Court Opinion

ID: 9649096
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:42:09.300655+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:00:27.217640
License: Public Domain

Lavenski R. Smith, Justice, concurring in part; dissenting in part. I agree with the majority decision and opinion in all points save one. The majority holds that our decision in Massongill I limits appellees repayment liability to monies expended on their behalf in 1995 and 1996. The majority thus reverses the trial court ruling that a three-year statute of limitations applied. With this, I cannot agree. There are two serious problems with this holding. First, it sua sponte raises and resolves an issue on appeal not addressed by the parties. This Court has long held that issues raised for the first time on appeal will not be considered. Furman v. Holloway, 312 Ark. 378, 383, 849 S.W.2d 520, 523 (1993); Burke v. Strange, 335 Ark. 328, 983 S.W.2d 389 (1998). With the notable exception of matters involving subject-matter jurisdiction, we scrupulously adhere to that rule even where the issue is a matter of constitutional magnitude. Tabor v. State, 333 Ark. 429, 971 S.W.2d 227 (1998). For reasons the Court couches in terms of law of the case it reverses based on an unappealed trial court ruling. The majority is clearly wrong. Second, this holding strains logic. It states that Massongill I invalidated ordinance 96-3 and its predecessor 95-3 but not an earlier ordinance No. 84-15, which had authorized premium payments for all county employees. Under that ordinance, the subject quorum court members unlawfully, albeit in good faith, were paid insurance premium benefits as though they were general employees of the county. After the practice was called into question, the quorum court passed ordinance 95-3, which summarily approved the past practice and prospectively authorized it for the future by stating, in its Section 2: The Quorum Court believes a precedent has been set, and deems it necessary to continue health insurance coverage for elected constitutional officers, Quorum Court members and county employees. This language did not begin the practice of paying insurance benefits for Quorum members but merely acknowledged it. Rather than limiting liability to years including and after its enactment, it could just as readily be interpreted as extending liability backward to the 1985 ordinance. The Majority’s opinion has the effect of reducing the amount of potential repayment liability for each quorum court member — a positive end, in and of itself, given the absence of bad faith on the part of the officials, but it does so at a very high price. I, therefore, respectfully dissent. Glaze and Imber, JJ., join.