Court Opinion

ID: 9572812
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:44:52.646436+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:34:25.239134
License: Public Domain

HANSON, Justice
(dissenting).
I join in the dissent of Justice Gilbert.
HANSON, Justice (dissenting).
I join in the dissent of Justice Gilbert but write separately to state a slightly different and narrower basis for reversal. In my view, the question of whether the *294Open Meeting Law and Government Data Practices Act (OML/DPA) impermissibly intrude on the internal control and management of the University by its Board of Regents turns on the legal standing of the Regents’ Resolution Relating to Presidential Search of November 4, 2002. I conclude that at a minimum the resolution creates genuine issues of material fact on whether the application of the OML/DPA to this specific presidential search would have impermissibly intruded on the internal control and management of the University. Thus, I would reverse summary judgment and remand for a determination of those fact issues.
The Regents argue that the resolution has a legal status equivalent to a statute, and thus it creates an exception to the OML/DPA. The print media argue that the resolution has no legal importance because, as a matter of law, the application of the OML/DPA would not impermissibly intrude on the Regents’ internal control and management because it would not ultimately deprive the Regents of the power to select the president.
Between these two extremes is a third alternative, that the resolution represents an administrative determination that the application of the OML/DPA “has frustrated the ability of the Board of Regents to carry out its fiduciary responsibilities to the people of Minnesota,” and that such a determination is entitled to some deference, sufficient to make it presumptively true.1 I prefer this alternative and, because I would define impermissible intrusion to include material frustration of the Regents’ control and management functions, I would conclude that this determination establishes a prima facie case of material intrusion that would render the OML/DPA unconstitutional as applied to these specific facts. Accordingly, I would reverse the summary judgment and remand the matter to the district court to resolve the fact issues involved in the resolution — that is, would this application of the OML/DPA actually have frustrated the ability of the Regents to carry out its fiduciary duties and, if so, was that frustration so significant that it would have resulted in a material intrusion on the internal control and management of the University.

. See, e.g., No Power Line, Inc. v. Minn. Envtl. Quality Council, 262 N.W.2d 312, 325 (Minn. 1977) (reiterating that "a presumption of administrative regularity exists” with respect to administrative determinations); Reserve Mining Co. v. Herbst, 256 N.W.2d 808, 824 (Minn. 1977) (stating that "decisions of administrative agencies enjoy a presumption of correctness, and deference should be shown by courts to the agencies’ expertise.”)