IN RE REDMOND
No. 86A16
In the Supreme Court of North Carolina
Filed 17 March 2017
[369 N.C. 490 (2017)]
JACKSON, Justice.
IN THE MATTER OF KAY FRANCES REDMOND, BY AND THROUGH LINDA NICHOLS, ADMINISTRATRIX OF THE ESTATE OF KAY FRANCES REDMOND, CLAIM FOR COMPENSATION UNDER THE NORTH CAROLINA EUGENICS ASEXUALIZATION AND STERILIZATION COMPENSATION PROGRAM
Cоnstitutional Law—Eugenics Board compensation—Court of Appeals jurisdiction
In a matter arising from the Eugenics Board and the resulting compensation program, heard first before the Industrial Commission, the Court of Appeals had jurisdiction to consider claimant‘s constitutional challenge to
Appeal pursuant to
Joshua H. Stein, Attorney General, by Elizabeth A. Fisher, Assistant Solicitor General, and Amar Majmundar, Special Deputy Attorney General, for defendant-appellant/appellee State of North Carolina.
JACKSON, Justice.
In this case we consider whether the Nоrth Carolina Court of Appeals has jurisdiction to consider claimant‘s constitutional challenge to an act of the General Assembly on appeal from a final decision and order of the North Carolina Industrial Commission. Because we conclude that the Court of Appeals has jurisdiction to reach the merits of claimant‘s constitutional challenge, we reverse the Court of Appeals’ dismissal of claimant‘s appeal and remand this case to that court to consider the merits of claimant‘s constitutional challenge.
In 1956 claimant Kay Frances Redmond was sterilized involuntarily at the age of fourteen by order of the now-dismantled Eugenics Board of North Carolina pursuant to Chapter 224 of the Public Laws of North Carolina of 1933. See
Claimant‘s estate filed a claim pursuant tо the Compensation Program to the North Carolina Industrial Commission (the Commission); however, the claim initially was determined to be ineligible because claimant was not alive on 30 June 2013, as required by subsection 143B-426.50(1). That conclusion was upheld following an evidentiary hearing before a deputy commissioner. On appeal to the full Commission, claimant raised a constitutional сhallenge to subsection 143B-426.50(1), arguing that the requirement that a claimant be alive on 30 June 2013 violates the guarantees of equal protection and due process in
The Court of Appeals did not reach the constitutional question raised in claimant‘s appeal. In re Hughes, ___ N.C. App. ___, ___, 785 S.E.2d 111, 116 (2016).2
Eligibility for compensation pursuant to the Compensation Program is determined by the North Carolina Industrial Commission.
Although the Commission acts as a court for purposes of the Tort Claims Act and for determining eligibility of claimants pursuant to the Compensation Program, see
Similar to the limited judicial power of the Industrial Commission, the North Carolina Utilities Commission is “deemed to exercise functions judicial in nature and [to] have all the powers and jurisdiction of a court of general jurisdiction as to all subjects over which the Commission has or may hereafter be given jurisdiction by law.” Carolina Util. Customers Ass‘n, 336 N.C. at 673, 446 S.E.2d at 342 (quoting
Carolinas Med. Ctr. v. Emp‘rs & Carriers, 172 N.C. App. 549, 553, 616 S.E.2d 588, 591 (2005) (quoting Meads, 349 N.C. at 670, 509 S.E.2d at 174). In reaching this holding, the court reasoned that a party has at least two avenues to challenge the constitutionality of a statute. Id. at 553, 616 S.E.2d at 591. First, the party asserting the constitutiоnal challenge may bring “an action under the Uniform Declaratory Judgment Act, N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1-253 et seq. (2004).” Id. at 553, 616 S.E.2d at 591 (“A petition for a declaratory judgment is particularly appropriate to determine the constitutionality of a statute when the parties desire and the public need requires a speedy determination of important public interests involved therein.” (quoting Woodard v. Carteret County, 270 N.C. 55, 60, 153 S.E.2d 809, 813 (1967))). “Alternatively, pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-86 the Industrial Commission of its own motion could have certified the question of the constitutionality of the statute to this Court before making its final decision.” Id. at 553, 616 S.E.2d at 591.
Section 97-86 states: “The Industrial Commission of its own motion may certify questions of law to the Court of Appeals for decision and determination by said Court.”
In addition, the North Carolina Constitution states that “[t]he Court of Appeals shall have such appellate jurisdiction as the General Assembly may prescribe.”
“[i]n ‘double appeal’ states, including North Carolina . . ., cases involving a substantial constitutional question are appealable in the first instance to the intermediate appellate court.” State v. Colson, 274 N.C. 295, 302-03, 163 S.E.2d 376, 381 (1968), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 1087 (1969). The General Assembly has provided specifically that “appeal as of right lies directly to the Court of Appeals” from “any final order or decision of ... the North Carolina Industrial Commission.”
