Court Opinion

ID: 9655079
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:59:39.705158+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:15.982853
License: Public Domain

JOHN POWERS, Justice (Retired),
dissenting.
I substitute the following for my previous dissenting opinion.
The majority opinion1 finds trial-court jurisdiction in section 2001.038 of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA),2 a statute that authorizes a cause of action for declaratory judgment to determine the validity or applicability of an administrative-agency mle. Essential to the majority’s theory is a related conclusion that the Panhandle Field Rules constitute a rule within the meaning of section 2001.038. See Tex.Gov’t Code Ann. § 2001.038 (West 2000). I disagree with this related conclusion.
*49Insofar as it is applicable here, section 2001.003(6) defines the word rule to mean “a state agency statement of general applicability that ... implements, interprets, or prescribes law or policy.” Tex.Gov’t Code Ann. § 2001.003(6) (West 2000). It is easy to see that the Panhandle Field Rules fit nicely into this statutory definition. For the majority, that is enough. I disagree for reasons I will set out below.
The concurring opinion states that the holding in the majority opinion is a narrow one. The holding referred to, I should think, is the majority’s basic conclusion that any agency statement is a rule if in ordinary usage the words of the statement fit the definition of a rule set forth in section 2001.003(6). That this construction is a narrow one is not suggested by the language of the majority opinion. And the construction the majority place upon section 2001.003(6) is necessarily a precedent for all other cases involving the same issue; within this court’s geographical jurisdiction that construction is presumably binding. In fact, another panel of this Court has so treated the majority opinion. See Texas Alcoholic Beverage Comm’n v. Amusement & Music Operators, Inc., 997 S.W.2d 651, 660 (Tex.App. — Austin 1999, pet. dism’d). We surely will not be free to give section 2001.003(6) a different construction in any future appeal without reversing the majority holding herein.
The intended meaning of a declaration ordinarily depends upon the context in which it was made. For example, the statement that “Yesterday was a fine day” may be true when made at one time and false at another. Under the theory of the majority opinion, however, the context of any and all agency statements becomes irrelevant in deciding whether a particular agency statement amounts to a rule as that word is defined in section 2001.003(6). The sole issue for the majority is abstract and lexical: May it be said the statement in question is one of general applicability that implements, interprets, or prescribes anything includable in the broad concepts of “law” or “policy”? If so, the statement is a rule for purposes of sections 2001.003(6) and 2001.038. I do not believe the legislature intended that these sections be understood and applied in that manner.
I believe section 2001.003(6) must be understood and applied in the particular context in which the legislature established that definition of the word rule — the administrative processes required and expected of state administrative agencies. These agencies are constituted for the very purpose of formulating and issuing statements of general (or particular) applicability that implement, interpret, and in many cases prescribe law or policy. Administrative agencies do little else. If an agency possesses rulemaking power, such statements may take the form of rules as the agency decides in its discretion.3 But agencies routinely make statements of this kind, of general applicability, in a myriad of other forms as well. These range from statements made in the course of adjudicating contested cases, to such things as the inclusion of minority set-asides in construction contracts let by the agency, and even to an agency’s “raised eyebrow” that coerces conduct in a regulated field. See Alfred C. Aman, Jr., & William T. Mayton, Administrative Law § 4.1, at 80-82 (1993). For example, in the course of adjudicating a contested case conducted by an adminis*50trative-law judge assigned by the State Office of Administrative Hearings, an agency is required to provide that official “with a written statement of applicable rules or policies and, the agency may revise his or her determination “only if the agency determines [he or she] did not properly apply or interpret applicable law, agency rules, mitten policies [so provided], or prior administrative decisions.” Tex.Gov’t Code Ann. § 2001.058(c), (e)(1) (West 2000) (emphasis added). The legislature cannot have intended an absurdity — which the majority opinion requires— that the contested case must stop in mid-course to await the agency’s promulgation and indexing of an actual rule that embodies the “written policy” furnished the administrative-law judge. The disjunctive “or” in these statutory passages, distinguishing between “rules” and “policies,” is not the result of a slip of the legislative pen. And it demonstrates plainly that not all general statements of binding agency policy can or do take the form of rules. See Amarillo Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Meno, 854 S.W.2d 950, 957-58 (Tex.App. — Austin 1993, writ ref d n.r.e.).
