Court Opinion

ID: 9632668
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:21:23.668357+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:20.825249
License: Public Domain

ORME, Judge
(concurring specially):
Judge Billings and I concur fully in the court’s opinion except in one limited respect. Our disagreement concerns the discussion of the nondelegability of core judicial functions as a matter of constitutional law. In our view, such discussion would be necessary only if the controlling statute and rule, by their terms, purported to vest commissioners with the power exercised by the commissioner in this case. If they did, it would become necessary to consider whether these enactments were constitutional. However, since the commissioner’s actions were not even authorized by statute or rule, we see no need to opine about the constitutional implications of such actions.1
A determination of whether this kind of authority could constitutionally be delegated to quasi-judicial officers should properly await some actual attempt at delegation of such authority. Where such delegation has not occurred, discussion about the constitutional propriety of such a scheme is dicta. *170Given the institutional proscription against reaching constitutional issues unnecessarily, we do not join in this dicta, even though it makes a good point for the consideration of the Legislature and the Judicial Council as those entities continue the on-going effort to delineate the proper role and authority of commissioners in this state’s judicial system.
BILLINGS, J., concurs.

. In footnote 8 of the main opinion, it is suggested that the constitutional issue must be decided because Judge Eves made a delegation of authority to the commissioner and, “Judge Eves derives his authority from the Utah Constitution.”
It is true that the district court is specifically recognized in the Utah Constitution as a repository of “[t]he judicial power of the state.” Utah Const, art. VIII, § 1. See also id. § 5. But essentially all of the details concerning the ways and means of exercising that power are established by statute and rule. While it is possible that the Judicial Council would have the power to establish commissioners by rule even without specific authorizing legislation, see Utah Const. art. VIII, § 12, as matters stand, commissioners are authorized by statute, with authority "as provided by this section and rules of the Judicial Council.” Utah Code Ann. § 78 — 3—31(1)(a) (1992). No statute or rule purports to vest an individual judge with the power to expand upon this carefully delineated authority.
Thus, even if it is true that Judge Eves undertook to delegate to the commissioner "ultimate judicial decision making” in this case, it is unnecessary to look to the constitution in deciding the validity of that delegation. It is enough to observe that neither the applicable statute nor any rule of the Judicial Council even arguably permits such a delegation. Such delegation, then, is contrary to state statute and contrary to Council rule. Having said so, it is simply unnecessary to comment on its constitutionality other than, perhaps, to note that the judicial power referred to in art. VIII, § 1, does not vest an individual district court judge, acting with no basis in statute or rule, to delegate to a commissioner any authority not otherwise permitted by statute or rule. But this proposition holds true across the board and is not limited to functions which are characterized as core judicial functions.