Court Opinion

ID: 9763065
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:36:17.221648+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:38.879101
License: Public Domain

SHANNON, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent.
A threshold question is presented by the Commission’s motion for affirmance. The point of the Commission’s initial motion is that Purolator, as appellant, had the duty to bring forward the agency record to this Court, and because it failed to do so, the judgment should be affirmed because there is nothing presented to this Court for review.
The facts underlying the Commission’s motion for affirmance are as follows. Pu-rolator’s suit in district court was heard in February, 1982. Purolator did not request that a statement of facts be taken of that hearing, and, at that hearing, Purolator did not introduce the agency record into evidence. The district court thereafter signed the judgment sustaining the agency order.
*707Purolator filed the transcript with the Clerk of this Court on July 2, 1982. The transcript contained, among other things, pleadings of the parties in district court, orders of the court, correspondence, a certificate of payment of cash in lieu of appeal bond, a bill of costs, and the usual district clerk’s certificate. The July 2 transcript did not refer, in any manner, to the record of the proceedings before the agency.
Only after the Commission filed its initial motion for affirmance, and some fifty-three days after it filed the original transcript, Purolator filed with the Clerk of this Court the first supplemental transcript. The supplemental transcript contains the following order signed by the district judge:
It is hereby ordered that the Clerk of this Court transmit the agency record herein, Railroad Commission of Texas Transportation Docket No. 035851AIN, to the Clerk of the Court of Appeals for the Third Supreme Judicial District in its original form as a supplement to the transcript heretofore filed, pursuant to Rules 428 and 379, T.R.C.P., on said Court’s Cause No. 13,771. [Emphasis appearing in the order]
The Commission then filed its “Motion to Strike Agency Record and First Supplemental Motion for Affirmance or Dismissal,” calling upon this Court to dismiss the appeal or to affirm the district court’s judgment.
The Administrative Procedure and Texas Register Act, Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 6252-13a § 20 (Supp.1982), governs appeals to the court of appeals from judgments of the district court rendered in administrative law cases. Section 20 provides that appeals may be taken “in the manner provided for in civil actions generally.” To comply with § 20, this Court is required, accordingly, to refer to those Rules of Civil Procedure setting out the procedure for taking appeals in civil actions generally. The Rules of Civil Procedure, in general, and those Rules relating to the record on appeal, in particular, were adopted long before the concept of judicial review confined to an administrative record became law. Amendments to the Rules of Civil Procedure concerning the record on appeal, promulgated subsequent to 1976, have not addressed the matter of administrative appeals or administrative records. The Rules provide simply that the record on appeal in a civil case consists of a transcript and, where necessary to the appeal, a statement of facts. Tex.R.Civ.P. Ann. 371 (1982). It is plain that § 20 of the Act and Rule 371, taken together, require that in order for an agency record to be reviewed by an appellate court, the agency record must appear either as a part of the transcript or the statement of facts.
Purolator insists, and the majority of this Court has held, that the agency record may be brought to the appellate court as a part of the transcript and that Purolator brought the agency record to this Court in this appeal as a part of the first supplemental transcript. I do not agree that the transcript is the proper procedural vehicle for bringing up the agency record.
The transcript is a copy of the “proceedings in the trial court” which is prepared by the clerk of the trial court and is transmitted to the appellate court. Tex.R.Civ.P. Ann. 376 (Supp.1982). Rule 376 lists the documents to be included by the clerk in the transcript: pleadings, orders, the charge and the jury’s verdict, or the findings of fact and conclusions of law, bills of exception, the judgment, and so on.1 The tran*708script must be legibly duplicated, typewritten, or printed, and all the sheets upon which it is written must be securely fastened together. Tex.R.Civ.P.Ann. 376-a (1982).
A transcript is composed of documents which reflect the “proceedings in the trial court.” Tex.R.Civ.P. 376 (1982). The administrative record is not, of course, a “proceeding in the trial court,” but instead it reflects the proceedings had before an administrative agency. Furthermore, Rule 376 enumerates the documents to be included in the transcript. In my opinion, it is clear that an administrative record does not, and cannot, fit within that class of documents.2
Assuming, arguendo, that an agency record may be properly a part of the transcript, it is manifest that Purolator did not have that record made a part of the first supplemental transcript. The Rules require that the clerk of the trial court duplicate, type or print all documents to be included in the transcript and that all pages of the documents be “securely fastened” together. Tex.R.Civ.P.Ann. 376-a (Supp.1982). The agency record in this appeal, of course, was not “duplicated, typewritten or printed” and “securely fastened” together into the first supplemental transcript. Tex.R.Civ.P. Ann. 376-a (Supp.1982).
Purolator claims, and the majority has held, that Rule 379 allows the district court to order the clerk to send up the original agency record as “supplemental” to the transcript previously filed. I do not agree.
Rule 379 provides as follows:
When the trial court is of the opinion that original papers or exhibits should be inspected by the appellate court or sent to the appellate court in lieu of copies, it may make such order therefor and for the safekeeping, transportation, and return thereof as it deems proper. The order shall contain a list of such original exhibits in numerical order, with a brief identifying description of each, and, so far as practicable, all such exhibits shall be arranged in the order listed and firmly bound together. The appellate court on its own initiative may direct the clerk of the court below to send to it any original paper or exhibit for its inspection.
Until today, there has been no uncertainty as to the role of Rule 379 in the appellate process. The Rule empowers the trial court to order original papers or exhibits to be sent up when there is a need for the appellate court to inspect them or when sending up original exhibits or papers will avoid a large copying expense. The phrase “original papers or exhibits” refers to items tendered and admitted into evidence in the trial of the case and not to items that may be on file with the clerk but not admitted into evidence. Spring Branch Independent School District v. Lilly White Church, 505 S.W.2d 620, 622 (Tex.Civ.App.1973, no writ); See Gulf Oil Corporation v. Southland Royalty Company, 478 S.W.2d 583, 590-91 (Tex.Civ.App.1972) aff'd, 496 S.W.2d 547 (Tex.1973). As previously written, the agency record in this appeal was never introduced into evidence, and it, like any other item on file with the clerk but not admitted into evidence, may not be brought up pursuant to Rule 379.
*709The majority’s view, if law, may well prove disruptive to the orderly administration of appellate justice. For example, an appellant, as here, may file only a transcript without tendering the agency record in any form. Thirty days thereafter appellant will file its brief. Tex.R.Civ.P.Ann. 414 (1983). Twenty-five days later appellee is required to file its brief. Appellee, realizing that appellant has not brought up the agency record, then will prepare and file a brief praying for an affirmance upon the basis that there is no agency record from which appellant can demonstrate error by the agency or the district court. Upon receipt of appellee’s brief, if the majority’s view is correct, all the appellant is required to do is to prepare a Rule 379 order, have the trial court sign it, and then send up the record by a supplemental transcript. Obviously, the appellee will then be required to re-brief the case thereby further delaying the final disposition of the appeal.
Finally, it may be of some moment that, should the majority’s view be adopted, the appellate court will be placed in the unusual stance in our jurisprudence of being required to refer to the transcript in place of the statement of facts in its review of the evidence.
Because an agency record cannot properly be a part of the transcript, the party seeking judicial review in district court should offer, and the court should admit, the administrative record into evidence as an exhibit. Shannon and Ewbank, The Texas Administrative Procedure and Texas Register Act Since 1976—Selected Problems, 33 Baylor L.Rev. 393 (1981). The admission of the agency record into evidence is thereby reflected by the statement of facts. The appealing party, thereafter, may obtain an order from the district court pursuant to Rule 379 to send up to the appellate court the administrative record as an original exhibit. By this procedure, the administrative record is filed in the appellate court as an exhibit to a statement of facts in the manner provided for in civil cases generally as required by § 20. The appellate court is thereby assured that the record was brought to the attention of the trial court, and that the court limited its review to the record before the agency. In addition, this procedure is inexpensive since the statement of facts need not be more than a few pages and the original administrative record comes up as an original exhibit at no cost to the appealing party.3
The agency record is not properly before this Court so that we may evaluate and determine Purolator’s contentions on appeal. The agency’s final order is presumed to be valid. City of San Antonio v. Texas Water Commission, 407 S.W.2d 752 (Tex.1966). Because Purolator has failed to show error in the agency or in district court, it is the duty of this Court to affirm the judgment of the district court and I would do so. Basin, Inc. v. Railroad Commission of Texas, 613 S.W.2d 800 (Tex.Civ.App.1981, no writ).

