Court Opinion

ID: 9643153
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:20:55.594096+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:56.751697
License: Public Domain

POWERS, Justice,
dissenting.
Because the appellate record contains neither the original nor a certified copy of the agency record, in a case requiring substantial-evidence review, I respectfully dissent.
Dolenz’s cause of action and requested remedy are purely creatures of statute. They are authorized by section 4.09 of the Medical Practice Act, which creates a cause *813of action for physicians, to be brought in district court, when a physician contends the Board’s disciplinary decision is legally erroneous. The district court’s review is under the substantial-evidence rule, which includes the stricture that the court’s review “is confined to the agency record” save for circumstances not material here. Administrative Procedure Act, Tex.Gov’t Code Ann. §§ 2001.174, .175 (West 1995) (“APA”).1 The majority disregard this statutory requirement and purport to exercise this Court’s power of appellate review without a copy of the agency record.
The majority apparently believe they may do so because Dolenz attached to his district-court petition a purported copy of the motion for rehearing he filed in the contested case while it was before the agency, for they recite the common-law rule that pleas to the jurisdiction are generally determinable from the plaintiffs petition alone, taking as true the plaintiffs allegations unless these are challenged by a dilatory plea. See 2 Texas Civil Practice § 9.11 (Diane M. Allen et al. eds., 1992 ed.). The copy attached to Do-lenz’s petition is neither the original nor a certified copy of the motion for rehearing so far as the appellate record indicates. In order to decide the appeal on the basis of the copy, the majority have necessarily presumed certain matters that a copy of the entire agency record would have shown: that Dolenz actually filed a timely motion for rehearing in the contested case; that the motion was overruled by operation of law as opposed to an agency order expressly doing so; that Dolenz’s petition in district court was therefore timely filed; that the copy of the motion attached to Dolenz’s petition is a true copy of the motion for rehearing he filed in the contested case; and that the motion was included in an original or certified copy of the agency record filed in the district court.2 Against these presumptions, the law interposes the long-standing rule in cases of judicial review of agency actions: nothing is presumed in favor of the reviewing court’s jurisdiction; the plaintiff who invokes the court’s jurisdiction must allege and prove affirmatively that he or she complied with each statutory step specified for the court to exercise the power of review given it by statute. Mingus v. Wadley, 115 Tex. 551, 285 S.W. 1084, 1087-89 (1926).
What then of the common-law rule that the question of jurisdiction must generally be decided by the contents of the plaintiffs petition (and presumably its attached copies of documents)? Common-law actions lie exclusively within a district court’s constitutionally delegated original general jurisdiction; thus the courts may properly and logically apply the common-law rule that subject-matter jurisdiction is presumed unless the plaintiffs petition shows affirmatively a want of jurisdiction. But this cannot be the case when the plaintiffs petition invokes the district court’s special, limited, and statutory jurisdiction to hear and determine a purely statutory cause of action and to award a purely statutory remedy outside the common law.3 *814Concerning these causes of action and remedies, the judicial department has imposed upon itself different rules in order to keep the courts -within the judicial power allotted them under the state constitution: (1) the reviewing court may act only in the manner provided by the statute creating the right and the remedy; (2) nothing is presumed in favor of the court’s jurisdiction {e.g., nothing in the plaintiffs petition, including allegations necessary to the court’s jurisdiction, may be taken as true); and (3) the plaintiff must in consequence prove affirmatively his or her compliance with each statutory step specified for the court’s exercise of its power of review {e.g., the plaintiff must prove that he or she filed in the agency proceeding a timely motion for rehearing). See Bullock v. Amoco Prod. Co., 608 S.W.2d 899, 901 (Tex.1980); Mingus, 285 S.W. at 1087-89; W.H. Arnold III, Courts — Pleading and Proof of Jurisdictional Facts, 27 Tex.L.Rev. 386-87 (1949). For want of an agency record, the proof is not before us showing the jurisdictional facts the majority have presumed to be true.
It may be that the trial court correctly dismissed Dolenz’s statutory cause of action for want of jurisdiction, even though that court gave the wrong reason for doing so. For example, it may be that Dolenz’s purported motion for rehearing was not filed in a timely maimer in the contested case. If that is true, the trial court’s dismissal for want of jurisdiction would be correct even though its stated reasons are invalid. We would then be obliged to affirm the trial-court judgment. Reiche v. Williams, 143 Tex. 365,185 S.W.2d 420 (1945). We cannot, therefore, perform properly our appellate function without the agency record.
I would therefore abate the appeal and direct that the clerk of the district court furnish us the original or certified copy of the agency record filed in the cause pursuant to APA section 2001.175(b). See Tex.R.App.P. 51(d), 55(c).
For the reasons given, I respectfully dissent.

.Judicial review "under the substantial-evidence rule” is a term of art. It refers to the scope of review allowed the reviewing court as spelled out in APA section 2001.174. It refers also to the procedures for such review as these are set out in APA section 2001.175. The latter statute is applicable here.
After receiving service of citation, the defendant agency must, within the time required for filing its answer, "send to the reviewing court the original or a certified copy of the entire record of the proceeding under review. The record shall be filed with the clerk of the court.” APA § 2001.175(b) (emphasis added). "A court shall conduct the review sitting without a jury and is confined to the agency record, except that the court may receive evidence of procedural irregularities alleged to have occurred before the agency that are not reflected in the record.” APA § 2001.1175(e) (emphasis added). One reason "for the exclusiveness of the record principle” is that it "affords reviewing courts full opportunity to evaluate the [agency] decision.” Bernard Schwartz, Administrative Law § 713, at 368 (2d ed. 1984) (emphasis added).

. Motions for rehearing are a part of the agency record. See APA § 2001.060(1).

. In cases like the present, "there is no presumption of jurisdiction” in the district court "although it is one of general jurisdiction.” Mingus, 285 S.W. at 1089. Similarly, there is no presumption of jurisdiction in our court on appellate review and we must ascertain our own jurisdiction whether or not the parties make complaint in that connection. See Williams v. State, 562 S.W.2d 889, 890 (Tex.Civ.App. — El Paso 1978, writ dism'd). And because our jurisdiction depends on whether the district court *814had subject-matter jurisdiction, we must ascertain, without the aid of any presumptions, whether that court had jurisdiction. In that connection, we look not only to the plaintiff's allegations below but to whether the agency record shows affirmatively that the district court acquired subject-matter jurisdiction. Mingus, 285 S.W. at 1089.