Court Summaries
| Jurisdiction | Wyoming,United States |
| Citation | Vol. 33 No. 2 Pg. 46 |
| Pages | 46 |
| Publication year | 2010 |
Vol. 33, No. 2, 46. Court Summaries
Issue: April, 2010
The Building Code Board of Appeals of the City of Cheyenne (hereinafter "Building Board") was created by municipal ordinance. In 2008, the City of Cheyenne's Historic Preservation Board (hereinafter "Historic Board") denied permits to demolish six houses in the historic district. The homeowners appealed to the Building Board. The Building Board conducted a public contested case hearing. At the close of the hearing, the Building Board retired to deliberate in private. The Board then later convened a public meeting where the Building Board decided to affirm the denial of the demolition permits. Cheyenne Newspaper, Inc. brought suit seeking a declaration that the decision was made in private deliberations and thus null and void. The district court ruled that the deliberations did not violate the Public Meetings Act and were thus not null and void.
The applicable act is the Public Meetings Act. Wyo. Stat. § 16-4-403 (Lexis 2009). This Act provides that all meetings of the governing body shall be open to the public, with the exception of those allowed for an executive session. Wyo. Stat. §16-4-405 (Lexis 2009). The question is whether any agency's deliberations in a contested case hearing must be public or not. The clear language from these two statutes includes "deliberation." This is evidenced in the definition section of the Act wherein the term "meeting" includes "deliberation." Wyo. § 16-4-402(iii)(Lexis 2009). Consequently, "deliberations" of the Building Board needed to be held in a public meeting. The decision to affirm the denied permits was not set aside, however, because the action taken on the deliberation occurred in a public meeting.
Richard Shelest was employed by the Wyoming Department of Transportation. On June 20, 2006, he, another employee and his supervisor drove by motorcycle from Evanston to Rock Springs to attend a work-related training. Following the training, they left Rock Springs and took a longer route through Utah back home to Evanston. In route, Mr. Shelest wrecked his motorcycle. He claimed workers' compensation benefits for his injuries, which were denied. He appealed to the district court which also denied his claim. The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed those denials with Justices Hill and Kite dissenting.
The general rule in this area is that any deviation from a business trip for personal reasons takes the employee outside the scope of employment until the employee returns to the route of the business trip. Here, the motorcyclists took a less direct, more distant route home for the scenery and thus were not in the scope of employment. Therefore, there was no workers' compensation coverage.
Justice Hill and Justice Kite dissented. They would have ruled that Mr. Shelest's "choice of a longer alternative route was not so substantial as to disqualify him from benefits." According to these Justices, in a lot of practical respects, the route selected by Mr. Shelest may have been safer than along Interstate 80. The dissenters suggested that the burden shifted to the Division to show the route taken was unreasonable and unsafe.
Defendant Jason Gerald Phillip was involved in a bar fight. In the mix of the fight, he bit off a piece of the other persons ear. He was charged with aggravated assault. During the trial, the affidavit of his indigency was used to cross-examine him and he now raises that technique as violative of his constitutional rights meriting reversal of his conviction. The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed.
Prior to the altercation in the bar, Phillip had told the victim...
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