Sandra Bastille v. Maine Public Employees Retirement System

2016 ME 124, 146 A.3d 1102, 2016 Me. LEXIS 136

• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Maine
• Decided: August 9, 2016
• Status: Published

Opinion

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT Reporter of Decisions Decision: 2016 ME 124 Docket: Yor-15-432 Submitted On Briefs: May 26, 2016 Decided: August 9, 2016

Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ.

SANDRA BASTILLE

v.

MAINE PUBLIC EMPLOYEES RETIREMENT SYSTEM

PER CURIAM

[¶1] Sandra Bastille appeals from a judgment entered in the Superior

Court (York County, O’Neil, J.) dismissing as untimely filed her petition for

review of a decision of the Board of Trustees of the Maine Public Employees

Retirement System affirming an administrative determination that Bastille

was ineligible for disability retirement benefits, and from the court’s

subsequent denial of her motion for reconsideration. Discerning no error, we

affirm the court’s final judgment.

[¶2] The Board sent its January 23, 2014, decision1 via certified mail to

legal counsel who had represented Bastille during oral argument before the

1 Although Bastille filed a motion for reconsideration with the Board, the applicable agency

rules do not authorize such a motion, and therefore the January 23, 2014, decision of the Board was final. See 12 C.M.R. 94 411 702-1 to -7 (2014) (incorporating adopted rule number 2013-296, 2

Board. The decision was mailed to the address counsel had provided—a post

office box in Winthrop. The mail was returned as unclaimed after three

delivery attempts made on January 25, February 5, and February 11, 2014,

and was then successfully faxed on February 26, 2014, and also delivered by

certified mail to counsel’s physical address on March 7, 2014.

[¶3] Twenty days later, Bastille filed an incomplete petition for review

of final agency action in the Superior Court. The clerk of court sent a notice of

incomplete filing to counsel’s office on April 1, 2014, stating that the petition

had not been docketed and that the filing deadline had not changed. See M.R.

Civ. P. 5(f). The complete petition was not filed until April 15, 2014.

[¶4] Bastille’s petition was required to be filed within thirty days after

she received notice of the decision, see 5 M.R.S. §§ 11002(3), 17451(2) (2015);

M.R. Civ. P. 80C(b). Assuming, without deciding, that the thirty days began to

run, at the latest, on March 7, 2014, when her counsel received the decision by

certified mail at his office, the complete petition was required to be filed on or

before April 7. See M.R. Civ. P. 6(a). She did not file a complete petition until

April 15, 2014—thirty-nine days after her attorney received notice of the

decision by certified mail and eighty days after the first attempted delivery of

which eliminated the authorization of motions for reconsideration of Board decisions effective December 10, 2013, as summarized in the Weekly Notices of State Rule-Making published by the Bureau of Corporations, Elections and Commissions on December 11, 2013). 3

the certified mail to the address provided by counsel. The court did not err in

dismissing the petition as untimely filed or in denying the motion for

reconsideration. See M.R. Civ. P. 7(b)(5), 59(e).

The entry is:

Judgment affirmed.

On the briefs:

Brian D. Condon, Esq., Law Office of Brian D. Condon, Winthrop, for appellant Sandra Bastille

Janet T. Mills, Attorney General, and Christopher L. Mann, Asst. Atty. Gen., Office of the Attorney General, Augusta, for appellee Maine Public Employees Retirement System

York County Superior Court docket number AP-14-13 FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY