Court Opinion

ID: 9861659
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 00:16:26.59102+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:28:48.112185
License: Public Domain

NEUMANN, Justice,
dissenting.
This Court has repeatedly and consistently said judicial review of an administrative agency’s findings of fact is limited to whether a reasoning mind could have reasonably determined that its findings were supported by the evidence. Fischer v. North Dakota Workers Compensation Bureau, 530 N.W.2d 344 (N.D.1995); BKU Enterprises, Inc. v. Job Service North Dakota, 513 N.W.2d 382 (N.D.1994); Johnson v. North Dakota Workers Compensation Bureau, 496 N.W.2d 562 (N.D.1993). Despite that consistent warning to respect the authority of the other separate, co-equal branches of government, both the district court and the majority in this case have retried the evidence and drawn their own inferences and actual conclusions in order to reach a preferred result.
I certainly do not condone the violent behavior reflected in this case, whether found in the workplace or elsewhere, and had I been the agency’s hearing officer, I might well have found Rainey’s behavior was mutual combat, as do the trial court and the majority. But what I think and what I might have found are beside the point. My job here is not to find, but to review, and to do it within the limits we have articulated.
I cannot join Judge McGuire’s dissent, because he, too, has reviewed the evidence in order to draw his own inferences and factual conclusions. However, his opinion certainly supports an argument that a reasoning mind can reasonably determine that the agency’s findings are supported by the evidence. Applying that standard of review, I believe we *380have no' choice. The agency’s order should be affirmed.