Court Opinion

ID: 9557552
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 16:52:14.688374+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:05:58.679463
License: Public Domain

SUMMERS, Justice,
dissenting, and joining KAUGER, Vice Chief Justice, in part.
The Court declines to assume original jurisdiction in this dispute because it has determined that no pressing need for a prompt resolution is present, and the litigants may thus contest the matter in District Court. I respectfully disagree. I would assume original jurisdiction and decide the matter.
First, the matter is clearly one of publici juris, as it affects the State at large. State ex rel. Freeling v. Lyon, 63 Okla. 285, 165 P. 419, 420 (1917). It is true that this is insufficient, by itself, for this Court to assume original jurisdiction and address the merits of a controversy. The fact that a controversy is publici juris is not an independent grant of jurisdiction to this Court. See Wixson v. Green, 521 P.2d 817, 818 (Okla.1974), (a controversy publici juris did not create an independent grant of jurisdiction to adjudicate a matter upon the merits where that jurisdiction was to be exercised by a different agency).
Publici juris is one reason weighing in favor of assuming jurisdiction where the Court otherwise possesses jurisdiction to adjudicate the matter. It is most often invoked as one reason for excusing noncompliance with the rule of first seeking relief in the District Court. For example, in Board of Commissioners of Carter County v. Worten, 128 Okla. 104, 261 P. 553, 554 (1927) this Court gave two reasons why the usual rule requiring the petitioners to seek relief in the District Court did not apply. First, we said, because of the public importance of the questions presented, and second, because no other court possessed superintending control over the lower courts.
Another is that the parties may have confused this Court’s power to provide the appropriate remedy with whether a cause of action exists. Fashioning a remedy for a justiciable controversy is well within the historic nature of the judicial power conferred on this Court by Okla. Const. Art. 7 § 1. Ethics Commission v. Cullison, 850 P.2d 1069, 1073 (Okla.1993). Creating a cause of action casts this Court into a more activist role, and it is this role that the Governor asks us to fill today. See Hill v. Graham, 424 P.2d 35, 38 (Okla.1967) describing the creation of a cause of action as judicial legislation. Cf. Karriman v. Orthopedic Clinic, 488 P.2d 1250, 1251-1252 (Okla.1971), (court declined there to create a cause of action).
Justiciability in Oklahoma courts need not be identical to its federal counterpart. Toxic Waste Impact Group, Inc. v. Leavitt, 890 P.2d 906, 910 n. 7 (Okla.1994). However, the exercise of judicial power by this Court (jus-ticiability) must be consistent with that “judicial power” vested in this Court by Okla. Const. Art. 7 § 1, and in accordance with the historically recognized definition of “judicial power” contemplated by the framers of our Constitution. See Draper v. State, 621 P.2d 1142, 1145 (Okla.1980), where we said that construction of our Constitution is to be in accord with the intent of the framers.
At the time our Constitution was adopted this Court exercised judicial power and provided original jurisdiction relief to “the party aggrieved.” Thompson v. State ex rel. Cooksey, 25 Okla. 741, 108 P. 398, 399 (1910). At *69law the aggrieved plaintiff must have had a direct and immediate legally cognizable interest, while equity allowed additional parties who possessed remote and future interests. 3 J. Story, Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence, § 1981 (W.H. Lyon, 14th ed. 1918).
In our case today the Governor expressly disclaims the right to make any particular appointment. He states that some unnamed executive officials must make the appointments. In substance, his allegation is not that he as Governor is the aggrieved party, but that he and/or some unnamed executive officers are aggrieved. In an action seeking declaratory relief against the State the petitioner must be the party aggrieved and the controversy must be justiciable. Ethics Commission v. Cullison, 850 P.2d at 1073.
Challenging a public appointment was at one time redressable via the remedy of mandamus, and a member of the public possessed a cause of action to seek such relief. Thompson v. State ex rel. Cooksey, supra. In contemporary jurisprudence an action in the nature of quo warranto is used to challenge such an appointment. A quo warranto proceeding may be brought by the Attorney General or a District Attorney. 12 O.S.1991 § 1533. We have also recognized that rival appointees possess an interest sufficient to be adjudicated in a quo warranto proceeding. Cox v. Dawson, 911 P.2d 272 (Okla.1996); Nesbitt v. Apple, 891 P.2d 1235 (Okla.1995); Abitbol v. Priore, 797 P.2d 335 (Okla.1990). A member of the public, as such, does not possess an interest cognizable in quo warran-to to challenge an appointment. Jackson v. Freeman, 905 P.2d 217, 219 (Okla.1995).
If the Governor made an executive appointment to fill one of the positions he thinks is unconstitutionally filled by a legislative appointee, then the Governor’s appointee would possess an interest sufficient to put in issue in a quo warranto proceeding the constitutionality of the appointment process. Cox v. Dawson, supra; Nesbitt v. Apple, supra; Abitbol v. Priore, supra. What the Governor asks this Court to do is to create a cause of action to allow him, using the procedural vehicle of declaratory relief, to contest the title of the offices held by legislative appointees prior to his act of creating rival appointees.
It is certainly true that this Court may create a cause of action, and we have done so recognizing the changing conditions of society, the possibility for evolution of the common law, and the reasonable expectations of the aggrieved to redress within the framework of a traditional judicial action. Williams v. Hook, 804 P.2d 1131, 1137-1138 (Okla.1990), (loss of parental consortium); Brigance v. Velvet Dove Restaurant, Inc., 725 P.2d 300, 302-304 (Okla.1986), (dram shop action); McCormack v. Oklahoma Publishing Company, 613 P.2d 737, 740 (Okla.1980), (invasion of privacy).
What we have is a controversy between the Governor and the leadership of the Legislature, a dispute of great public concern at the very top of two branches of government. Were I writing for the Court I would recognize that the Governor, as the appointing power for many executive officers, has an interest in determining the scope of that power prior to making an appointment to an office which would result in rival claimants to that office, the other claimants being those advanced by the Legislature. I would thus create a legally cognizable interest possessed by the Governor, to be adjudicated within the context of declaratory relief in such circumstances. Having assumed original jurisdiction on that issue I would resolve the controversy as explained by Kauger, V.C.J., in her opinion, and I join that latter part of her opinion.