Court Opinion

ID: 9844636
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:05:50.300954+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:39.414763
License: Public Domain

KAUGER, Vice Chief Justice,
concurring in result:
I agree with the result reached by the majority opinion — that the appellants’, Sparlin and Rozelle (operators), petition for *744error was untimely filed.1 Title 12 O.S.1991 § 991(a)2 grants litigants in the district court an opportunity to file a motion for new trial and to await a ruling before the time period to file a petition in error begins to run. Section 991(a) denies parties appearing before the Corporation Commission the same procedural opportunity.
Nevertheless, the Oklahoma Constitution provides that appeals from the Corporation Commission and from the District Court will be given the same procedural treatment. The Oklahoma Constitution is this state’s highest law to which all statutes must yield.3 Art. 9, § 20 provides in pertinent part:
“From any action of the Corporation Commission ... an appeal may be taken by any party affected, or by any person deeming himself aggrieved by such action, or by the State, directly to the Supreme Court of the State of Oklahoma, in the same manner and in the same time in which appeals may be taken to the Supreme Court from the District Court ...” (Emphasis provided.)
Art. 9, § 20 specifically provides that litigants before the Corporation Commission are governed by the same rules regarding time limits as are the parties who appear in district court. A right granted by the Oklahoma Constitution may not be denied through statutory enactment.

.The last operative action by the Corporation Commission which could arguably be considered as an appealable decision occurred on December 29, 1995, when the modification order denying rehearing was mailed to the operators. The petition in error was not filed until February 15, 1996'-forty-eight (48) days after the mailing. Title 12 O.S. Supp.1994 § 990A provides in pertinent part:
"An appeal to the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, if taken, must be commenced by filing a petition in error with the Clerk of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma within thirty (30) days from the date a judgment, decree, or appealable order prepared in conformance with Section 696.3 of this title is filed with the clerk of the trial court. Where a judgment, decree, or appealable order states the matter was taken under advisement, the petition in error, if filed, must be filed within thirty (30) days from the date of mailing of a file-stamped copy of such judgment, decree, or appealable order to the appealing party
Title 52 O.S.1991 § 113 provides in pertinent part:
"... All appeals under the provisions of this act must be taken by filing in the Supreme Court a petition in error within thirty (30) days from the date on which the order, rule, regulation, judgment, decree or final action of the Commission appealed from shall have been made, rendered or taken by the Commission ...”

. Title 12 O.S.1991 § 991(a) provides:
"The right of a party to perfect an appeal from a judgment, order or decree of the trial court to the Supreme Court shall not be conditioned upon his having filed in the trial court a motion for a new trial, but in the event a motion for a new trial is filed in the trial court by a party adversely affected by the judgment, order or decree, no appeal to the Supreme Court may be taken until subsequent to the ruling by the trial court on the motion for a new trial. This provision shall not apply, however, to an appeal from an order of the Corporation Commission.”

. Hendrick v. Walters, 865 P.2d 1232, 1238 (Okla. 1993) (Authored by Opala, J.).