In its opinion below, the Court of Appeals relied on
“Where the language of a statute is clear and unambiguous, there is no room for judicial construction[,] and the courts must give [the statute] its plain and definite meaning, and are without power to interpolate, or superimpose, provisions and limitations not contained therein.” Liberty Mut. Ins. Co. v. Pennington, 356 N.C. 571, 575, 573 S.E.2d 118, 121 (2002) (alterations in original) (quoting State v. Camp, 286 N.C. 148, 152, 209 S.E.2d 754, 756 (1974)). By the plain language of subsection 1-267.1(a1), the General Assembly confined the scope of the statute to the requirements of Rule 42(b)(4). In this case claimant filed a claim with the Commission pursuant to
be heard by a three-judge panel of the Superior Court of Wake County. Therefore, subsection 1-267.1(a1) does not limit the аppellate jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals with respect to this matter.
That the Commission is not a court, but an administrative agency of the State with statutorily limited judicial authority, also makes distinguishable our prior reasoning in cases like City of Durham v. Manson, 285 N.C. 741, 743, 208 S.E.2d 662, 664 (1974) (“[I]n conformity with the well established rule of appellate courts, we will not pass upon a constitutional question unless it affirmatively appears that such question was raised and passed upon in the court below.” (italics omitted) (quoting State v. Jones, 242 N.C. 563, 564, 89 S.E.2d 129, 130 (1955))), and State v. Cumber, 280 N.C. 127, 132, 185 S.E.2d 141, 144 (1971) (“Having failed to show involvement of a substantial constitutional question which was raised and passed upon in the trial court and properly brought forward for consideration by the Court of Appeals, no legal basis exists for this appeal to the Supreme Court, and it must therefore be dismissed.“). As we have established already, the Commission has no authority to decide constitutional questions, making the rule announced in these cases inapplicable to whether the Court of Appeals may consider the constitutional question raised in this case.
Inasmuch as our prior decision in State ex rel. Commissioner of Insurance v. North Carolina Rate Bureau applied cases like Manson, Cumber, and Jones in the context of an аppeal from an administrative agency, see 300 N.C. 381, 428, 269 S.E.2d 547, 577 (1980), that case is distinguishable from the present case because it involved an appeal from the Commissioner of Insurance‘s denial of a rate increase that was subject to judicial review pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), see id. at 394-96, 269 S.E.2d at 559. Although petitions for judicial review of final agency decisions governed by the APA ordinarily are “filed in the superior court of the county where the person aggrieved by the administrative decision resides,”
[T]he Commissiоner‘s original order denying the Reinsurance Facility rate increase stated only that such rates are “unfairly discriminatory” presumably in the statutory
sense. He never held that any of the statutes or
actions were unconstitutional. In his brief, however, he does make vague assertions that it would be “constitutionally suspect” to interpret the statutes contrary to his findings and conclusions. He states, “The governing statutes should be construеd so as to avoid serious doubts as to constitutionality.”
300 N.C. at 429, 269 S.E.2d at 577.
Citing a holding by the Supreme Court of Michigan in Shavers v. Attorney General Kelley, 402 Mich. 554, 267 N.W.2d 72, cert. denied, 442 U.S. 934, 99 S. Ct. 2869 (1978), the Commissioner argued that “certain ratemaking mechanisms were constitutionally deficient in failing to provide due process.” Rate Bureau, 300 N.C. at 429, 269 S.E.2d at 578. This Court noted:
However, the Michigan court’ unquestionably based its holding on constitutional due process considerations. Indeed, the Michigan action was a declaratory judgment action specifically brought to determine the constitutionality of the Michigan No-Fault Insurance Act. The constitutional question was the basis for the action from trial court to final appellate adjudication. This is completely unlike the case before us where the record discloses no constitutional question presented or passed in the Commissioner‘s оriginal order.
Id. at 429, 269 S.E.2d at 578.
We believe that the decision regarding the issue of a constitutional challenge before this Court in Rate Bureau was incorrect. When an appeal lies directly to the Appellate Division from an administrative tribunal, in the absence of any statutory provision to the contrary, see, e.g.,
Here, the Commission necessarily deemed claimant ineligible for the Compensation Program pursuant to subsection 143B-426.50(1), as required by the General Assembly. Claimant ultimately appealed the Commission‘s decision to the Court of Appeals on the basis that denial of her claim pursuant to 143B-426.50(1) was unconstitutional—a question
of law outside the scope of the Commission‘s limited judicial authority but within the purview of the General Court of Justice. Furthermore, subsection 1-267.1(a1) does not modify the Court of Appeals’ jurisdiction to review decisions of the Commission on “matters of law or legal inference” pursuant to section 7A-26, final decisions of the Commission pursuant to section 7A-29, or final decisions of the full Commission regarding eligibility for the Compensation Program pursuant to subsection 143B-426.53(f). Consequently, we hold that claimant‘s appeal based on a constitutional challenge was properly before the Court of Appeals and that the Court of Appeals has appellate jurisdiction over claimant‘s appeal. Accordingly, we reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals and remand this case to that court to consider the merits of claimant‘s constitutional challenge to subsection 143B-426.50(1).
REVERSED AND REMANDED.