18. Five (5) civil appeals:
(a) Anderson Armored Car Service, Inc. v. S.C. Public Service
Commission, 366 S.E.2d 444 (S.C. App. 1988). Opinion No. 1117,
heard 11-16-87, filed 3-14-88.
(b) Welch Moving & Storage Co., Inc. v. The Public Service
Commission of S.C., 377 S.E.2d 133 (S.C. App. 1989). Opinion No.
1289, heard 12-12-88, filed 2-6-89.
(c) Welch Moving & Storage Co., Inc. v. The Public Service
Commission of S.C., 391 S.E.2d 556 (S.C. 1990). Opinion No. 23188,
heard 1-22-90, filed 4-2-90.
(d) Hilton Head Center of S.C., Inc. v. The Public Service Commission of
S.C. and Hilton Head Plantation Utilities, Inc., 362 S.E.2d 176
(S.C. 1987). Opinion No. 22793, heard 9-23-87, filed 11-9-87.
(e) Red Bus Systems, Inc. d/b/a Kannapolis Transit Co. v. S.C. Public
Service Commission, et al. Docket No. 87-CP-40-2995, Order of
Judge Kinon dated 9-17-87.
25. Occupation, business or profession other than the practice of law:
Carpenter's Helper, M&N Construction Co., 1981-1982
40. Expenditures Relating to Candidacy:
The following expenditures occurred on or about July 30, 1993:
Stationery $94.99
Postage Stamps $58.00
Mailing Labels $23.27
45. Bar Associations and Professional Organizations:
South Carolina Bar
47. During his professional development, he has worked to acquire knowledge and skill concerning administrative law practice and pertinent regulatory precepts. For example, while working at the Public Service Commission, he attended three national seminars concerning utility and transportation regulation. In addition, he sought an understanding not only of the law, but also of the subject matter involved.
In his service as staff counsel to several governmental agencies, he has sought to discharge matters assigned to him promptly. It has also been important to him to treat with respect co-workers, opposing counsel and all persons having business before or contacts with the agency.
48. Five (5) letters of recommendation:
(a) Kenneth L. Lannigan, Vice President
Merrill Lynch
P. O. Box 11269, Columbia, SC 29211
733-2152
(b) Robert T. Bockman, Esquire
McNair & Sanford, P.A.
P. O. Box 11390, Columbia, SC 29211
799-9800
(c) Sarena D. Burch, Esquire
P. O. Box 102407, Columbia, SC 29224-2407
699-3182
(d) Arthur G. Fusco, Esquire
Sherrill and Rogers, PC
P. O. Box 100200, Columbia, SC 29202-3200
771-7900
(e) Susan A. Lake, Esquire
Nexsen Pruet Jacobs & Pollard
P. O. Drawer 2426, Columbia, SC 29202
253-8257
I'm going to turn you over to Mr. Elliott for questioning.
MR. CARRUTH - EXAMINATION BY MR. ELLIOTT:
Q. Thank you. Good morning.
A. Good morning.
Q. Afternoon, I guess.
THE CHAIRMAN: Before -- let me tell you something that we have decided to do
for Administrative Law judge candidates and that's to give you the right if you
choose to give a brief opening statement about your desire to serve as an
Administrative Law judge and when I say brief, I mean brief, five minutes or
less. If you choose to do that, you may. If you choose to waive it, it won't
be held against you in any way.
A. Thank you. In that case, I'd like to waive it in the interest of economy
generally because ya'll have a lot of folks to process.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Elliott.
Q. From looking at your Personal Data Questionnaire, it looks like you have a
fair amount of experience in administrative contested case proceedings through
your work with the Public Service Commission and I see that you even served as a
hearing officer on occasion from '92 -- 1982 to 1984. However, most of your
experience is with the Public Service Commission. What do you know about the
substantive and procedure of administrative law that relates to other
agencies?
A. Well, to the extent that you can universalize because whatever your
experience has been, if it's not unlike that other places, what you learn in
specific circumstances, you can import. It's kind of hard to tell how to
articulate it except that as far as what the courts have said -- what the Court
of Appeals and what the Supreme Court have said, these matters are generally
applicable and I think everybody who keeps up with administrative law, every
practitioner is aware of what the case law is and I think it's generally
applicable as far as construction and application of the APA. And as far as the
regulations and procedural regulations of the agencies, there is a great deal of
similarity agency to agency.
The two with which I'm most familiar with, the PSCs and DHECs, and they track pretty much the general provisions of the law as are reflected
You can pick up some things and especially if you've been at this for a while
in any particular area you can intuit rather easily and rather quickly right
much from just reading a few printed words and I think first of all, I'd have
recourse to that part of the code which pertains to it. I think part of it's
recently been redone. I have glanced at that and I haven't seen anything in
there that strikes me as strange or surprises me given what my experience in
other areas has been.
