Court Opinion

ID: 9855561
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:27:19.460153+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:36:12.461592
License: Public Domain

Elliott, J.:
Intervenor Howard Schwartz, the Kansas Judicial Administrator, appeals from a trial court order ruling judicial branch employees are covered by the Public Employer-Employee Relations Act (PEERA), K.S.A. 75-4321 et seq. In doing so, the trial court reversed an order of the Public Employees Relations Board (PERB) which, in effect, held judicial branch employees beyond the pale of coverage of PEERA.
Finding no legislative intent to include judicial branch employees within the coverage of PEERA, we reverse and reinstate the order of PERB.
What was to become PEERA started in the 1969 legislature in the form of a “public employer relations” bill sponsored by the League of Kansas Municipalities. That bill failed. Eventually, PEERA was enacted in 1971, to become effective in March 1972. K.S.A. 75-4321 et seq. See generally Goetz, The Kansas Public Employer-Employee Relations Law, 28 Kan. L. Rev. 243, 243-46 (1980).
PEERA was roughly based on a model act drafted by the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. See ACIR Model “Meet and Confer” Act, reprinted in Gov’t Empl. Rel. Rep. (BNA) 51:211 (1973); Goetz, 28 Kan. L. Rev. at 245 n. 16.
*658PEERA purports to cover all public employees of a public employer (the State and its agencies) except, as here pertinent, certain professional and confidential employees. K.S.A. 75-4322.
At the time PEERA was progressing through the legislature, the pool of judicial branch employees potentially subject to its coverage was considerably less than at present. The potential pool included the research attorneys of the Supreme Court justices and commissioners; the confidential secretaries of the justices and commissioners; a few employees in the office of the reporter of decisions; and a few employees in the Supreme Court clerk’s office, the Judicial Administrator’s office, and law library. The reporter of decisions and the Supreme Court clerk are constitutional officers and are therefore not employees. See Kan. Const, art. 3, § 4.
District court employees at that time were county employees. And counties/cities had the option of choosing to come under the coverage of PEERA. See Goetz, 28 Kan. L. Rev. at 247. The Court of Appeals and its staff had not yet been created.
In determining questions of law, we are admonished to use common sense in evaluating the meaning and adequacy of written documents. See State v. Wade, 244 Kan. 136, 139, 766 P.2d 811 (1989); State v. Micheaux, 242 Kan. 192, 199, 747 P.2d 784 (1987).
Because they are lawyers, research attorneys are, according to PEERA, professional employees. K.S.A. 75-4322(d)(3). Research attorneys also prepare hearing memoranda and confer with their justices regarding issues presented on a given appeal. Usually, they are aware of the court’s rulings before the opinions are released to the public and to the parties litigant. Common sense mandates that research attorneys are also confidential employees.
The justices’/commissioners’ secretaries are also confidential employees by any common-sense definition. They type draft opinions and thus know the court’s rulings long before those opinions are released to the public and the parties litigant.
Employees in the reporter of decisions’ office, among other things, proofread opinions, validate factual and legal statements in the opinions, and validate the legitimacy of legal authorities cited in the opinions. Thus, they are aware of the court’s decisions long before those opinions are released to the public and *659the parties litigant. In fact, the reporter’s employees have seen this opinion long before its release to the public. The reporter’s employees, most of whom are lawyers, are, by common sense, confidential employees and/or professional employees.
The Supreme Court clerk’s employees are also confidential employees by any test of common sense. Opinions are delivered to the clerk’s office a day or two before being mailed to the parties litigant and before being released to the public. Those employees, therefore, have access to the court’s opinions— including this one — before they are filed of public record.
Yet we are asked to attribute to the legislature a specific intent to include within the coverage of PEERA all of the above-described judicial branch employees. KAPE argues that the only “confidential employees” specifically defined by PEERA are, essentially, those who have access to personnel files or who possess peculiar knowledge of the meet and confer process. It also urges the view that the only “professional employees” specifically excluded from coverage are professional employees of a school district. K.S.A. 75-4322(a), (c).
We are not capable of attributing such an intent to the legislative act currently before us. Granted, the Supreme Court has stated PEERA “extends to all persons employed by the State of Kansas and its agencies,” with certain exceptions. Kansas Bd. of Regents v. Pittsburg State Univ. Chap, of K-NEA, 233 Kan. 801, 803, 667 P.2d 306 (1983). The Holmesian saw, that the language of the law is no broader than the narrowest construction of its facts, is apposite. Pittsburg State simply did not involve a question of coverage of judicial branch employees.
On the other hand, Pittsburg State does contain some teachings which are of broad, general application: usually, the interpretation of a statute by an administrative agency charged with the responsibility of enforcing that statute is entitled to judicial deference. The agency’s interpretation of a challenged statute may, in fact, be entitled to controlling significance in judicial proceedings. This deference is sometimes called the doctrine of operative construction. Pittsburg State, 233 Kan. at 809. Further, if there is a rational basis for the agency’s interpretation, it should be upheld on judicial review. Pittsburg State, 233 Kan. at 810.
In the instant case, PERB, by declining jurisdiction, in effect *660interpreted PEERA to exclude coverage of judicial branch employees. Given the history of the judicial branch pool of employees potentially subject to PEERA detailed above, we conclude there is a rational basis for PERB’s “operative construction” of the act. The PERB order declining jurisdiction was entered on January 20, 1988 — long before the legislative session adjourned.
Additionally, the attorney general, in 1987, issued his opinion that judicial branch employees are not covered by PEERA. Att’y Gen. Op. No. 87-181. Attorney general opinions, of course, are not binding on the courts. E.g., Greenwood v. Estes, Savings & Loan Commissioner, 210 Kan. 655, 661, 504 P.2d 206 (1972).
Instructive, however, is the fact the legislature has failed to react to the attorney general opinion and to the PERB “operative construction” that judicial branch employees are simply not covered by PEERA. If the legislature disagrees with those interpretations of PEERA, it has had ample opportunity to respond with clarifying legislation. It has not done so.
The argument that this legislative inaction was an oversight because the PERB order is not “published” is of no legal significance. A similar argument was rejected in Pittsburg State. See the dissenting and concurring opinion of Chief Justice Schroeder: “It cannot be assumed the legislature has been made aware of the interpretation given to the Act by PERB.” 233 Kan. at 832. See also Justice McFarland’s concurring and dissenting opinion: “There is nothing in the record to indicate whether or not the balancing test has been previously utilized by PERB, let alone whether the legislature was cognizant of such usage.” 233 Kan. at 844-45.
Against these arguments, our Supreme Court found legislative inaction to be of controlling significance:
“PERB has been an active state agency since its creation by the legislature in 1971. Doubtless it has faced prior challenges as to what is or is not negotiable between public employers and public employee representatives, and [doubtless] has resolved such challenges by using the ‘significantly related’ test. If the legislature in 1977 had desired to curtail the use of such a test, or to have made clearer the restrictions on negotiability urged by appellants, it could have done so.” Pittsburg State, 233 Kan. at 818. (Emphasis added.)
In light of the legislative inaction here present, and given the fact that, at the time PEERA was being enacted, virtually all judicial branch employees were patently confidential and/or *661professional employees, we are simply unable to attribute to the legislature an intent to include those judicial employees within the coverage of PEERA.
Finding no legislative intent to include judicial employees within the coverage of PEERA, we need not address the separation of powers argument urged alternatively by intervenor, and express no opinion on that argument.
The judgment is reversed; the PERB order is reinstated.