Taylor v. Crisp

• Decision Date: 12 March 1975
• Docket Number: No. 85,85
• Citation: 286 N.C. 488,212 S.E.2d 381
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: Rufus C. TAYLOR v. Margaret J. CRISP et al.

Page 381

212 S.E.2d 381

286 N.C. 488

Rufus C. TAYLOR v. Margaret J. CRISP et al.

No. 85.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

March 12, 1975.

Adams, Hendon & Carson, Herbert L. Hyde and Philip G. Carson, Asheville, for plaintiff appellant.

Coward, Coward, Jones & Dillard by Roger L. Dillard, Jr., Sylvia, for defendants appellees.

SHARP, Chief Justice:

Prior to 1 July 1972 a teacher's contract continued from year to year unless, before the close of the current school year, the superintendent notified the teacher by registered mail of its termination. G.S. § 115--142 (1967 Cum.Supp. to N.C.Gen.Stats., Vol. 3A (1966)). This statute did 'not limit the right of the employer board to terminate the employment of a teacher at the end of a school year to a specified cause or circumstance.' Nor did it require the board to notify the teacher of the reason for the termination of his employment or to permit the teacher to appear before the board and be heard. Still v. Lance, 279 N.C. 254, 260, 182 S.E.2d 403, 407 (1971). Dismissals during the school year for cause were governed by G.S. § 115--67 and G.S. § 115--145 (1966).

By N.C.Sess.Laws, Ch. 883 (1971), effective 1 July 1972 (hereinafter referred to as the Act), the General Assembly rewrote G.S. § 115--142. Thus, the Board's right to dismiss plaintiff at the end of the school year 1972--1973 by refusing to renew his contract as principal of the Bryson City Elementary School for the year 1973--1974 is governed by the Act. As rewritten, the Act appears in codification form in the Editor's Note to G.S. § 115--142 in the 1971 Cumulative Supplement to N.C.Gen.Stats., Vol. 3A (1966).

Pertinent provisions of the Act (cited as sections of G.S. § 115--142 as codified in the 1971 Cumulative Supplement) are quoted or summarized below:

§ (a)(3) "Career teacher' means any teacher who has been regularly employed by a public school system for a period of not less than three successive years and who has been reemployed by a majority vote of the board of such public school system for the next succeeding school year.'

§ (a)(6) "Probationary teacher' means any teacher employed by a public school system who is not a career teacher.'

§ (c) 'Election of Career Teachers.--After a teacher has been employed by the same public school system in this State for a period of three consecutive years, the board of that system is required to vote upon that teacher's employment for the next succeeding year. If a majority of the board votes to reemploy the teacher, he or she becomes a career teacher. If a majority of the board votes against reemployment of the teacher, the teacher remains a probationary teacher whose rights are set forth in G.S. 115--142(m)(2). If the board fails to vote, but reemploys the teacher for the next successive year, then the teacher automatically becomes a career teacher. All teachers employed by a public school system of this State at the time this section takes effect who, at the end of the last school year, will either have been employed by that school system (or a successor system if the system has been consolidated) for a total of four consecutive years or will have been employed by a public school system of this State for a total of five consecutive years shall automatically be career teachers If employed for a second year following (July 1, 1972). All other teachers employed by a public school system of this State (on July 1, 1972), shall be probationary teachers.' (Emphasis added.)

Section (m) deals with the discharge and dismissal of probationary teachers:

' § (m)(1) The board of any public school system may not discharge a probationary teacher during the school year except for the reasons for and by the procedures by which a career teacher may be dismissed as set forth in subsections (e) and (h)(1) . . .

' § (m)(2) The board, Upon recommendation of the superintendent, may refuse to renew the contract of any probationary teacher or to reemploy any teacher who is not under contract For any cause it deems sufficient; provided, however, that the cause may not be arbitrary, capricious, discriminatory or for personal or political reasons.' (Emphasis added.)

