Imbragulio v. UIABImbragulio v. UIAB
Upon appeal from the Superior Court. REMANDED.
Elizabeth Imbragulio, pro se, Seaford, Delaware.
Tasha Marie Stevens, Esquire, Fuqua, Willard, Stevens & Schab, P.A., Georgetown, Delaware, Counsel for Appellee/Cross-Appellee.
Daniel C. Mulveny, Esquire, Department of Justice, Wilmington, Delaware, Counsel for Cross-Appellant.
Elizabeth Imbragulio appeals the Superior Court‘s May 1, 2019 decision that reversed the decision of the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board (“the Board“) and concluded that she had been terminated for just cause by her employer, Civic Health Services, LLC (“Civic Health“). The Board cross-appeals, arguing that the Superior Court lacked jurisdiction to consider Civic Health‘s appeal in the first instance because it was not filed in a timely manner. In brief, the issue raised by the cross-appeal is whether Superior Court Civil Rule 6(a)‘s method for computing time applies to the requirement in
I
In 2018, Imbragulio was employed by Civic Health as a part-time delivery driver and cleaner. On July 23, 2018, Civic Health accused Imbragulio of soliciting customers as well as working for a competing pharmacy and warned her that doing so was in violation of company policy. Civic Health fired Imbragulio for violating this policy the following day, on July 24, 2018.
On September 4, 2018, a claims deputy concluded that Imbragulio was not entitled to unemployment benefits because Civic Health had discharged her with just cause. Imbragulio appealed the claims deputy‘s decision, and an appeals referee held a hearing on the matter on September 24, 2018.
In a written decision mailed September 25, 2018, the appeals referee overturned the claims deputy‘s decision. The appeals referee found that the evidence did not support a finding of willful or wanton misconduct on Imbragulio‘s part in light of (i) the contested facts concerning the nature and extent of Civic Health‘s warning and (ii) Civic Health‘s failure to present evidence of a company policy. After a hearing, the Board affirmed the appeals referee‘s decision in a written decision mailed on December 12, 2018. The decision noted that it would become final on December 22, 2018.
On January 7, 2019, sixteen calendar days after the Board‘s decision became final, Civic Health appealed the Board‘s decision to the Superior Court. The Superior Court found, as a matter of law, that Imbragulio‘s conduct justified her immediate termination without notice.1 Imbragulio‘s appeal to this Court and the Board‘s cross-appeal followed.
II
In her opening brief on appeal, Imbragulio claims that the evidence presented below was insufficient to support a finding that she solicited for another pharmacy or profited from any customer‘s move to another pharmacy. Civic Health argues that the Superior Court‘s judgment should be affirmed. The Board takes no position on the merits of the Superior Court‘s decision.
On cross-appeal, the Board argues that Civic Health‘s appeal was untimely because Civic Health was required to file its appeal within ten days, as provided by
In response, Civic Health contends that Superior Court Civil Rule 6(a)‘s method for computing time applies. Rule 6(a) provides, in relevant part, that “[i]n computing any period of time prescribed or allowed by these Rules, by order of court, or by statute, the day of the act, event or default after which the designated period of time begins to run shall not be included.... When the period of time prescribed or allowed is less than 11 days, intermediate Saturdays, Sundays, and other legal holidays shall be excluded in the computation.” Excluding intermediate Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays, a timely appeal—if Rule 6(a) applies—needed to be perfected on or before January 8, 2019. Civic Health argues, in the alternative, that the untimeliness of its appeal should be excused because of the manner in which it received notice of the Board‘s decision.
III
“The timely filing of an appeal is mandatory and jurisdictional.”6 Whether a court has subject matter jurisdiction is a question of law that we review de novo.7 Although the Board did not appear in the Superior Court‘s proceedings—and therefore the Superior Court did not have the opportunity
to consider this argument—a litigant may raise a court‘s lack of subject matter jurisdiction at any time in the same civil litigation, “even initially at the highest appellate instance.”8
IV
The Board cites our decision in Williams v. Singleton9 in support of its position. In Williams, we considered the timeliness of an appeal from a Justice of the Peace Court judgment. The statute conferring jurisdiction over an appeal from a judgment of a Justice of the Peace Court—at that time codified at
It is clear that if the statute governs the matter the appeal was filed too late. ... ...
Obviously, if [Rule 6(a)] supersedes the statute the appeal was filed in time.