In short, the majority opinion condemns as categorically invalid all agency statements of general applicability, implementing, interpreting, or prescribing law or policy, unless such statements take the form of rules promulgated through APA rule-making procedures. Recourse to declaratory relief from any such non-rule statements, under section 2001.038, is hereafter unnecessary — the statements are by definition invalid and unenforceable when issued. An injunction against enforcement of such statements will now suffice. They are dead letters ab initio by force of the majority’s construction of section 2001.003(6) in this appeal. One might be forgiven for raising an eyebrow at that construction.
A RULE IS THE PRODUCT OF RULEMAKING PROCEDURES MANDATED BY THE APA
In its adoption of section 2001.003(6), I believe the legislature had in mind the conventional understanding of what a rule is: the product of an agency rulemaking proceeding, the only kind of agency proceeding that can possibly produce an actual rule. And, section 2001.038 assumes in my view an actual rule in its creation of a cause of action to determine the validity or applicability of an agency rule.
The definition in section 2001.003(6) is taken almost verbatim from section (1)(7) of the 1961 Model State Administrative Procedure Act4 promulgated by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. The Commissioners’ purpose, and presumably the legislature’s purpose, in so defining the word rule, was to preclude agency attempts at avoiding the rigors of notice-and-comment rulemak-ing imposed by the APA by merely assigning titles other than rule to their statements implementing, interpreting, or prescribing law or policy. In the Commissioners’ view, the definition in section (1)(7) of the model act was “necessary to defeat the inclination shown by some agencies to label as ‘bulletins,’ ‘announcements,’ ‘guides,’ ‘interpretative bulletins,’ and the like, announcements which in legal operation and effect, really amount to rules; and then to assert that their promulgations are not technically rules but merely policy statements, and hence may be issued without observance of the procedures required in connection ivith the adoption of rules.” 1 Frank E. Cooper, State Administrative Law 108 (1965) (emphasis added). The definition was thus not intended to be a substitute for the conventional meaning of the word rule in administrative law, but rather a support for the doctrine that some agency statements of law or policy may not be en*51forced unless and until promulgated as rules.5
The “core of meaning” of the word rule “is generally understood and may be simply described. A rule ... is the product of rulemaking, and rulemaking is the part of the administrative process that resembles a legislature’s enactment of a statute.” Kenneth Culp Davis, Administrative Law Text § 5.01 at 123 (1972) (emphasis added). “A ‘rule’ therefore is the product of rulemaking — the agency process resembling the action of a legislature enacting a typical statute.” Arthur Earl Bonfield, State Administrative Rulemaking § 3.3.1, at 76 (1986) (emphasis added); see, e.g., Texas County Irrigation & Water Res. Ass’n v. Oklahoma Water Res. Bd., 803 P.2d 1119, 1123-24 (Okla.1990); Ellis v. Utah State Ret. Bd., 757 P.2d 882, 888 (Utah Ct.App.1988); Moulton v. State, 363 N.W.2d 405, 406-07 (S.D.1985). This conventional meaning is implicit in the rule-making procedures of the APA itself.
The definition of the word rule in section 2001.003(6) does not exist in a statutory or experiential vacuum, as the majority opinion appears to assume. The definition in that section and the use of the word rule in section 2001.038 (authorizing a declaratory-judgment action directed at an agency rule) have a specific context — the APA and the administrative process generally. The structure of the APA — -the physical and logical relation between its several parts— demonstrates unequivocally the legislature’s intent that the word rule shall mean the product of an agency rulemaking proceeding.
The APA consists of two basic divisions. Sections 2001.051 through 2001.147 govern contested-case proceedings in agencies subject to the APA. Sections 2001.021 through 2001.037 govern rulemaking in the agencies; and section 2001.038 authorizes a declaratory-judgment action for the judicial review of agency rules.
There can be no doubt that the word rule was intended to have the same meaning throughout all sections of the APA. That is why the legislature began section 2001.003 (wherein the word rule is defined) with the expression “In this chapter.” Between section 2001.003(6) (defining the word rule ) and section 2001.038 (authorizing the declaratory-judgment action), the word rule occurs seventy-seven times in the various provisions that govern rule-making in the agencies. It is not to be supposed then that the word rule can mean one thing in sections 2001.003(6) and 2001.038 and a vastly different thing in sections 2001.021 through 2001.037, establishing rulemaking procedures. For example, the adoption of an agency rule must be preceded by a notice with particular contents (section 2001.023), a local-employment impact statement (section 2001.022), and an opportunity for public comment (section 2001.029). The agency order finally adopting a rule must contain specified agency determinations (section 2001.033), and a rule is not effective until the agency has indexed the rule and made it available for public inspection (section 2001.005). Finally, an agency rule is not valid unless adopted in substantial compliance with the foregoing provisions (section 2001.035). Because the word rule requires use of these statutory procedures set forth in sections 2001.021 through 2001.037, then the word rule used in section 2001.038 (authorizing a declaratory-judgment action) must also connote a rule produced by and through those procedures. Otherwise, the word rule means different things in the several parts of the APA, contrary to the legislature’s declared intent that the word shall mean the same thing throughout the APA
