Before the Court En Banc. Opinion by Justice Hardesty.
In this appeal from a district court order granting a preliminary injunction, the Court considered 1) whether the City of Sparks could interfere with the Sparks Municipal Court’s control over its own personnel decisions, and 2) what, if any, influence the city may exert over the budget the city allocates to the court. The dispute arose when the Sparks City Council asked the Municipal Court to reduce the salaries of its court administrator and judicial assistant. After unsuccessful attempts to resolve the dispute via proposed amendments to the city charter, the Municipal Court filed a complaint with the district court for injunctive relief, which the district court granted, and the city subsequently appealed. With respect to the first issue, the Court examined Article 15, Section 11 of the Nevada Constitution, which permits a municipality to enact charter provisions governing the tenure and dismissal of any municipal “officer or employee.” Finding that Section 11 was ambiguous on its face, the Court looked past the plain language of the provision to the intent of the voters who approved the provision, and concluded that the provision was meant to apply only to officers, not employees. The Court then held that the city’s interference with the municipal court’s personnel decisions violated the separation of powers doctrine and infringed upon the inherent power of the judiciary to manage its internal affairs free from intrusion from any other branch of government. Regarding the second issue, however, the Court found that the parties had failed to develop the record sufficiently enough for the Court to rule. The Court reversed the district court’s ruling with respect to this issue and remanded the case for further proceedings to develop the record and determine whether any actual controversy still existed. In a separate opinion, Chief Justice Pickering concurred with the majority’s decision to reverse and remand, but dissented with respect to the majority’s decision to look past a plain reading of Section 11, which on its face clearly gives the city the authority to determine the terms of employment of the employees at issue in this case. Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. (Jeff S. Riesenmy, Associate in the Las Vegas office of McDonald Carano Wilson.)