[Appellant] contends that the rule supersedes so much of the statute as is inconsistent with it, that is, that portion of the statute which provides that the day of the judgment shall be counted as one of the appeal days. Section 9578(a), it is said, is an “applicable” statute within the meaning of the rule.
The answer to this argument is that the Superior Court Rules govern practice and procedure “with respect to the commencement, trial, hearing and determination of civil actions in the Superior Court.”
10 Del. C. § 561(a) . In such matters they supersede any conflicting statute. They are not intended to supersede statutes of the kind here involved, nor could they do so. Section 9578(a) is a jurisdictional statute governing the right of appeal from judgments recovered before a Justice of the Peace. If such a statute is not complied with the appellate court has no jurisdiction. [Citation omitted.] Since the appeal was not filed in time the Superior Court was without jurisdiction to entertain it and Rule 6(a) has no bearing upon the matter.11
Civic Health argues that our decision in Williams was narrow in scope and limited to the scenario in which the statute conferring jurisdiction contains an explicit computation component in direct conflict with Rule 6(a). In addition, Civic Health points to a number of Superior Court decisions that it claims “read the statute and rule together ... to find that it has jurisdiction over appeals that are filed in conformity with the computation [method] found in [Rule] 6(a).”12 We address these contentions in turn.
A
Although it is true that the statute conferring appellate jurisdiction on the Superior Court in Williams stated that the day of the judgment to be appealed should be counted when calculating the appeal deadline, that direction was not implicated in our determination of whether Rule 6(a) superseded the statute. Instead, our analysis was focused on whether a jurisdictional statute governing the right of appeal to the Superior Court is trumped by the Superior Court‘s rules. Recognizing that, absent compliance with the statute, the Superior Court has no jurisdiction over the matter, we concluded that the court‘s rules did not supersede the statute. To put it another way, the rules of the Superior Court do not govern its appellate practice and procedure until the court acquires jurisdiction over the appeal—an event that is contingent upon compliance with the statute conferring that jurisdiction. We fail to see how the statute‘s direction to include the day of judgment in the counting process influences this conclusion.
B
We turn now to Civic Health‘s contention that Rule 6(a)—and not
Recently, however, in Seaford Internal Medicine, LLC v. Sandoval,14 the Superior Court squarely addressed for the first time the applicability of our holding in Williams to the apparent conflict between the rule and statute. The Superior Court concluded that Williams was not controlling for various reasons, including that: (i) the specific holding in Williams was altered by a subsequent amendment to the jurisdictional statute at issue there; (ii) the Williams holding was limited to the circumstance in which a conflicting
statute “was specific in its direction as to ‘counting;‘”15 (iii) the Williams holding contradicts the language of
When considered in light of the crux of the holding in Williams—that the Superior Court‘s rules do not apply to an action over which it does not yet have jurisdiction—the court‘s reasons for sidestepping Williams are unavailing. First, the court did not explain how “[t]he specific holding in Williams was altered by subsequent statute”17 or how a subsequent revision of the statute that was under consideration in Williams would alter the legal principle that governed its application before it was revised. Second—and as previously mentioned—the specific counting provision in the jurisdictional statute applied in Williams did not bear on our analysis of whether the statute
or Rule 6(a) governed the matter; it is the Superior Court‘s lack of jurisdiction that requires its rule for counting time to give way to the statute that confers its jurisdiction. Third, the court‘s reliance in Seaford Internal Medicine on
To reiterate, the same question considered in Williams is presented here: Did
Civic Health‘s final argument is that, if its appeal is deemed to be untimely, its untimeliness should be excused by the Board‘s failure to mail a copy of its decision directly to Civic Health‘s legal counsel. But Civic Health cites no authority for its contention that the Board‘s mailing of its decision to
Civic Health, rather than to its counsel, excuses its failure to comply with
As a final matter, because we conclude the Superior Court lacked jurisdiction to consider Civic Health‘s appeal, we cannot consider the merits of Imbragulio‘s appeal.21
V
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the Superior Court was without jurisdiction to consider Civic Health‘s appeal. Accordingly, this appeal is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. We remand the matter to the Superior Court with instructions to vacate its judgment consistent with the
ruling in this opinion. In the absence of a timely appeal to the Superior Court, the decision of the Board remains final. Jurisdiction is not retained.