Court Opinion

ID: 9657923
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:41:16.177441+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:49.473309
License: Public Domain

McCown and Smith, JJ.,
dissenting.
The majority opinion holds that a proceeding to suspend a teacher’s certificate becomes moot on appeal when the period of suspension has elapsed and, at least in the absence of a supersedeas, justifies a denial of judicial review and a dismissal.
Any person aggrieved by a final administrative decision in a contested case is entitled to judicial review in the district court. The district court may affirm, remand, reverse, or modify the decision if the substantial rights of the petitioner may have been prejudiced. The review is a de novo proceeding and “in view of the entire record as made on review;”. See § 84-917, R. R. S. 1943.
All of the requirements for review on appeal were complied with by the plaintiff within the time and in the manner specified. A supersedeas to stay enforce*862ment is not required by the statute, but is authorized on such terms as may be deemed proper.
The result of the majority opinion now is that except where the order of the administrative agency is superseded before the period of suspension has run, judicial review provided for by the statute will be denied unless the case is heard and decided on appeal before the period of suspension ends. That result also charges the plaintiff with all responsibility for any delay in the district court between the date of filing the petition on appeal and bringing the case to hearing and decision.
Section 84-917, R. R. S. 1943, specifically gives a plaintiff 30 days in which to institute proceedings for review. It is quite obvious, as a practical matter, that the majority holding here denies judicial review of virtually any license suspension which is short in duration. Where an order of the administrative agency does not itself contain a stay of enforcement, an “aggrieved” plaintiff ordinarily would be foreclosed from supersedeas, and, consequently, from judicial review even before the statutory time required to institute the review proceedings. If it be said that the court would grant judicial review if a plaintiff had no reasonable opportunity to obtain a supersedeas before the suspension expired, then it must be conceded that the expiration of a period of suspension does not terminate the prejudice and injury, nor the right of review.
The basic assumption undergirding the majority opinion is that a plaintiff, whose license to practice his profession is suspended, is “aggrieved” or “prejudiced” only during the time the suspension is in effect. The permanent record of that suspension and its continuing effect on his name and reputation in his profession, both now and in the future, are disregarded.
In some criminal cases, courts have recognized and protected an individual’s interest in his name and reputation. In State v. Superior Court of Maricopa County, 93 Ariz. 351, 380 P. 2d 1009, the court said: “. . . the-*863law recognizes and protects an individual’s interest in his reputation and it would be absurdly inconsistent to dismiss as moot a proceeding initiated to clear one’s name of the stigma and infamy of an alleged erroneous conviction on a criminal charge.”
The majority opinion attempts to distinguish such criminal cases by stating that the present case is akin to one in which a defendant voluntarily pleads guilty. Yet this was a contested case before the administrative agency, vigorously resisted by the plaintiff who duly and regularly appealed within the time required. To reach a determination that the plaintiff pleaded “guilty”; or that he did not have just cause for a contract violation; or that he is not entitled to any relief as a matter of law, required the majority to review the transcript of evidence before the State Board of Education. That review is then used to determine that the plaintiff had no right to judicial review and that he was not prejudiced. In any event, whatever review was made by the majority ignores the statute which specifically requires a trial de novo in the district court, and that the decision on appeal be made in view of the entire record “as made on review.” Here the district court made no record on review in a trial de novo but dismissed the case as moot which judgment the majority opinion now affirms.
The question here is not a question of whether the State Board of Education was or was not correct, but it is whether or not the plaintiff is entitled to a judicial review of the action of the state board. To deny that judicial review on the ground that no one will continue to be injured after the expiration of a period of suspension of his license to pursue a particular profession is to deny that an individual’s record and reputation in a profession are of any value.
In 1896, Mr. Justice Holmes said in a criminal case: “We should be slow to suppose that the Legislature meant to take away the right to undo the disgrace and *864legal discredit of a conviction . . . merely because a wrongly convicted person has paid his fine or served his term.” See Commonwealth v. Fleckner, 167 Mass. 13, 44 N. E. 1053.
Applying that principle to the suspension of a license to practice a profession, the language may be paraphrased. We should be slow to suppose that the Legislature meant to take away the right to undo' the adverse effects upon the plaintiff now and in the future resulting from a suspension of a license to practice a profession, merely because the period of the suspension has already run.
In our view the plaintiff was aggrieved or prejudiced by the order of suspension within the meaning of section 84-917, R. R. S. 1943, sufficiently to entitle him to his day in court.