Q. While you were at the Public Service Commission, and I think that was five
and a half years you were there; is that correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. I believe you said you appeared about -- approximately two times a week
before the Commission during that period of time or in court in some fashion
during that period of time?
A. (Witness nods in the affirmative).
Q. So you do have some litigation type experience?
A. (Witness nods in the affirmative).
Q. How will that benefit you as an ALJ and would it make any difference if you
did not have that?
A. I appreciate the question. Having that experience, I think it's a plus.
People have the tendency to play their trumps if they've got something they tend
to value greatly. If they don't have it, especially if a rival does have it,
they tend to denigrate it.
It's possible to look at this much the same way. People who don't have much
of it say for a position like this it's not essential and according to the
paperwork the official paperwork, it's not as a practical matter and as a
substantive matter, I think some of it helps.
You can't get away from procedure no matter what else is supposed to be
involved and substantive in the proposition and I think a familiarization with
the procedure is essential, having undergone it yourself, having dealt with all
kinds of people, having dealt before tribunals and having taken that and gone
before appellate courts and accounted for it and having some experience to make
you aware of how they view these matters, I would think is a very important
qualification, but I wouldn't set myself as any great arbitrator of how much of
it is necessary.
Q. You have some stock. What would be your ethical considerations, for example,
if you owned stock in a hospital and a question of the certificate of need for
that particular hospital came before you as an ALJ?
A. That would in my mind put forth a rather stark set of circumstances dictating
disqualification. That's -- as to that particular matter, we don't have a
delineating standard in my regard and that's a conflict that requires you to
disqualify yourself.
There is a narrow provision I think in the Judicial Canons for some sort of remittal of disqualification and I think that that can be applicable generally in the area of a financial conflict of interest if I'm not mistaken.
But what you've just described to me seems so stark that the important thing
is first the disqualification and then if you get down the road after the
disqualification, you shouldn't -- should there be a desire of the parties and
their attorney for you to go on for any reason, then the remittal procedure is
provided for in the Canons of Ethics.
Q. You're a Senate staff member. You have been, I think, since 1990 --
A. That's correct.
Q. -- if I remember correctly. If you're elected as an ALJ, what's your
responsibility if legislators seek your support in political campaigns or your
counsel in other political matters?
A. Well, the same as would be the case for any other judge and we would be
governed according to the statute by the Canons that are applicable to judicial
members and that is politics in general is verboten, strictly out of bounds.
It's just not to indicate any participation in any fashion. I would think that
if a straight up person possessed a modicum
Most cases, it can be turned away gently. If gently doesn't work, it needs
to be turned away nonetheless. There is no participation.
Q. What have you done and what do you plan to do to avoid any kind of conflict
between your public duties as a member of the staff and your efforts to become
an ALJ?
A. I have not campaigned.
Q. Well, for example --
A. Except for sending around a letter toward the end of the summer to all the
members of the General Assembly telling them who I was, in general terms what I
had done and tell them I was interested in running for ALJ. I haven't
campaigned.
Q. Well, for example, members of the Senate will come to you for -- to have
bills drafted or to seek some assistance with constituent matters, what will be
your approach to that?
A. Do my job the way I always have. I'm paid by the taxpayers to do a certain
job and the way I do the job if you'll forgive this and I hope it doesn't seem
full of presumption, but it's an important job and I take it seriously and
instead of leaving it and leaving some folks in the lurch to go do something
else like campaigning, if it got to be something for which campaigning in my
mind was in order and was required, go on annual leave, do something like that
to do that. That's one matter.
But as far as doing the job, you not only can do the job without campaigning, you should do it. You're required to do it, morally, ethically, legally without campaigning and if you do it that way, that should not present a problem not withstanding the appearance it might have to some people and what some people might read into the situation.
And in my regard it's not ethically required that somebody in a position like
mine interested in running for a position like this quit his job, but I can
envision circumstances in the race where that might be required, where it would
be required and upon reaching that bridge, I certainly would cross it in the
right direction.
Q. What criteria did you use to select your -- the cases you listed as the most
significant cases that you've personally handled that you listed on your
Personal Data Questionnaire, what criteria did you use and what do those cases
tell the Committee about you?
