Court Opinion

ID: 9744557
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:06:19.38916+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:25:06.883941
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion
Hoffman, C.J.
I concur in that part of the majority opinion which holds that the motion to vacate the judgment of the Porter Superior Court for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction should be overruled.
However, I dissent from the remainder of the opinion for the reason that a final administrative hearing by the State Tax Board is not a denial of due process under the circumstances specified in the majority opinion.
The question is whether it is contrary to law for the State Tax Board to admit evidence not adduced in a hearing, thus denying objectors and petitioners the opportunity to rebut such evidence or cross-examine the party, or parties, presenting the evidence.
In referring to administrative authorities in general, Annot., 18 A. L. R. 2d 552, at 555 (1951), states that:
“As a general proposition, it is not proper for an administrative authority to base a decision of adjudicatory nature, or findings in support thereof, upon evidence or information outside the record, and in particular upon evidence obtained without the presence of and notice to the interested parties, and not made known to them prior to the decision.” (Footnotes omitted.)
However, this general rule is confined in its applicability to proceedings of an adjudicatory nature where such proceed*56ings culminate in a determination affecting legal rights of the parties.
Due process does not require the State Board to submit at the statutory hearings all the evidence upon which its final determination may be based. Douglas County v. State Board of Equalization and A. (1954), 158 Neb. 325, 63 N.W.2d 449.
In Carpenter v. State Board of Equalization and Assess. (1965), 178 Neb. 611, 134 N.W.2d 272, at 277, it was stated that “[a] wide latitude of judgment and discretion is vested in the Board.” Further, at 277 of 134 N.W.2d, it is stated that:
“The Board is not bound by the actual record of the evidence taken before it. No particular method or procedure must be followed. No particular kind or standard of evidence is required. It may act upon the knowledge of its own members as to value, on any other information satisfactory to it, and it is entitled to act upon the presumption that the abstracts of assessment returned by the various counties have conformed to the law.”
According to IC 1971, 4-22-1-2, Ind. Ann. Stat. § 63-3002 (Burns 1972 Cum. Supp.), it is apparent that the Legislature has sought to exempt the State Tax Board from the procedural requirements common to an adjudicatory authority. The State Board of Tax Commissioners was expressly excluded from complying with the Administrative Adjudication Act. This is also evidenced by the State Tax Board’s specific exclusion from the definition of “ [a] dministrative adjudication” in § 63-3002, supra, as follows:
“ ‘Administrative adjudication’ means the administrative investigation, hearing and determination of any agency of issues or cases applicable to particular persons, excluding, however, the adoption of rules and regulations; the issuance of warrants or jeopardy warrants for the collection of taxes or employment security contributions; the payment of benefits by the employment security division; the review by the state board of tax commissioners of budgets, appropriations, tax levies and bond issues; determination of eligibility and need for public assistance under the welfare laws; * * (Emphasis supplied.)
*57IC 1971, 6-1-38-6, Ind. Ann. Stat. § 64-1607 (Burns Code Edition), reads as follows:
“Hearing officers — Procedure.—When under the provisions of any statute, the state board of tax commissioners is required to conduct a hearing, a member or members of such board need not be present or preside at such hearing, but the board shall have the power to appoint, by an order in writing, hearing officers to so preside, whose duties shall be prescribed in such order. In the discharge of their duties, such hearing officers shall have all the powers granted to the board to investigate and to require evidence. The board may conduct any number of hearings contemporaneously through different hearing officers. At the conclusion of the hearing, the hearing officer shall make a written report thereof. After receipt of such report the board may take further evidence or hold further hearings. The decisions of the board shall be based upon such report, additional evidence, and records as the board deems pertinent.”
This section is almost identical to IC 1971, 4-23-5-1, Ind. Ann. Stat. § 64-1631 (Burns 1972 Cum. Supp.). These statutes provide that the State Board of Tax Commissioners may conduct several hearings at the same time on the same matter. Each of the several hearings may be conducted before a different representative. Thus, different evidence could be presented at the several contemporaneous hearings. In addition to the reports from the various hearing representatives the board may consider any additional evidence or records as it deems pertinent.
Thus, in reaching a decision the board may consider the evidence that was presented at the several contemporaneous hearings and any other additional evidence or records which were not theretofore presented.
The majority opinion relies on three cases to substantiate their position: Goldberg v. Kelly (1970), 397 U.S. 254, 25 L.Ed.2d 287, 90 S.Ct. 1011; Doran v. Board of Ed. of Western Boone Co. Com. Sch. (1972), 152 Ind. App. 250, 283 N.E.2d 385, 31 Ind. Dec. 149 (transfer denied); Monon Railroad v. Public Service Comm. of Indiana (1960), 241 Ind. 142, 170 N.E.2d 441.
*58In Goldberg v. Kelly, supra, the court was dealing with a question which concerned the private rights of an individual where it held that procedural due process was unlawfully denied. Thus, the hearing in that case was clearly of an adjudicatory nature and naturally susceptible to a finding by the Supreme Court of the United States of a lack of due process; The court there stated that, “[s]uch benefits are a matter of statutory entitlement for persons qualified to receive them. Their termination involves state action that adjudicates important rights(Emphasis supplied.) (At 261-262 of 397 U.S., at 1017 of 90 S.Ct.)
Doran v. Board of Ed. of Western Boone Co. Com. Sch., supra, involved the dismissal of a school teacher after a hearing within the terms and conditions of his contract. At 389 of 283 N.E.2d, the court said, “In our opinion, such a procedure is necessarily unfair and, therefore, not a hearing within the terms and conditions of plaintiff’s contract, and is so prejudicial to the plaintiff-appellant that he did not receive a fair hearing.” Further, at 391 of 283 N.E.2d, the court said:
“In the case at bar we are constrained to hold that the conduct and action of the School Board and its personal actions and investigations made prior to the Board’s hearing as an administrative agency was a gross abuse of discretion and, therefore, violated plaintiff-appellant’s rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and is contrary to law.”
In the instant case there is no showing that the State Board acted in bad faith or corruptly, or has grossly abused its discretion.
Monon Railroad v. Public Service Comm. of Indiana, supra, was an appeal from an adverse order of the Public Service Commission of Indiana. The Public Service Commission acts in a quasi-judicial capacity and usually in an adversary proceeding. It is required to make special findings of fact which must be based upon substantial evidence upon which its orders are based. The Monon Railroad case was an adversary quasi-judicial proceeding in which the Public Service Com*59mission failed to make specific findings of fact. The court held that in such a proceeding the Commission cannot act on its own independent information.
The statutory hearings required to be held by the State Board of Tax Commissioners are not quasi-judicial adversary proceedings. The State Board is not required to make specific findings.
The legislation which created the Public Service Commission conferred upon it different courses of procedure and different rules of decision in the performance of its function than the Legislature imposed upon the State Board of Tax Commissioners. If the Legislature had intended the State Board of Tax Commissioners to operate under the same procedure and rules as the Public Service Commission, the Acts would have been drawn in similar language. However, here we are at the opposite poles of administrative hearings.
Clearly, a blanket definition may not be attached to “administrative hearing.” Rather, there are different types of hearings which are susceptible to different rules and requirements. Although all of the cases cited in this respect in the majority opinion, together with the instant case, may fall into the broad category of administrative hearing, hearings referred to in the former can be shown to be of an adjudicatory nature while the hearing in the latter was conducted by an informal body devoid of the broader procedural powers common to adjudicatory proceedings and thus conforms more to the characteristics of a quasi-legislative body.
I would reverse the judgment of the trial court.
Note. — Reported at 294 N.E.2d 646.