5.5 Agency Orders and Decisions

• Library: A Guide to Legal Research in Virginia (Virginia CLE) (2017 Ed.)

5.5 AGENCY ORDERS AND DECISIONS

5.501 Generally. The Commonwealth of Virginia currently does not publish an administrative law digest. Nonetheless, some agency decisions, orders, and opinions are published in bound volumes that include subject-matter indexes. Others are more difficult to locate, and the researcher may need to contact

[Page 83]

the appropriate agency for assistance or refer to the agency website.

5.502 State Corporation Commission. The State Corporation Commission (SCC) grants corporate charters, administers laws relating to corporate charters, regulates the banking and insurance industries, and regulates the services and rates of public service corporations.

The SCC prescribes its own rules of practice and procedure. ¹⁹ These rules are to be entered on the records of the Commission and furnished to city and county clerks and to any citizen applying for them. An annotated text of the current rules is also published in the supplement to Volume 15 of Michie's Jurisprudence of Virginia and West Virginia under the topic "Public Service and State Corporation Commissions" and in Virginia Rules Annotated, published annually by LexisNexis.

Under section 12.1-4 of the Virginia Code, the SCC must report annually to the Governor. The Annual Report of the State Corporation Commission of Virginia was published in print from 1903 to 2009. It is accessible at the SCC website for the years beginning in 2002 at www.scc.virginia.gov. Customary contents include SCC rules of practice and procedure, matters disposed of by formal orders, annual statistical reports by division within the SCC, and a name index for access to cases reported in each annual report. In the annual report, cases are printed in numerical order by division—Financial Institutions; Insurance; Public Service Taxation; Communications; Energy Regulation; Securities and Retail Franchising; and Utility and Railroad Safety. Since 1995, Motor Carrier Division cases have been handled by the state police and the Department of Motor Vehicles. Cases are indexed by party name but not by subject, and location of pertinent decisions is difficult.

[Page 84]

The SCC's website at www.scc.virginia.gov offers, by division, background information on the division's responsibility and includes links to forms and consumer information. The "Quick Links" on the home page provide links to case information through "Docket Search," including access to information by case number, case name, case type, or participant name. Docket Search displays the SCC's calendar of cases, documents associated with cases, case participants, and other information since April 2002. It also links to the SCC's calendar of cases that lists upcoming cases by name, subject, and case number. The calendar provides a case summary, the date of the hearing, and a statement of whether it will be heard before the full Commission or one of the hearing examiners.

If a decision has been reported in the SCC's annual report, it should be cited by case name, case number, volume of the annual report, and the page number on which the case begins (for example, S.C.C. v. Reciprocal Group, Case INS 00020, 2015 S.C.C. Ann. Rep. 74). If the decision has not been published in the Annual Report of the State Corporation Commission, it should be cited by case name, case number, and the date of the action. Selected Commission orders, hearing examiner reports, and rulings are also available online at the website listed above.

An appeal of right from an SCC decision lies directly to the Supreme Court of Virginia. ²⁰ The special rules for perfecting such an appeal are found in the Rules of the Supreme Court of Virginia, which are reprinted in Volume 11 of the Code of Virginia 1950, Annotated and in Virginia Rules Annotated (LexisNexis). ²¹

Both LexisNexis and Westlaw provide databases of State Corporation Commission decisions and Virginia public utilities reports. Current SCC corporate and limited partnership records are available in both services.

[Page 85]

Wolters Kluwer Financial Services publishes a three-volume set entitled Virginia Administrative Letters, a comprehensive collection of the administrative letters, memoranda, orders, and regulations of the SCC's Bureau of Insurance. The letters are also available in full at the SCC website, www.scc.virginia.gov/boi/laws.aspx.

Alan Brody Rashkind and R. Craig Gallagher's Virginia Insurance Case Finder is a digest of all published decisions of the Virginia Supreme Court since 1925 touching on insurance issues and the insurance portions of all published decisions construing Virginia law decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit since 1965. ²²

5.503 Workers' Compensation Commission. The Workers' Compensation Commission, formerly named the Industrial Commission, administers the Virginia Workers' Compensation Act. ²³ Rules of the Workers' Compensation Commission are found in the pamphlet to 21 Michie's Juris. Va. & W. Va. Workers' Compensation, and in Virginia Rules Annotated, published annually by LexisNexis.

The Workers' Compensation Commission published hardbound volumes of Opinions of the Workers' Compensation Commission (O.W.C.) until the year 2001. These decisions are cited in the following format: Smith v. Reynolds Metals, Inc., 71 O.W.C. 45 (1992). Decisions before publication of Volume 71 of the Opinions are cited to the Opinions of the Industrial Commission (O.I.C.). The volumes are indexed by...