. Rule 376 provides in part:
Upon the filing of the cost bond or deposit, the clerk of the trial court shall prepare under his hand and seal of the court and immediately transmit to the appellate court designated by the appealing party a true copy of the proceedings in the trial court, and, unless otherwise designated by agreement of the parties, shall include the following: the live pleadings upon which the trial was had; the order of the court upon any motions or exceptions as to which complaint is made, the charge of the court and the verdict of the jury, or the findings of fact and conclusions of law; bills of exception; the judgment of the court; the motion for new trial and the order of the court thereon; the notice of limitations of appeal with the date of giving or filing the same; any statement of the parties as to the matter to be included in the *708record; the bond on appeal or the certificate, affidavit, or notice in lieu of bond; a certified bill of costs, including the cost of the transcript and the statement of facts, if any, and showing any credits for payments made thereon; and any filed paper either party may designate as material.

. Appellant’s argument that the agency record is properly made a part of the transcript overlooks the fact that agency records frequently contain huge mounted photographs, maps, or charts. Is the district clerk, by some process, supposed to reduce such items to pages of “octavo size” and fasten them into the transcript? If so, many such photographs and so on would be rendered practically useless for purposes of appellate review.
I may state, upon some authority, that agency records often contain many thousands of pages and hundreds of exhibits. On occasion, such records are brought to the office of the Clerk of this Court in numerous boxes on freight dollies. Inclusion of such a record into a transcript would render the transcript too unwieldy for use by the appellate court and unspeakably expensive.

. Effective September 1, 1983, the Administrative Procedure and Texas Register Act, Tex. Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 6252-13a § 19 provides that the agency record is to be filed with the clerk of the trial court and is to be offered and admitted into evidence.