Background
College Pharmacy, a Colorado corporation regulated in Virginia by the Department of Health Professions’ Board of Pharmacy, surrendered a California sterile-compounding permit in a disciplinary settlement. California also revoked its nonresident pharmacy permit, stayed the revocation, and imposed five years of probation. After learning of that proceeding, the Virginia Department suspended College Pharmacy’s Virginia registration.
College Pharmacy timely filed a notice of appeal naming the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond, but it filed its petition for appeal in the Circuit Court of Henrico County. The Department moved to dismiss because Rule 2A:4(a) requires the petition to be filed in the circuit court named in the notice. The Henrico court concluded that the mismatch deprived it of jurisdiction and dismissed the appeal.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals held that the filing mismatch did not deprive the circuit court of jurisdiction. College Pharmacy’s notice and petition were timely, and the notice adequately identified the agency decision being appealed. Naming Richmond rather than Henrico concerned venue and constituted a procedural defect that could have been corrected by amendment.
Nevertheless, the court affirmed the dismissal under the right-result-for-the-wrong-reason doctrine. Rules 2A:2 and 2A:4 required College Pharmacy to file its petition in the circuit court named in its notice of appeal. Those procedural requirements are mandatory, even when they are not jurisdictional, and College Pharmacy left the error uncorrected. Its failure to institute the appeal in the prescribed manner therefore made the appeal subject to dismissal.
Key Takeaways
- A timely administrative notice of appeal that adequately identifies the challenged case confers active jurisdiction despite a nonjurisdictional error identifying the circuit court.
- Rule 2A:4(a)’s requirement that the petition be filed in the circuit court named in the notice is mandatory, although violating it does not necessarily eliminate jurisdiction.
- An appellate court may affirm dismissal when the result is correct even though the circuit court incorrectly characterized a procedural defect as jurisdictional.
Why It Matters
The decision distinguishes jurisdictional prerequisites from mandatory procedural rules in Virginia administrative appeals. A defect may be amendable and nonjurisdictional yet still warrant dismissal if the appellant does not correct it.
Practitioners should ensure that the circuit court named in the first notice of appeal matches the court where the petition is filed and should promptly seek amendment upon discovering any mismatch.