Court Opinion

ID: 9627842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:56:51.304718+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:46:20.084257
License: Public Domain

BURNETT, Judge,
specially concurring.
I agree that the Personnel Commission’s jurisdiction, as defined in I.C. § 67-5316, does not embrace all grievances asserted by classified employees in state government. The Legislature implicitly has made this point clear by providing in I.C. § 67-5315(3), formerly I.C. § 67-5309A(3), that review by the Personnel Commission may follow the exhaustion of departmental grievance procedures “[i]f the grievance concerns a matter which is reviewable pursuant to section 67-5316, Idaho Code____” (Emphasis added.)
*894I also agree that I.C. § 67-5316(b), which refers to “failure of an appointing authority to provide a right and/or benefit to which the employee is entitled by law” does not expand the Commission’s jurisdiction to include every allegedly arbitrary personnel action. Such an interpretation would render meaningless the other, restrictive provisions of the statute. It would violate the principle that meaning and effect should be given if possible to all parts of a statute. Eg., Sampson v. Layton, 86 Idaho 453, 387 P.2d 883 (1963).
However, lack of Personnel Commission jurisdiction does not deprive state employees of a remedy beyond the departmental grievance process. It simply means that administrative remedies are exhausted at the department level. The employees then may avail themselves of a judicial forum to assert their claims that contractual or other legal rights have been abridged. The Idaho Administrative Procedure Act (APA), at I.C. § 67-5215, provides for judicial review of administrative action in a broad range of “contested cases.” The APA is displaced by the Personnel Commission statutes only to the extent of conflict. See I.C. § 67-5304(2), formerly I.C. § 67-5315; Swisher v. State Department of Environmental and Community Services, 98 Idaho 565, 569 P.2d 910 (1977). Where, as here, the Commission lacks statutory jurisdiction, no conflict exists. Review is available under the APA.
In this case, the “Notice of Appeal” filed in the district court by Stroud and Roeckner focused on the Personnel Commission’s ruling that it lacked jurisdiction. The document did not mention review of departmental action under the APA. However, it referred to the possibility of a separate civil complaint containing an “alternative assertion of ... tort and contract rights____” On remand, I would direct the district court to determine whether the “Notice of Appeal” or any separate civil complaint should have been, and therefore still could be, treated as a petition for judicial review under the APA. Cf. St. Benedict’s Hospital v. County of Twin Falls, 107 Idaho 143, 686 P.2d 88 (Ct.App.1984) (where administrative action reviewable under the APA was challenged by complaint rather than by a petition for judicial review, proper court response was to treat the complaint as a petition governed by the APA).
It might well be argued that orderly administration of the executive branch of government would be better served if employees did not seek judicial intervention immediately upon completion of the departmental grievance process. However, that is what employees must do if their grievances are not among those enumerated in the Personnel Commission’s statutory grant of jurisdiction. Whether this grant should be broadened is a question for the executive branch to consider and, in the last analysis, for the Legislature to determine.