Stated another way, it is obvious that the legislature intended the word rule to have a specific, technical meaning as it is used in the APA — the product of a rule-making proceeding conducted under sections 2001.021 through 2001.037. When *52the legislature so declares the meaning of a word, courts are bound accordingly regardless of the meaning of the word in common usage or in other connections and contexts. See Transport Ins. Co. v. Faircloth, 898 S.W.2d 269, 273-74 (Tex.1995); Eppstein v. State, 105 Tex. 35, 143 S.W. 144, 146 (1912). The majority therefore err, in my view, when they affix to the word rule an expanded meaning that also includes agency statements promulgated outside these rulemaking procedures' — in this instance an agency order adjudicating a contested case.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE MAJORITY DECISION WILL BE VEXATIOUS
The Panhandle Field rules were not promulgated in a Commission rulemaking proceeding, but in a contested-case or adjudicative proceeding in which the agency decided issues of fact and law based upon evidence adduced, employing trial-type procedures in a controversy involving particular parties. See Tex.Gov’t Code Ann. §§ 2001.051-.057 (West 2000). Field rules may not constitutionally be promulgated in any other ivay. They are in substance adjudicated exceptions to the standard spacing requirements of the Commission’s famous “statewide rale” 37. Such exceptions are authorized based solely upon evidence from which the Commission reasonably concludes the particular features of the field require an exception to Rule 37 to prevent waste or an unconstitutional confiscation of private property. Trial-type or contested-case procedures are essential for the Commission to assure that the discrimination represented by the field rales has a rear sonable basis in fact and is therefore constitutionally permissible. Railroad Comm’n v. Shell Oil Co., 139 Tex. 66, 161 S.W.2d 1022, 1026-27 (1942). This assurance cannot possibly be obtained by informal or notice-and-comment rulemak-ing — the very procedure the majority opinion now requires of the Commission in its adoption of field rules.6 Under notice-and-comment rulemaking pursuant to sections 2001.021 through 2001.037, persons affected by the resulting field rules will be deprived of property without due process of law because they will be denied the right to present evidence and argument as to the particulars of the field and their circumstances; the right to rebut adverse evidence through cross-examination and contrary evidence; the right to have the agency decision based upon evidence introduced into the record of the hearing; the right to a complete record containing a transcript of the testimony and arguments, the documentary evidence, and all papers filed in the proceeding; and the right to know the bases of the agency decision as reflected in findings of fact and conclusions of law.7 See Bernard Schwartz, Administrative Law, § 5.1, at 203-04 (1984).
The majority decision means that every Commission statement, if it fits in common usage the definition of a rule in section 2001 .003(6), is invalid absent a rulemaking proceeding. One should think the legislature could not have intended the absurd and paralyzing consequences that will result. Cf. Brinkley v. Texas Lottery *53Comm’n, 986 S.W.2d 764, 769-71 (Tex.App. — Austin 1999, no pet.). Such dire results are not limited to past or future field rules adopted by the Commission. For example, the Commission has historically and efficiently made extensive use of its statutory power of unilateral investigation to determine any number of things relative to the lawful drilling, completion, operation, and plugging of wells. See Kenneth Culp Davis & York Y. Wilbern, Administrative Control of Oil Production in Texas, 22 Tex.L.Rev. 149, 158-59 (1944). Under the majority decision, the Commission’s simple letter to its district engineers, directing them as a matter of law and policy to verify some aspect of wells located in their districts, will constitute an invalid attempt to promulgate a rule. In addition, some fields have only a single well and a single owner. It is doubtful the legislature intended that the Commission must employ in such cases the unnecessary and expensive procedure of notice- and-comment rulemaking. And any brief filed in this or another court by the Commission setting forth-the agency’s interpretation of an oil-and-gas statute amounts necessarily to a statement of the Commission’s view of law and policy. Thus, the brief itself promulgates an invalid rule un-, der the majority theory.
Consequently, the Commission is compelled by the majority decision to adopt rules before the agency may act at all in most areas of its administration. The agency is thus deprived entirely of the flexibility and discretion we have repeatedly said administrative agencies have — because they must have it — when they exercise both rulemaking and contested-case or adjudicative-type powers: a choice to make law and policy in the course of deciding contested cases or through rulemaking, within the limits of the abuse-of-discretion norm. See, e.g., City of El Paso v. Public Util. Comm’n, 883 S.W.2d 179, 188-89 (Tex.1994); Brinkley, 986 S.W.2d at 769-70. Whether the Commission has abused its discretion in the present case, by the choice it made, is not before us. Cf. Madden v. Texas Bd. of Chiropractic Exam’rs, 663 S.W.2d 622 (Tex.App. — Austin 1983, writ ref d n.r.e.).
