Court Opinion

ID: 9582148
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:23:02.00821+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:28.883855
License: Public Domain

Schroeder, C.J.,
dissenting: It is respectfully submitted the decision of the trial court should be affirmed. To hold that the legislature insisted on something less than a trial de novo is absurd.
The material portion of K.S.A. 44-1011 reads:
“The court shall hear the appeal by trial de novo with or without a jury in accordance with the provisions of K.S.A. 60-238, and the court may, in its discretion, permit any party or the commission to submit additional evidence on any issue.” (Emphasis added.)
K.S.A. 60-238(c) reads:
“Right preserved. The right of trial by jury as declared by section 5 of the bill of rights in the Kansas constitution, and as given by a statute of the state shall be preserved to the parties inviolate.” (Emphasis added.)
This right of a jury trial preserved in the foregoing statute is in the Kansas Constitution and codified in the code of civil procedure. It means a trial under the civil code with live testimony, where possible, in accordance with the Kansas Code of Evidence, also incorporated into the Kansas Code of Civil Procedure. If this is true in a trial de novo to a jury, it is also the rule in a trial de novo to the court.
The discretion given the trial court, upon hearing an appeal de novo in a civil rights matter, to permit any party or the commission to submit additional evidence on any issue, should not be construed to limit the trial on an appeal de novo in the district *320court to a reconsideration of the transcript of the record made before the commission, as the court has ruled.
The reading of a cold written record does not permit the court or a jury to determine the credibility of witnesses. When jurors in the trial of a case are instructed, they are told it is for them to determine the weight and credibility to be given the testimony of each witness. Assessing the candor and credibility of witnesses is seriously handicapped without seeing the demeanor and hearing the live testimony of the witness. The same is true where a case is tried to the court.
The foregoing interpretation of the statute cannot be altered by precatory language subsequently found in K.S.A. 44-1011, which reads:
“The commission’s copy of the testimony shall be available at all reasonable times to all parties for examination without cost, and for the purpose of judicial review of the order. The review shall be heard on the record without z'equirement of printing.”
In Stephens v. Unified School District, 218 Kan. 220, 232, 546 P.2d 197 (1975), the court said the above-quoted language in 44-1011 was “mechanical direction with a view to economy, and not a nullification of the previously granted authority to take additional evidence.” (Emphasis added.)
It could not have been the intention of the legislature to handicap the judges of our trial courts in de novo appeals in civil rights litigation by blindfolding them. Surely, if courts are to administer the law impartially and determine the cause justly, the trier of the facts must be permitted to weigh the evidence presented in the case.
The foregoing interpretation of K.S.A. 44-1011 is the only interpretation of the statute permissible if the constitutionality of the statute is to be upheld under the separation of powers doctrine. Where two interpretations of a statute are possible, the one upholding its constitutionality must be adopted. The adjudication of this case in a court of law based upon a trial which requires the determination of the facts anew is a judicial function not a legislative function. A judicial inquiry investigates, declares and enforces liabilities as they stand on present or past facts and under laws supposed already to exist.
Authority for the rule just stated is found in Stephens v. Unified School District, 218 Kan. 220, disapproving Syl. ¶ 2 and the corresponding portion of the opinion in Jenkins v. Newman *321Memorial County Hospital, 212 Kan. 92, 510 P.2d 132 (1973), and in the application of the law in Gawith v. Gage’s Plumbing & Heating Co., Inc., 206 Kan. 169, 476 P.2d 966 (1970).
The trial court in the instant case heard the matter by weighing the evidence after hearing the testimony of the witnesses who appeared in person, and after considering the record testimony of those who could not appear in person. The evidence before the trial court supported its findings, and the findings supported its judgment. In argument of this case to the court the parties conceded the testimony of the witnesses who appeared before the court was consistent with their testimony before the commission. Therefore, even under the court’s theory of the law and its interpretation of K.S.A. 44-1011, the error could not have been prejudicial, and harmless error is no ground for reversal. Accordingly, it is submitted the judgment of the trial court should be affirmed.
McFarland, J., joins in the foregoing dissenting opinion.