-2-11(a) must be held to be void. Because there is no statutory authority for the majority’s position, the nullification of this regulation would also remove any regulation as authority to justify the majority’s decision.
This leaves us with Schroeder v. Urban, 242 Kan. 710, 750 P.2d 405 (1988), and Slayden v. Sixta, 250 Kan. 23, 30, 825 P.2d 119 (1992), as a basis to justify the majority’s decision. Both rulings are questionable in my mind but, regardless, they do not provide authority for the decision herein because of the entirely different set of circumstances we face and because the results in those opinions should be sheltered rather than championed.
BOTA’s order makes no mention of appellate rights but simply advises the parties they have 30 days to file a motion for reconsideration. There was no request for additional time in which to perfect an appeal. There was no “special assurance” by BOTA that the appeal process was being properly followed. I would not hold either Schroeder or Slayden justifies the result reached by the majority.
In addressing the doctrine of unique circumstances in Osterneck v. Ernst & Whinney, 489 U.S. 169, 179, 103 L. Ed. 2d 146, 109 S. Ct. 987 (1989), the Court held that the rule “applies only where a party has performed an act which, if properly done, would postpone the deadline for filing his appeal and has received specific assurance by a judicial officer that this act has been properly done.” The assurance by a judicial officer is clearly nonexistent in this case, and the appeal should have been dismissed.
This case is not unlike our recent ruling in Jones v. Continental Can Co., 260 Kan. 547, 920 P.2d 939 (1996), where we held an appeal in a workers compensation case was not timely filed. The *319statutes there were complicated and had been changed numerous times, but we applied, as we are called upon to do, the rules relating to appeals:
“The right to appeal is entirely statutory and not a right contained in the United States or Kansas Constitutions; Kansas appellate courts have jurisdiction to entertain an appeal only if the appeal is taken within the time limitations and in the manner prescribed by the applicable statutes.” 260 Kan. 547, Syl. ¶ 1.
The obligation is on the party filing an appeal to read the statutes themselves and not rely on any statement improperly placed on a document they receive or the advice they might obtain from another person or party, whether a governmental employee or even a judicial officer. This is not an unreasonable burden and is one we should enforce.
McFarland, C.J., joins in the foregoing dissent.