The ill consequences of the majority decision will affect similarly other regulatory agencies subject to the APA. Public utilities, for example, if they wish to increase their rates for electric or telecommunications services, must do so presently by initiating a contested-case proceeding. See Tex.Util.Code Ann. §§ 14.052-.057, 15.001, 36.105, 53.111 (West 1998). The fixing of utility rates in this manner is, of course, a “legislative” function under the majority’s usage and a public utility’s customers are a “class by description” in the majority’s words. Under their rationale, the resulting rate order is actually a rule in legal effect because it necessarily interprets and implements the various statutory criteria that govern utility rate making.
Which manner and scope of judicial review shall we then apply in such a case? Presently, judicial review of rate orders is limited to questions of law and directed at the agency record with the deference required by the substantial — evidence rule. See Tex.Gov’t Code Ann. §§ 2001.171-.1775 (West 2000). On the other hand, in a suit for declaratory judgment under section 2001.038, as mandated now by the majority decision, any record of agency proceedings is immaterial and the plaintiff may proceed originally in district court on any allegations of fact and law by which he contends the final order in the contested case is invalid or inapplicable — perhaps the most obvious claim being that the impugned “rule” is invalid for want of substantial compliance with the rulemaking provisions of the APA. The examples are easily multiplied.8 I do not believe the *54legislature intended such absurd confusion and utter contradiction.
I should refer briefly to “the legislative/judicial distinction” urged by the majority. That distinction is based on the word adjudicative found in the APA definition of contested case. The term contested case is defined to mean “a proceeding ... in which the legal rights, duties, or privileges of a party are to be determined by a state agency after an opportunity for adjudicative hearing.” Tex.Gov’t Code Ann. § 2001.008(1) (West 2000) (emphasis added). The majority conclude the Panhandle Field Rules cannot be the product of a contested case because they are “legislative” in nature, rather than “adjudicative” as the foregoing definition requires. I disagree with this course of reasoning.
The 1961 Model Act provision from which the definition of “contested case” is taken does not include the adjective adjudicative. The reason the Texas legislature added the adjective is not complicated; the word was not intended to have substantive consequences. The word adjudicative
was added simply to counter the criticism that the Model Act’s definition failed to distinguish sharply between the “hearing” required in a contested case and the “public hearing” required in rulemaking proceedings.... Ostensibly, the word “hearing” could apply to either type of proceeding. The Texas draftsmen added the word “adjudicative” to emphasize that a rulemaking proceeding did not become a contested case simply by virtue of the “public hearing” requirement.
Robert W. Hamilton & J.J. Jewett, III, The Administrative Procedure and Texas Register Act: Contested Cases and Judicial Review; 54 Tex. L.Rev. 285, 287 (1976) (emphasis added). The “Texas draftsmen” could not possibly have foreseen that the word adjudicative would be employed to the opposite substantive effect — to convert a contested-case or adjudicative-type proceeding into a defective and invalid rule-making proceeding as the majority have done.
While the distinction between legislative and judicial functions is occasionally useful, the distinction is meaningless in the present context. Administrative agencies perform administrative functions exercising administrative powers delegated to them by statute. It is only by analogy that we refer to the agencies’ functions as legislative or adjudicative. See Missouri, K. & T. Ry. Co. of Texas v. Shannon, 100 Tex. 379, 100 S.W. 138, 141 (1907); American Surety Co. of New York v. Mays, 157 S.W.2d 444 (Tex.Civ.App. — Waco 1941, writ ref d w.o.m.). The agency proceeding that produced the Panhandle Field rales is what the Shell Oil Company decision, the statutes, and the constitution required it to be, what the Commission intended it to be, and what the record shows it to be — a contested — case proceeding conducted under the applicable provisions of the APA. A proceeding of that kind cannot possibly produce an agency rule as that word is used in section 2001.038 of the APA.
I do not mean by the foregoing discussion to gloss over the complexities inherent in distinguishing an agency rule from an agency order, the former issuing from an exercise of the agency’s legislative-type power and the latter most often from the agency’s adjudicative-type power. These complexities are set forth elsewhere. See Aman, Jr. & and Mayton, Administrative Law, § 4.1, at 80-82; Bonfield, State Administrative Rulemaking, §§ 3.1-3.8, at 59-95; Schwartz, Administrative Laiu, § 4.2, at 145-49. A discussion of such matters is not necessary here because of *55the simple, stark theory of the majority opinion — an agency statement is always a rule, without more, if the text of the statement fits from an abstract and lexical standpoint the definition in APA section 2001.003(6).
For the reasons given, I respectfully dissent.

