Administrative Procedures Act; judicial review; providing for timing of certain claim; requiring interpretation of statute, rule, or regulation be provided; establishing guidelines; effective date.

Updated the list of bill sponsors to include a Senator (Bergstrom) and changed the document title to reflect the House floor version.

Changed the bill title description to explicitly state that it prohibits deference to an agency's interpretation of laws.

Added a committee report section at the end of the document.

Removed the 'Committee Substitute' header and replaced it with 'As Introduced' and 'House of Representatives - Floor Version' headers.

Added Senate sponsor Bergstrom to the list of authors and updated the header to reflect the 1st Session of the 60th Legislature (2025).

Reformatted the document layout and line numbering to match Senate committee standards.

Added a new section prohibiting civil penalties in actions that would otherwise be subject to a jury trial in common law courts, with specific exceptions for equity cases and summary judgments.

Modified the accrual timeline for claims under the Administrative Procedures Act to specify that the clock starts when a plaintiff has the right to assert the claim in court.

Strengthened the de novo review standard by explicitly requiring courts to interpret statutes and rules independently and to resolve any doubts in favor of limiting agency power.

Updated the list of Senate sponsors to include 'Jett' and corrected the effective date to November 1, 2025.

Corrected a citation error in the judicial review section, changing the reference from Sections 319 through 324 to Sections 250.5 and 319 through 323.

The document structure was changed from a Senate amendment to a standalone House bill, updating the title and sponsor list to reflect the final version.

The definition of when a legal claim accrues was updated to specify that a claim arises when a properly joined plaintiff has the right to assert it in court.

New language was added to clarify that civil penalties cannot be awarded for conduct that could also be the subject of a common law lawsuit with a jury trial.

Fee recovery rules were modified to allow agencies to recover costs if a party's lawsuit is frivolous or intended to delay, and to allow aggrieved parties to recover costs if the agency's action is frivolous.

The effective date for the new provisions was set to November 1, 2025.

The bill's title and description were updated to explicitly reference the Administrative Procedures Act and clarify the relationship between agency orders and judicial review.

A new requirement was added stating that courts must interpret statutes and regulations de novo, meaning they cannot defer to an agency's interpretation and must make their own independent judgment.

A new provision prohibits civil penalties in actions against individuals or entities if the same conduct could be sued upon in a common law court where a jury trial is available.

An exception was created for civil penalty prohibitions, allowing them to apply to summary judgments and equity cases that did not previously involve a right to a jury trial.

The rules for awarding attorney fees were reversed; agencies can no longer recover fees from aggrieved parties unless the party's suit was frivolous, whereas previously aggrieved parties could recover fees if the agency's action was frivolous.

The effective date for the new civil penalty prohibition was set to November 1, 2025, while the rest of the act retains its original effective date.