MORGANTOWN – The House of Delegates finally approved a Senate intermediate appeals court bill. The next step will be to see if the Senate accepts the House cutting the size of the court in half.
The House Tuesday approved SB 275 in a relatively close vote, 56-44, with 21 Republicans joining the opposition.
The House trimmed the six-judge, two-district panel to a single three-judge panel serving 10-year terms. The Senate version put the court’s startup cost at about $7.9 million with annual cost thereafter of about $5.7 million. The House changes trim the startup cost to $3.6 million, with annual cost thereafter of $2.1 million.
Delegate Chad Lovejoy, D-Cabell, summarized the points of many of the opponents, pointing out the House has rejected previous bills on a bipartisan basis.
“This is a court we do not need, and we cannot afford,” he said.
Last year, the court handled 790 appeals, an all-time low. “To think we have such a crushing caseload that we need to expand the government would not be a correct statement,” he said. And its case clearance rate is at an all-time high. “The present system is working well,” Lovejoy added.
The money that will go to the court won’t go to help seniors, veterans, foster kids or roads, he said.
Much of the court’s load will be workers’ compensation appeals, and the bill replaces the Office of Judges with its institutional competence, experience and civil service protections with a group of political appointees, he said.
Finally, big businesses and insurance companies want the court because they can use that to drag out cases and exhaust the resources of regular folks and small businesses.
Delegate Tony Paynter, R-Wyoming, said they reduced the court’s size but it will grow. “Are we not the party of small government here? Or we’re just small government until the chamber of commerce calls and then we’re not.”
Supporting the bill, Delegate Trenton Barnhart, R-Pleasants, said, “It’s time we provide the people of this state a full and meaningful right to appeal.”
West Virginia is the largest of the nine states that lack an intermediate court, and it will make the state more business friendly, he added.
“Find a way to move the state forward and help everybody,” he said. “It’s another layer of justice for the people of West Virginia and businesses large and small.”
Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, stepped down to his seat on the floor to address the bill. He’s been in the House for seven years, and they’ve had an intermediate court bill every year. He’s supported some and opposed others. He’s liked some better than this one but it strikes a good balance, he said.
A lawyer by trade, he said people often focus on the court’s relationship to the Supreme Court and lose focus on the trial courts than really carry the load of litigation.
General civil litigation and family court cases get punted to the back of line in trial courts, which prioritize criminal and abuse and neglect cases. That can mean years of delays.
The intermediate court, he said, can relieve some of the trial court backlog and give civil and family court cases a fighting shot at getting resolved more quickly.
Locally, all delegates voted with their party except Guy Ward, R-Marion, who voted no.
Under the new intermediate court structure, the Workers Compensation Office of Judges, which handles workers’ compensation cases, would stop hearing cases and be terminated by September 2022; all appeals would then go directly to the workers’ compensation Board of Review and then appealed from there to the intermediate court.
The intermediate court would also handle appeals from family court; circuit court civil, guardianship and conservator cases; agency orders; and Health Care Authority certificate of need orders.
The state Supreme Court would be the next and final level of appeal. The Supreme Court would have the discretion to review or turn away intermediate court appeals.
Judges would be initially appointed by the governor to start work July 1, 2022. Then, they would be elected to staggered terms in 2024, 2026 and 2028.
The court is not designed to hear criminal case appeals but the House version gives the Supreme Court the discretion to take over that duty. Intermediate court judges, unlike other state judges, would not be permitted run for another judicial seat while in office.
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