. I follow the lead of Justice Kidd’s concurring opinion in referring to Justice Jones’s opinion as the "majority opinion.”

. The Administrative Procedure Act is found in sections 2001.001 through 2001.902 of the Texas Government Code. See Tex.Gov't Code Ann. §§ 2001.001-.902 (West 2000). Section numbers in the text of my opinion refer to sections of the APA and the Texas Government Code.

. There is, of course, a familiar administrative-law doctrine that an agency statement of law or policy may not be legally enforceable against an affected person unless and until it is promulgated in the form of an agency rule. See, e.g., Citizens Against the Lewis and Clark (Mowery) Landfill v. Pottawattamie County. Bd. of Adjustment, 277 N.W.2d 921, 922-25 (Iowa 1979); Adams v. Prof'l Practices Comm’n, 524 P.2d 932, 934 (Okla.1974); Sun Ray Drive-in Dairy, Inc. v. Oregon Liquor Control Comm’n, 16 Or.App. 63, 517 P.2d 289, 292-93 (Or.Ct.App.1973); Mazza v. Cavicchia, 15 N.J. 498, 105 A.2d 545, 552 (N.J.1954). The majority holding and rationale seem largely to abolish this doctrine as being superfluous: No statement of law or policy, if of general applicability, is valid under the majority’s holding unless promulgated as a rule.

. The 1961 Model State Administrative Procedure Act is found in 15 Uniform Laws Annotated 147-554 (1990).

. See footnote 3, supra.

. The notice-and-comment rulemaking prescribed by the APA should not be confused with rulemaking based upon an official rule-making record.

. It goes without saying, of course, that persons affected by field rules adopted through notice-and-comment rulemaking are also deprived of the statutory rights given them in the various sections of the APA, such as the right to an evidentiary hearing in which they may present evidence and argument and respond to contrary evidence and argument (§ 2001.051); the compilation of an eviden-tiary record (§ 2001.060); the prohibition of ex parte consultations (§ 2001.061); the right of cross-examination (§ 2001.087); the right to obtain subpoenas (§ 2001.089); and the right to findings of fact and conclusions of law based solely on evidence received and matters officially noticed (§ 2001.141). See Tex.Gov’t Code Ann. §§ 2001.051, 2001.060, 2001.061, 2001.087, 2001.089, and 2001.141 (West 2000).

. See, e.g., Nueces Canyon Consol. Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Central Educ. Agency, 917 S.W.2d 773 (Tex.1996) (detachment and annexation of school-district territory); City of Lancaster v. Texas Natural Res. Conservation Comm’n, 935 S.W.2d 226 (Tex.App. — Austin 1996, writ denied) (solid-waste permit amendment); Texas Rivers Protection Ass’n v. Texas Natural Res. *54Conservation Comm’n, 910 S.W.2d 147 (Tex.App. — Austin 1995, writ denied) (water-diversion permit); City of Amarillo v. Railroad Comm’n, 894 S.W.2d 491 (Tex.App. — Austin 1995, writ denied) (natural gas rates); Texas Water Comm’n v. Lakeshore Util. Co., 877 S.W.2d 814 (Tex.App. — Austin 1994, writ denied) (water and sewer rates); Smith v. Houston Chem. Servs., Inc., 872 S.W.2d 252 (Tex.App. — Austin 1994, writ denied) (issuance of solid-waste permit).