Court Opinion

ID: 9734284
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:30:57.990692+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:47.622776
License: Public Domain

GARDEBRING, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. Although I agree that administrative decisions made by the executive branch of government are entitled to deference, I believe the decision in this case exalts form over substance and effectively denies persons in appellant’s position any meaningful appellate review. Contrary to the majority’s position, efficiency is not served by the harsh 60-day deadline to petition for certiorari, especially on the apparent facts1 of this case.
Historically, review by writ of certiorari is limited to looking at the legal import of the facts in the record and determining whether there was a reasonable basis for the lower tribunal’s decision. Riesenfeld, Bauman, and Maxwell, Judicial Control of Administrative Action by Means of the Extraordinary Remedies in Minnesota, 33 Minn.L.Rev. 685, 707-10 (1952). What that means is that in reviewing the quasi-judicial decisions of government agencies, courts will defer to decisions that are based on evidence in the record. But there are some serious problems with application of that principle to this case. The appellant has alleged that she had an employment contract which could be terminated only for cause. Had appellant appealed her discharge by petitioning for a writ of certiora-ri, our job would have been to look at the legal import of the facts in the record and determine whether there was a reasonable basis for the lower tribunal’s decision that appellant’s discharge was not contrary to terms of any contract she had. But we would not have been able to perform that task because the record is inadequately developed.
To engage in a proper review, this court would have needed to evaluate the facts underlying the county’s action and determine whether appellant had a contract and whether it was breached. There is no reason why our duty of deference to a coequal branch of government precludes us from deciding such questions. It is not our role to second-guess the county’s decision, so long as there is evidence in the record to support it. But at the same time, it is entirely inappropriate for us to approve of contracts being breached, whether by a government agency or anyone else.
The majority’s analysis takes deference to an unreasonable extreme. In effect, the county has been able to shield its action from meaningful review by failing to make an adequate record. We are forced to take the county’s word that there was a reasonable legal basis for its action. This abdication of our responsibility to deferentially but meaningfully review government action against an individual means we are blindly deferring to an agency that acted both as prosecutor and judge, and leaving the potentially injured individual with no remedy against the tyranny of that agency.
Under the majority’s reasoning, even if appellant had met the strict deadline for review by certiorari, we would be forced to reach the same result and uphold her discharge. That is because there would have been virtually no record for us to review, deferentially or otherwise. With the trial court record wiped out for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the county board record consists of some letters and some abbreviated minutes of board meetings.
In a sense, appellant did this court’s job for us by instituting her action in district court so that some kind of record would be *242available for appellate review. Neither this court nor the court of appeals is equipped to develop a factual record where one does not exist. That is the specialty of the trial courts.2 Under the majority’s decision, however, the choice to make an adequate record is left in the hands of a participant in the controversy. That unavoidably produces a one-sided record. That, combined with our deference for the lower tribunal, is virtually guaranteed to result in an affirmance of the tribunal’s decision. Such a process could hardly be mistaken for a meaningful review.
While the majority says its holding does not depend on Dokmo v. Independent School Dist. No. 11, 459 N.W.2d 671 (Minn.1990), that case is our most recent iteration of the notion that we will be deferential to quasi-judicial decision making of executive bodies. Dokmo rejected the notion that a hearing is necessary to create an adequate record, but said “it is the [executive body’s] obligation to make a sufficient record to prove its actions were justified.” Id. at 676 (emphasis in original). This standard of sufficiency has simply not been met here where the county/nursing home board minutes tell us about as much as would a soliloquy by Marcel Marceau.
Under today’s decision, a public body is rewarded for failing to keep detailed records of its actions. I would hold that where a public body fails to maintain detailed records of how and why it discharged an employee, the employee may elect to pursue her remedy with an action in district court. In this case, with no meaningful record available, appellant acted quite reasonably in commencing her action in district court, even if she then delayed prosecuting it. Because I also agree with the court of appeals that there are genuine issues of material fact regarding appellant’s contract claim, I would remand the case for trial.

. One of the problems in this case is that the county board appointed itself to serve as the hospital board, too. From the skimpy record before us, it is unclear whether the decision to fire appellant was made at a meeting of the county board or the nursing home board, or whether board members made any effort to keep hospital business and county business separate.

. The problem of inadequate records is likely to recur, especially since jurisdiction to hear appeals by writ of certiorari has been limited to the court of appeals and this court. Minn.R.Civ.App.P. 115, 116. At the time appellant was discharged, trial courts also had certiorari jurisdiction. The trial court in this case would have had to hold a mini-trial anyway to supplement the county board's record.