Court Opinion

ID: 9634919
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:28:33.341235+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:12.812429
License: Public Domain

EMBERTON, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
As author of the initial opinion by the three-judge panel in this case, I expressed a preference for the result that an earlier panel had reached in Wilson v. Lowe’s Home Center,8 as opposed to the result we found necessary to reach. The difference lay in whether we could construe the last paragraph of the opinion in Vaezkoroni v. Domino’s Pizza, Inc.,9 to be dictum as did the court in Wilson, and thereby disregard Vaezkoroni. After a careful analysis, the panel held Vaezkoroni to be controlling authority and rendered the opinion accordingly, disregarding Wilson as appropriate authority. Because our result was directly contrary to Wilson the full court voted to consider the case en banc. In an en banc vote a majority of the court held the Wilson construction of Vaezkoroni to be correct. Thus this dissent.
The majority in its opening paragraph states the issue as being simply whether Wilson should be overruled. Although I make no argument.with Wilson insofar as its having produced an equitable result, the panel has supported its conclusion by finding the offending portion of the Vaez-koroni opinion to be dictum. Therefore, in considering this case the disagreement between the majority holding and this dissent lies squarely in the construction of Vaezkoroni.
The facts of the case, as well as the facts of cases cited, have been adequately discussed in the majority opinion, therefore it serves no purpose to reiterate them here. Vaezkoroni argued that since his claims were filed with the Lexington-Fayette County Urban Human Rights Commission, he had not made an election of remedies as provided in KRS 344.270, and consequently he was not barred from now bringing his claim in Fayette Circuit Court.
However, Fayette Circuit Court granted summary judgment to defendant Domino’s on the grounds that Vaezkoroni was barred the same as if the claim were filed with the Kentucky Human Rights Commission. The Court of Appeals affirmed *116the trial court, albeit on the doctrine of res judicata, and the Supreme Court then granted discretionary review. It held that the provisions in KRS Chapter 344 apply equally to the Kentucky Human Rights Commission and to local human rights commissions.
Throughout the majority opinion we are reminded that there is one, and only one, issue in Vaezkoroni, that being the legal relevance of KRS 344.270 to a local human rights commission. I believe such misper-ception is, in part at least, a result of the Vaezkoroni court engaging in such extensive discussion on the issue of whether a local human rights commission is the legal equivalent of the Kentucky Human Rights Commission; so much so that one loses sight that the ultimate issue before the court was whether Vaezkoroni was permitted to file his claim in the circuit court after having filed with the local human rights commission. Whether he was entitled to file in the circuit court was obviously predicated upon the court’s holding regarding the first question — that is, whát was the legal standing of the local human rights commission. Whatever that outcome may have been it was necessary for the court to address the ultimate question of whether an election of remedies had been made by Vaezkoroni’s having filed his claim with the local human rights commission. In its final paragraph the court is unequivocal in its holding that the election of remedies is made, and Vaezkoroni is barred from filing in any other forum.
The pertinent part of the concluding paragraph states:
In conclusion, we hold that KRS Chapter 344 authorizes alternative avenues of relief, one administrative and one judicial. The administrative avenue also includes alternatives; the individual may bring a complaint of discrimination before either the Ky. Commission or the local commission. Once any avenue of relief is chosen, the complainant must follow that avenue through to its final conclusion.... (Citations omitted.)
To hold that this paragraph is dictum is clear error. It is an appropriate summary of the court’s holdings on the issues before it and constitutes precedent that the Court of Appeals is compelled to follow.
The opinion in Wilson v. Lowe’s Home Center is a well-written and scholarly opinion and reaches an equitable result, but it does so by failing to heed a basic principle of law.
I think the summary paragraph of Vaez-koroni clearly addresses the questions before that court. It therefore is not dictum and should not have been considered as such by us in the Wilson case. Regrettably, it should now be overruled and Vaez-koroni followed as precedent in the case before us.
The circuit court should be affirmed with the hope that the Supreme Court will grant discretionary review and clarify the confusion.
BAKER, DYCHE, GUIDUGLI AND HUDDLESTON, JUDGES, JOIN IN THIS OPINION.

. Ky.App., 75 S.W.3d 229 (2001).

. Ky., 914 S.W.2d 341 (1995).