Court Opinion

ID: 9600530
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:28:04.675661+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:29.785578
License: Public Domain

BROWN, Justice,
dissenting, joined by RAPER, J., Ret.
I again find myself disagreeing with a majority of my brethren.
It is black letter law that orders of an administrative agency are not reviewable unless made so by statute. United States Steel Corporation v. Wyoming Environmental Quality Council, Wyo., 575 P.2d 749 (1978). Accordingly, the majority opinion discusses two different statutes in reaching its conclusion that judicial review of the order of the Rock Springs Civil Service Commission is authorized in this case.
First the majority cites § 16-3-114(a), W.S.1977, as authorizing review of a local agency’s decision in a contested case. However, I would note that § 16-3-114(a) lists *945as a prerequisite for review “the absence of any statutory or common-law provision precluding or limiting” it. The common-law rule is not to allow appeals from the decisions of statutory boards, civil service departments, or administrative agencies. Town of Windsor v. Windsor Police Department Employees Association, Inc., 154 Conn. 530, 227 A.2d 65 (1967); Wilkins v. State, Department of Public Aid, 51 Ill.2d 88,280 N.E.2d 706 (1972); Brinson v. School District # 431, 223 Kan. 465, 576 P.2d 602 (1978); Lydick v. Johns, 185 Neb. 717, 178 N.W.2d 581 (1970); Board of Education of Cleveland City School Dist. v. Cuyahoga County Board of Revision, 34 Ohio St.2d 231, 63 Op.2d 380, 298 N.E.2d 125 (1973); Firemen’s and Policemen’s Civil Service Commission of the City of Fort Worth v. Blanchard, Tex., 582 S.W.2d 778 (1979); Pasch v. Wisconsin Dept. of Revenue, 58 Wis.2d 346, 206 N.W.2d 157 (1973). Accordingly, the seemingly inescapable conclusion is that § 16-3-114(a), supra, does not authorize judicial review of a police department’s suspension of one of its officers regardless of whether the proceedings before the agency constituted a contested case.
Second, the majority finds support for judicial review in this case from §§ 15-5-112 and 15-5-113, W.S.1977. However, § 15-5-113 only authorizes review in district court of a police department civil service commission’s decision to discharge a police officer or reduce his rank or pay. In Bowen v. City of Sheridan, Wyo., 459 P.2d 204 (1969), this court held that a suspension without pay was not a reduction in pay under § 15-5-112. Since § 15-5-113 is part of the same article, it only makes sense that reduction in pay be given the same meaning. Accordingly, § 15-5-113 cannot be said to authorize review of the suspension of appellant in this case.
The majority opinion discusses the above statutes, but really says that for policy reasons judicial review is proper. The majority states that “the interests of the State of Wyoming are best served by a policy which leads to reviewability in most instances.” This is where I strongly disagree with the majority; such a policy is unwise.
Reason dictates that some minor disciplinary matters need not be subject to review. The courts of this state should not be burdened with a complaint by a police officer about his department’s reprimand or a disciplinary job assignment to a half day monitoring the dog pound. There is no reason to believe that the floodgates are being opened only to police officers. Every petty disciplinary problem occurring in all the state or local governmental agencies could conceivably be aired in district court. Clearly such an outcome is undesirable.1
Even if the majority is limiting this case only to those instances where an agency has treated the proceedings as a contested case, in the future agencies will refuse to give employees any chance to be heard. Thus, by giving more in this case, the majority will be insuring employees get less from now on.
Finally, although the majority does not reach the constitutional question appellant raises, I believe it meritless. The two-day suspension without pay clearly did not constitute an unconstitutional deprivation of a property interest. Fox v. Carr, Tex.Civ. App., 552 S.W.2d 885 (1977).
Justice Stevens, while writing for the court in Bishop v. Wood, 426 U.S. 341, 349-350, 96 S.Ct. 2074, 2080, 48 L.Ed.2d 684, 693 (1976), said:
“The federal court is not the appropriate forum in which to review the multitude of personnel decisions that are made daily by public agencies. We must accept the harsh fact that numerous individual mistakes are inevitable in the day-to-day administration of our affairs. The United States Constitution cannot feasibly be *946construed to require federal judicial review for every such error. In the absence of any claim that the public employer was motivated by a desire to curtail or to penalize the exercise of an employee’s constitutionally protected rights, we must presume that official action was regular and, if erroneous, can best be corrected in other ways. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is not a guarantee against incorrect or ill-advised personnel decisions.” (Footnote omitted.)
I would agree with his views and hold them applicable to state court as well.
For these reasons I would have affirmed.

. For many years baseball was thought to be the national pastime. I now believe it to be litigation. Some play gplf or collect stamps for recreation or as a hobby; others litigate. We have an obsession about rights and litigation that tends to strangle the courts with minutiae.