Court Opinion

ID: 9707998
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:27:05.223568+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:41.113956
License: Public Domain

O’Hara, J.
In the main we agree with Judge Brennan in his interpretation of the constitutional language providing that appeals from final orders of the Civil Rights Commission shall he tried de novo. 1
"We cannot, however, agree that whether an appellant is entitled to a trial by jury, advisory or otherwise, is dependent on the “nature of the relief sought”. We are obligated to say that such a conclusion is to us legally unsound.
Rather, we hold that trial hy jury is not available to either party under any circumstance. We so hold for the following reasons: When the constitutional convention included specifically, in the granted trial de novo on appeal, both cease and desist orders and refusals to issue complaints along with all other final orders of the commission, it evidenced conclusively the intention that the nature of the trial de novo on appeal he uniform. We cannot read that language to mean a jury trial in some instances and not in others. Indeed, there is in such construction at least a suggestion of an equal protection clause question.
It seems to us manifest that there is simply no feasible manner in which to submit to a jury the question of whether a complaint should have issued. The practical problems are virtually insurmount*540able. Tbe evidentiary questions alone would extend sucb an appeal almost to infinity. By its very nature, this is the type of proceeding best handled by a judge sitting without a jury. Since the delegates were so pointedly explicit in their language in all other respects, if “tried de novo before the circuit court” had meant trial by jury the convention would have used language expressly providing for it.
In holding that “tried de novo” means a full new evidentiary hearing before the circuit judge, we do not mean that the parties cannot, if they so choose and properly so stipulate, agree to submission of the appeal on the record made and transcribed before the commission for a complete and independent reassessment thereof by the circuit judge. It seems to us that the foregoing construction of the new constitutional provision insures at once uniformity of appellate right, and also that degree of flexibility which would not necessitate in every case a full rehearing of all the witnesses who testified in the proceedings before the commission.
Quinn, P. J., concurred.

 See Const 1963, art 5, § 29.