A. They tell what kind of cases I had over the run of years at the Commission.
I started out just taking a proportional share. There were four lawyers on the
staff and had a lot of work to do and each just took about a fourth of
everything there was out there. After a few years, we
Before that, I had done some electric cases and water and sewer cases and
some telecommunications cases, gas utility cases and what I tried to do was
choose some cases that were not particularly significant to me in that they were
unusual given the run of cases out there, but were fairly exemplary of the work
out there and illustrated the peculiarity of that work, what there is about it
that makes it different than work at DHEC or ABC or the Real Estate Commission
or anything else and illustrate some of the concepts that you deal with
there.
Q. And they're fairly representative of the kind of issues you handled at the
PSC?
A. Pretty much.
Q. As I said, the division will be up and running March 1st and you've applied
to be the chief judge of the ALJ Division. Have you given any thought to what
the rules for the administration of the division would be?
A. Yes, I have, and, frankly, because this doesn't come out of nowhere and we
have experience in this state with the APA and we have considerable
administrative experience in the state and I've been a part of some of that, I
think what I have done at the PSC and what I have known about other agencies and
the way they do things will certainly guide me. I know some expert
practitioners of administrative law.
I think there's nothing wrong with asking an expert advice on particular matters. I think that for an chief ALJ to consult with the other ALJs is not only desirable, it's essential. I think to consult to some extent with the agency personnel and the agencies will be feeders.
The statute puts the duty on the agencies to notify the ALJ Division in the event of contested cases, to establish whatever docketing system will be needed. You have to rely on what knowledge you've acquired in your experience and you also are aware that other people might know more and might be able to offer some insight and you should not be shy about asking them.
I wasn't privy to the development of it here at the General Assembly, so I
really don't know what came out during the deliberations as the different
committees treated this particular restructuring bill and except for what I can
intuit, I'm not sure in each and every case what they had in mind.
Q. I guess I'm asking is what your first day might look like on the job, what
your first week might be like? What's your --
A. Well, you're going to have to hire a clerk. It's important and you're going
to hire a clerk with some -- in my opinion, with some administrative
Everything from housekeeping to any rules of practice and procedure that may
be need to be developed, specifically apart from the statutory provisions.
Q. How would you describe your management style?
A. Consultation, collaboration. I'm not an autocrat.
Q. Have you had any experience managing people, setting up an agency, budgeting
or anything of that nature?
A. I have not done that. I have not set up an agency. I have not set up a
budget. I have managed people from time to time -- investigators, secretaries,
administrative assistants, train and supervised people from clerks, things like
that, but I have never managed any kind of organ of government.
Q. What is it that makes you especially qualified to be the chief judge of the
ALJ Division?
A. Well, I say I hope again without any presumption that if I did not feel
qualified or even well qualified for the job, I wouldn't be running for it. I
think my integrity, my ability to get along with people, my willingness to
within proper parameters accommodate people, my record as a public servant in
that regard as well as the experience I've gained at the Division of General
Services, in the Attorney General's office, at the Public Service Commission and
here at the General Assembly, frankly, for the last three years have given me
the kind of insight that to me would be greatly beneficial if not essential to
just doing the job as ALJ, let alone being the chief judge and it should help as
the chief judge as well.
Why I have valued my work here at the General Assembly is that it has given me insight into these agency concerns that, frankly, I would have had no way of developing before. Any kind of -- any consideration that would apply to the agency's regulation promulgation process is something that I am much better equipped to deal with now by virtue of my experience here than I would have been before I got here.
The issues raised by the members and by their constituents from time to time here as well as those raised by agency personnel have given me I
There are some references in the APA which are pertinent and might help perhaps, but for the most the discovery matters have depended upon what people import from civil practice frankly to the particular agency arena that might set law apart from say domestic law or criminal law or something like that and I think a knowledge of that is very important and I would rely heavily upon it.
In my experience, the rules that we have used have been derived substantially
-- you know, the various discovery devices come from requests for admission,
interrogatories, things like that, data request in the case of the Public
Service Commission. You know, matters peculiar to public utilities, things that
have to do with cost accounting rendering and things like that, you know,
subpoena duces tecum. You come bring the books, this is what we want is one
way to get at it an agency data request just requires you to bring the books.
We want you to give us the pertinent data.
Q. Have you ever been held in contempt or sanctioned by a court for any
reason?
A. No.
Q. Have you ever been the subject of a disciplinary action as a state
employee?
A. No.
Q. Have you sought directly or indirectly the pledge of a legislator in support
of your candidacy for the chief judge of the ALJ Division?
A. No, I have not.
Q. Are you aware of any other solicitation that was performed either without
your authorization or your request?
A. No, I am not.
Q. And our expenditure records show that you've spent $176.26 on your campaign.
Is that accurate as of today?
A. Yes.
Q. That's all the questions I have, Mr. Chairman.