Court Opinion

ID: 9548252
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:00:37.290849+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:42.771367
License: Public Domain

URBIGKIT, Justice,
specially concurring.
I concur with the majority’s opinion and decision. Without constitutional amendment, however, I would not extend the authorization status of Wyo. Const. art. 5, § 14 to indirectly create another category of Wyoming judicial officers. General court commissioner responsibilities as a hearing examiner cannot be outspread, absent expansion of constitutional authorization, to include power of decisional finality within present constitutional terms. The differentiation is between adjunct fact finding and plenary judicial responsibility. Similar concerns were comprehensively considered for the federal judiciary in Northern Pipe Line Const. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U.S. 50, 102 S.Ct. 2858, 73 L.Ed.2d 598 (1982). Its precedents in function delineation is persuasive in my analysis of the limiting character of our present state constitutional provisions. Furthermore, I would not find this resolution to be inconsistent with this court’s earlier precedent in Huhn v. Quinn, 21 Wyo. 51, 128 P. 514 (1912).