Once a teacher attains the status of 'career teacher' he is no longer 'subject to the requirement of annual appointment nor shall he or she be dismissed, demoted, or employed on a part-time basis without his or her consent except as provided in subsection (e).' § (d)(1).

Sections (e), (h), (i), (j), (k) and (l) detail the grounds and procedures for the dismissal or demotion of a career teacher.

Section (h)(1) provides: 'A board may dismiss or demote a career teacher Only upon the recommendation of the superintendent.' (Emphasis added.)

The parties stipulated that from 1 July 1972 through 30 June 1973 plaintiff was 'no less than a probationary teacher,' and Section (c) makes it quite clear that he was a probationary teacher. At the end of the school year 1971--72 on June 30, 1972, plaintiff had been employed by the Board for six years. Notwithstanding, he did not automatically become a career teacher on 1 July 1972, the effective date of the Act. Since he was reemployed for the year 1972--73, however, the first school year after the Act went into effect, had he been reemployed for the second school year thereafter (1973--74) he would have become a career teacher on 1 July 1973. Although Section (c) of the Act made this clear enough, the General Assembly 'spelled it out' in N.C.Sess.Laws, Ch. 782, § 8 (1973) when it again rewrote G.S. § 115--142(c) (codified in the 1973 Cum.Supp. to N.C.Gen.Stats., Vol. 3A). Rewritten G.S. § 115--142(c) (1973) provides, Inter alia: '(1) Status of Teachers Employed on July 1, 1972. No teacher may become a career teacher before July 1, 1973 . . .'

Plaintiff contends that, under Section (m)(2), the Board could not refuse to renew the contract of any probationary teacher whom the superintendent had recommended for reemployment; that since the superintendent had recommended the renewal of plaintiff's contract, defendants had no discretion in the matter. The trial judge adopted this view.

The Board's thesis is: After a teacher has served three consecutive years in its system Section (c) Requires it to vote upon his reemployment for the fourth year and, if a majority of the Board votes to reemploy the teacher he then becomes a career teacher. When the Board considered the renewal of plaintiff's contract on 9 April 1973 the Issue was whether he should be made a career teacher and the vote to reemploy or dismiss determined the question. This decision was in the sole discretion of the Board, for Section (c) contains no requirement that the Board either consider or follow the recommendation of the superintendent in determining whether a teacher shall be given tenure as a career teacher. Section (m)(2) applies only to the probationary teacher who is being considered for reemployment during the three years before he is eligible for election as a career teacher. The Court of Appeals adopted the Board's view.

The Board further contends that, if this Court should hold Section (m)(2) to have any application to its consideration of the renewal of a probationary's contract when his reemployment will constitute him a career teacher, we should hold the superintendent's recommendation to be advisory only and not binding upon the Board; that whether a probationary teacher shall become a career teacher is a matter within the discretion of the Board; provided, however, the Board may not refuse to renew a contract for 'arbitrary, capricious, discriminatory or for personal or political reasons.'

Under Section (c) career teachers come from the ranks of probationary teachers, and a probationer can achieve career status only when a majority of the Board votes to reemploy him for the fourth consecutive year. If, therefore (as plaintiff contends), Section (m)(2) forces the Board to reemploy all probationary teachers whom the superintendent recommends for reemployment and to dismiss all whom he recommends for dismissal, the requirement that the Board vote upon the teacher's reemployment when he completes his third consecutive school year becomes meaningless. A board bound to conform to the superintendent's recommendations is merely a rubber stamp. Had the General Assembly intended to give the superintendent the final word in tenure decisions, it is logical to assume it would have said so in the same positive terms it used in Section 115--142(h)(1) when it said: 'A board may dismiss or demote a career teacher Only upon the recommendation of the superintendent.' (Emphasis added.) We hold that Section 115--142(m)(2) does not require the Board to follow the recommendation of the superintendent when it considers the election of career teachers as required by Section (c).

Plaintiff concedes--and we agree--that 'G.S. 115--142 raises difficult questions as to the legislative intent, as to the relative strengths of superintendents and school boards, as to possible inconsistencies in...