Court Opinion

ID: 9650308
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:29:14.036163+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:19.805651
License: Public Domain

CAPPY, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur with the majority that the Commonwealth Court should not have reversed the Civil Service Commission. I dissent, however, from the majority’s decision to uphold the Commission’s ruling, which effectively reduces appellate review of administrative decisions to a rubber stamp. That *71result is incompatible with the Administrative Agency Law and our past decisions. Instead, the case should be remanded.
According to the majority, in an appeal from an agency decision, the reviewing court’s function ends once it finds a single, substantive item of evidence that supports the decision below. That view of the role of appellate review has been considered, and rejected, in the past.
In Universal Camera Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board, 840 U.S. 474, 71 S.Ct. 456, 95 L.Ed.2d 456 (1951), the United States Supreme Court held that under the judicial review provision of the federal Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 706, a court was required to review the entire record, including the evidence which detracted from the agency’s decision. Only when the record as a whole contained substantial evidence to support the agency decision should the court affirm. Id. This court has held that Universal Camera states the appropriate scope of review under Pennsylvania’s Administrative Agency Law. Peak v. Commonwealth, Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 509 Pa. 267, 274, 501 A.2d 1383, 1387 (1985).
The majority’s decision therefore represents a departure from precedent, and in my view an ill-advised one. If the Commonwealth Court were required to affirm an agency decision just because a single factor favored that decision, even where, as here, important countervailing evidence was not even addressed by the agency, judicial review for substantial evidence under 2 Pa. Cons.Stat. § 704 would be reduced to a rubber stamp.
Such a restrictive interpretation of the role of the reviewing court is contrary to established rules of statutory construction. Under 1 Pa. Cons.Stat. § 1922(1), it is presumed that the legislature does not intend a result that is absurd or unreasonable. In Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board v. State College Area School District, 461 Pa. 494, 337 A.2d 262, 266 (1975), this court held that interpreting the Public Employee Relations Act to provide an illusory right of collective bargaining was an absurd result. I believe that it is equally absurd to *72interpret the scope of review under § 704 so narrowly that the right to judicial review is ineffectual and illusory.
Thus, the Commonwealth Court committed no error in examining the potential significance of Gibson’s enforcement experience: to the contrary, the court was required to do so. I agree, however, that the Commonwealth Court erred by reversing the Commission. Just because the Commonwealth Court had found a single factor—additional enforcement experience—which weighed in Gibson’s favor, it was incorrect to hold that the Commission’s decision was not based on substantial evidence. See Bethenergy Mines, 531 Pa. at 293, 612 A.2d at 437 (the fact that contrary evidence exists does not mean that an administrative adjudication is not based on substantial evidence).1
Instead, the Commonwealth Court should have remanded the case to the Commission so that the enforcement experience question could be addressed. This precise issue arose in the case of Page’s Department Store v. Velardi, 464 Pa. 276, 287, 346 A.2d 556, 561 (1975). In Page’s Department Store, a Workers’ Compensation referee’s adjudication did not address why the referee had rejected the claimant’s allegation that his injuries resulted from an accident suffered at work. As in this case, the Commonwealth Court reversed. This court held that the record was insufficient for appellate review, and that the case should be remanded, stating:
When the fact finder in an administrative proceeding is required to set forth his findings in an adjudication, that adjudication must include all findings necessary to resolve the issues raised by the evidence and which are relevant to a decision. An appellate court or other reviewing body should not assume from the absence of a finding on a *73specific point that the question has been resolved in favor of the party who prevailed below, for the point may have been overlooked or the law misunderstood at the trial or hearing level.
Page’s Department Store, 464 Pa. at 287, 346 A.2d at 561.2
This case is in exactly the same posture as Page’s Department Store, and that case controls the outcome here. The Commission majority did not discuss the significance of Gibson’s enforcement experience.3 In fact the Commission stated that the only countervailing evidence to Bowman’s experience at the larger park was the minimum educational and training requirements. On remand the issue should be addressed.
The Commission’s failure to weigh the impact of Gibson’s enforcement experience is inextricably bound up with, and is one aspect of, a larger flaw. An agency opinion needs to contain sufficiently detailed findings of fact, together with a coherent legal discussion, so that the Commonwealth Court can perform a meaningful review. Any less would frustrate the legislative intent, in addition to providing agency panels with a means of nullifying the effect of legislation, because it would enable an agency to shield its decisions from review by drafting opinions in generalized and conclusory terms.4
*74The adjudication here contains too many gaps for effective review. In particular, the Commission determined that Bowman should prevail because his experience in a larger park made him the more qualified candidate. The adjudication does not explain why that experience makes a significant difference. The agency’s rationale merely recites broad, generalized phrases like “experience at a larger park” and “dealing with the public”, which provide too little information for the reviewing court to do its job.5
Absent any meaningful discussion of each candidate’s past duties as a seasonal park ranger, the degree of skill and judgment required, or the duties of a permanent park ranger, the court is left hanging. It can only determine whether Bowman’s large park experience (or Gibson’s enforcement experience) is substantial by reading the transcript, finding more information and deciding how much weight to give to particular experiences and training. Given its conclusion that there was adequate evidentiary support for the Commission’s conclusion, it seems that the majority did this.
However, as the majority correctly observes earlier in its opinion, that is not the court’s function under the Administrative Agency Law. The agency adjudication needs to make sense standing alone. Thus, while the reviewing court must still review the record for substantial evidence, the court should do so to verify that the evidence is there: it should be evident from the adjudication why particular evidence is significant. That is not the case here. Therefore I believe that the only appropriate disposition we can make in this case is to remand it to the Civil Service Commission.
CASTILLE, J., joins this concurring and dissenting opinion.

. The Commonwealth Court also erred in stating that Bowman had presented no evidence that Gibson's enforcement experience did not make her the better candidate. Bowman presented evidence of his own training and practical experience. His argument was that, taken as a whole, and compared with the sum total of Gibson's experience and training, Bowman's background made him so superior a candidate that the affirmative action plan did not apply. Bowman was not required to prove his case by disparaging every item in Gibson's resume.

. See also National Fuel Gas Distribution Corp. v. Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, 677 A.2d 861 (Pa.Commw.1996) (case remanded to agency because, inter alia, agency had failed to set forth its reasons for rejecting testimony by gas company).

. The issue was addressed by the dissenting member of the Commission, but the majority did not respond to the dissent's arguments.

. As stated in Greater Boston Television Corp. v. FCC, 444 F.2d 841, 851 (D.C.Cir.1970):
The function of the [appellate] court is to assure that the agency has given reasoned consideration to all the material facts and issues. This calls for insistence that the agency articulate with reasonable clarity its reasons for decision, and identify the significance of the crucial facts.... [T]he court must not be left to guess as to the agency’s findings or reasons.
Consequently, the Commission should draft its opinion so that the logical chain from the facts to the conclusions is complete.
See also National Fuel Gas Distribution Corp. (remanded because PUC's decision failed to indicate which arguments it found persuasive, why it rejected contrary evidence and the reasoning for the decision was insufficiently set forth).

. I recognize that the term "enforcement experience" is no more specific than the others.