Court Opinion

ID: 9855778
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:30:52.186466+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:37:01.992132
License: Public Domain

Krivosha, C.J.,
dissenting.
I find that, upon further consideration of this matter, I must respectfully dissent. The majority’s opinion is, in part, based upon the court’s conclusion that we cannot take judicial notice of § 6.04(7) of the home rule charter of the City of Omaha, and cites as authority for that position Dell v. City of Lincoln, 168 Neb. 174, 95 N.W.2d 336 (1959). It is with that aspect of the opinion that I disagree. While it is true, as noted by the majority, that a court of original jurisdiction, in the first instance, and an appellate court, on review, will not take judicial notice of a municipal ordinance, the situation is otherwise with regard to a home rule charter of a municipality. See Young v. Seattle, 30 Wash. 2d 357, 191 P.2d 273 (1948). The Dell case, cited by the majority, and those cases cited in the Dell case in support of that position all involved municipal ordinances.
In the instant case, however, we are not dealing with a municipal ordinance but, rather, with a provision of a home rule charter created pursuant to Neb. Const. art. XI, §§ 2 and 5. The difference between a municipal ordinance and a home rule charter created pursuant to the Nebraska Constitution is significant. While the municipal ordinance in its latest form may not be available for examination, a home rule charter is required by the Constitution of Nebraska to be certified by the city clerk and filed with the Secretary of State and does not become the charter unless and until it is filed with the Secretary of State. Likewise, all amendments of such charter are required to be authenticated by the city clerk and filed with the Secretary of State. In my view, this also is a signif*409icant factor.
While earlier writers may have viewed judicial notice as being limited to those matters of common knowledge, the more modern trend of judicial notice is shifting from the test of common knowledge to that of verifiable certainty. See, 29 Am. Jur. 2d Evidence § 25 (1967); McCormick, Judicial Notice, 5 Vand. L. Rev. 296 (1952).
Neb. Rev. Stat. § 27-201(2) (Reissue 1979) specifically provides that a judicial notice fact may not only be one which is generally known but may also be a fact “capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned.” Furthermore, § 27-201(3) provides that “[a] judge or court may take judicial notice, whether requested or not.” An examination of earlier decisions by this court would seem to indicate that we have heretofore agreed to take judicial notice of matters whose accuracy is not in any significant degree more easily verified than the home rule charter of the City of Omaha. Without suggesting that an exhaustive study of the matter has been made, some examples are the following. In Hornberger v. State, 47 Neb. 40, 66 N.W. 23 (1896), we held that where a city or village is incorporated by a special act of the Territorial Legislature, the courts will take judicial notice of such incorporation in case the Legislature has in said act declared it to be a public law. In doing so, we specifically said at 49, 66 N.W. at 26: “‘Courts will judicially notice the charter or incorporating act of a municipal corporation without being specially pleaded, not only when it is declared to be a public statute, but when it is public or general in its nature or purposes, though there be no express provision to that effect.’” As a result, in Hornberger we took judicial notice of the fact that the city of Bellevue contained a population of less than 1,500 and more than 200 and was therefore governed by virtue of § 40 of 1879 Neb. Laws, p. 193, entitled “AN ACT To provide for the organization, *410government, and powers of cities and villages.”
In State v. Frank, 61 Neb. 679, 85 N.W. 956 (1901), we held that courts will take judicial notice of legislative enactments and of the records kept by the two houses of the Legislature. It would seem that such a record is no more reliable than a charter filed with the Secretary of State. In Elmen v. State Board of Equalization and Assessment, 120 Neb. 141, 231 N.W. 772 (1930), we held that this court takes judicial notice of the proceedings of the constitutional convention and of the journals of the House of Representatives and of the Senate.
And in Elson v. Harbert, 190 Neb. 437, 208 N.W.2d 703 (1973), we held that, we would take judicial notice that Frontier County was a county of less than 7,000 people and that therefore Neb. Rev. Stat. § 32-307 (Reissue 1968) was applicable. And in Bohy v. Abbott, 154 Neb. 139, 47 N.W.2d 95 (1951), we held that state courts will take judicial notice of general rules and regulations established and published by federal agencies under authority of law. Why we should agree to take judicial notice of general rules and regulations published by federal agencies and refuse to take judicial notice of the- home rule charter of the City of Omaha, filed with the Secretary of State, is difficult for me to understand.
While I do not disagree with our earlier holdings, I fail to see why we have had no difficulty taking judicial notice of these various facts and now determine that we will not take judicial notice of a fact required to be filed with the Secretary of State. It is for that reason that I would have taken judicial notice of § 6.04(7) of the home rule charter of the City of Omaha and, accordingly, would have held that the personnel board has yet failed to act on the appeal, thereby making the appeal to this court at this time moot.
Brodkey, J., joins in this dissent.