Court Opinion

ID: 9529998
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:56:11.017192+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:58.352493
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion
DeBruler, J.
Assuming that the prohibition against judicial review of the Board’s unit determinations and representative certifications is unconstitutional as a denial of access to *512courts, in my view, the presence of that faculty provision in the Act does not render the entire Act invalid. The right to such review held within proper bounds by the courts is restricted to determining whether the agency “has acted within the scope of its powers; that substantial evidence supports the factual conclusions; and that its determination comports with the law applicable to the facts found.” Warren v. Indiana Telephone Co., (1940) 217 Ind. 93, 105, 26 N.E. 2d 399, 404. To recognize the right of these parties to access to the courts for this limited purpose, where the Act specifically authorizes them the right to seek judicial review of final orders anyway, leaves the agency structure unchanged and the administrative decision-making process unchanged and unimpeded to any appreciable degree. The statute, with all of its provisions governing structure and process, in the event we simply hold the offending prohibition inoperative, would be left in “a sensible, complete form, capable of being executed alike against all similarly situated or affected.” In Re City of Mishawaka, (1972) 259 Ind. 530, 535, 289 N.E.2d 510, 513.
To find these provisions inoperative yet declare that the balance of the Act may stand as severable would not result in this Court altering the essential public policies announced by the Legislature in the Act. We would not be substituting our own motion of the proper course for the law in this area for that of the Legislature thereby stepping beyond the bounds of judicial authority. And simply to find these prohibitions inoperative would not serve to tip the balance of power between public employer and public employee erected by the Act. The bargaining power of both is subject to being either increased or decreased by the unit determination and the representative determination, and the access to the courts is provided both on an equal basis to challenge those determinations. Upon the premises that: (1) a judicial excision of the violative prohibitions against review would have little discernible impact upon the operation of the Board and the relative bargaining power of public employer and employee left to function under the remaining statutory provisions; *513(2) excision of the violative prohibitions would not alter the underlying value judgments arrived at by the Legislature and forming the basis for the Act; (3) excision of the violative prohibitions against review would not alter the relative bargaining positions of public employer and employee — it is my judgment that the Legislature intended for the remaining provisions of this Act, that is to say all of the Act with the exceptions of the few lines containing the prohibitions against judicial review, to be severable.
I would uphold the trial court’s finding that the prohibitions against judicial review are unconstitutional, but set aside that part of the judgment voiding the entire statute.
Note. — Reported 365 N.E.2d 752.