The Utah Administrative Procedures Act: Thirty-seven Years & Counting

• Publication year: 2024
• Citation: Vol. 37 No. 3 Pg. 16
• Pages: 16

The Utah Administrative Procedures Act: Thirty-Seven Years & Counting Vol. 37 No. 3 Pg. 16 Utah Bar Journal May 2024

by Brenden Catt and Bret F. Randall

Introduction

Charged with effective oversight and administration of many federal and state programs, Utah's administrative agencies play a pivotal role in modern society. In doing so, they necessarily take actions that affect important legal rights and remedies. The Utah Administrative Procedures Act (UAPA) originated in 1987 through the efforts of Attorney General David Wilkinson, Governor Scott Matheson, and the Administrative Law Committee they formed in the 1980s. Governor Matheson had three primary goals: (1) to provide optimum public access to administrative agencies; (2) to create greater uniformity among state agencies; and (3) to maintain the efficient operation of state agencies in performing their statutory functions. See Alvin Robert Thorup &Stephen G. Wood, Utah's Administrative Procedures Act: a 20-Year Perspective 22-24 (2009). These goals remain as valid today as they were in 1987. The Administrative Law Committee has long since been disbanded, and unfortunately, UAPA has received comparatively little attention for some time.

While UAPA establishes a uniform regulatory framework for state agency actions, the statute anticipates that agencies may promulgate agency-specific procedures. Every agency has benefited from this ability, and thus state agency procedures remain balkanized to some extent. Addressing agency-specific procedures is beyond the scope of this article. Rather, this article is intended to describe UAPA's default procedures and the framework it affords agencies to chart their preferred course

BRENDEN CATT is an Assistant Attorney General with the Environment Section of the Utah Attorney General's Office.

of action for adjudications. Understanding UAPA's default procedures is fundamental because each agency's approach to administrative law, however customized, eventually merges into UAPA's statutory process. Moreover, UAPA sets boundaries for the customized procedures agencies may adopt by rule. Thus, state agency procedures come in many flavors but ultimately derive from the same recipe book. This article takes a brief look through that book.

An "Agency" Under UAPA

UAPA expansively defines "agency" to include "a board, commission, department, division, officer, council, office, committee, bureau, or other administrative unit of [Utah], including the agency head, agency employees, or other persons acting on behalf of or under the authority of the agency head." Utah Code Ann. § 63G-4-103(1)(b). The term "agency" excludes "the Legislature, the courts, the governor, any political subdivision of the state, or any administrative unit of a political subdivision of the state." Id. Subject to a list of exclusions under Utah Code Section 63G-4-102(2), UAPA presumptively applies to the adjudication, judicial enforcement, and judicial review of all agency actions. See id. § 63G-4-102(1).

Agency Action Initiation &Notice

A foundational concept under UAPA is that of an agency action, which occurs whenever an agency "determines the legal rights, duties, privileges, immunities, or other legal interests of an

BRET F. RANDALL joined the Utah Attorney General's office in 2017, where his practice supports various programs at the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.

identifiable person," including an action to "grant, deny, revoke, suspend, modify, annul, withdraw, or amend an authority, right, or license." Id. § 63G-4-102(1)(a) (emphasis added). UAPA neither explicitly defines nor limits "legal interests" in scope. In this context, "legal interests" may well be broad enough to cover any legally protectable interest, whether economic, relational, or beneficial.

An agency action may be initiated by (1) the agency or (2) a third party with legal standing under the agency's rules to initiate an agency action. Id. § 63G-4-201(1)(a)-(b). By allowing agencies the latitude to grant third parties the right to initiate agency actions by rule, UAPA affords state agencies the ability to meet their needs without UAPA itself defining when and under what circumstances third parties have such a right. It appears that a key takeaway from the initiation step is that whatever an agency's rules may provide in a specific context, a "notice of agency action" and a "request for agency action" are both procedurally analogous to a civil complaint under Rule 3 of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure (URCP).

Whenever an agency initiates an action, the agency must provide written notice that meets the minimum requirements of the statute. Id. § 63G-4-201(2)(a). The notice must include the elements specified by Utah Code Section 63G-4-201(2)(a)(i)-(xi). The notice must also be delivered to the person that is the subject of the action. Id. § 63G-4-201(2)(a)(i); see also State v. Truman Mortensen Fam. Tr., 2000 UT 67, ¶ 17, 8 P.3d 266 (holding that service by certified mail is acceptable, and an agency is not required to ensure that the respondent reads or fully understands the contents of the notice). In this regard, UAPA's initiation and service steps...