Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission v. School Dist. of Philadelphia

• Decision Date: 11 August 1978
• Citation: 480 Pa. 398,390 A.2d 1238
• Parties: PENNSYLVANIA HUMAN RELATIONS COMMISSION, Appellant, v. SCHOOL DISTRICT OF PHILADELPHIA, Appellee, Harry & Annemarie Gwynne et al., Intervenors, Dr. & Mrs. Albert List, Jr., et al., Intervenors. PENNSYLVANIA HUMAN RELATIONS COMMISSION, Appellee, v. BOARD OF PUBLIC EDUCATION OF the SCHOOL DISTRICT OF PITTSBURGH, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 1238

390 A.2d 1238

480 Pa. 398

PENNSYLVANIA HUMAN RELATIONS COMMISSION, Appellant, v. SCHOOL DISTRICT OF PHILADELPHIA, Appellee, Harry & Annemarie Gwynne et al., Intervenors, Dr. & Mrs. Albert List, Jr., et al., Intervenors.

PENNSYLVANIA HUMAN RELATIONS COMMISSION, Appellee, v. BOARD OF PUBLIC EDUCATION OF the SCHOOL DISTRICT OF

PITTSBURGH, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued Sept. 29, 1977.

Decided Aug. 11, 1978.

[480 Pa. 401] Justin M. Johnson, Persifor S. Oliver, Jr., Frederick A. Boehm, Alan J. Bouffard, Goehring, Rutter & Boehm, Pittsburgh, for appellant.

Jay Harris Feldstein, Pittsburgh, for appellee.

[480 Pa. 402] Before EAGEN, C. J., and O'BRIEN, ROBERTS, POMEROY, NIX, MANDERINO and PACKEL, JJ.

OPINION

POMEROY, Justice.

These two cases have been briefed and argued separately. They involve nonetheless a common problem the integration of the public schools in the major metropolitan centers of this Commonwealth; they have a common point of origin the August 17, 1972 decision of the Commonwealth Court

in the case entitled Philadelphia School District v. Human Relations Commission, 6 Pa.Cmwlth. 281, 294 A.2d 410 (1972); and they present certain legal questions in common. For those reasons, they are treated here in a single opinion

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

a. The Commission's Amended Final Orders dated September 25, 1972

In 1972, the Commonwealth Court considered the appeals of five school districts including the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh School Districts from orders of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (the "Commission" or the "PHRC") directing each district to submit a plan to achieve racial balance in its public schools. After consideration of such appeals, the Commonwealth Court remanded the cases to the PHRC for modification of its orders in accordance with the Court's opinion after such further conferences, hearings, conciliation and persuasion as the PHRC deemed appropriate. ¹ Neither the School District of Philadelphia ("Philadelphia" or "School District") nor the School District [480 Pa. 403] of Pittsburgh ("Pittsburgh" or "School District") took an appeal from that order. ²

Upon remand and without any further proceedings, the PHRC rendered and served upon both Philadelphia and Pittsburgh Amended Final Orders dated September 25, 1972 which, Inter alia, required each school district to submit to the Commission by January 2, 1973 a plan that would eliminate racial imbalance in its schools in conformity with the Commission's "Recommended Elements of a School Desegregation Plan" (the "Recommended Elements") dated May 15, 1968 and in accordance with a timetable contained in its Amended Final Orders. ³

b. Subsequent Proceedings in the Pittsburgh Case

Pursuant to the Commission's Amended Final Order and in accordance with an extension of time which the PHRC had granted to it, the Pittsburgh Board of Public Education submitted a school reorganization plan to the Commission on February 26, 1973. Thereafter, the PHRC advised the School District that, in the Commission's view, the proposed plan did not fully comply with the Amended Final Order, and the Commission sought clarification from Pittsburgh as to why the District could not comply. ⁴

During the period from 1973 through 1976, members and representatives of the Pittsburgh Board of Public Education and of the Commission had various conferences and communications about the February 1973 reorganization plan, the [480 Pa. 404] actions taken by the School District to implement that plan and certain other reorganization plans which the District had under consideration. Although the School District apparently considered various amendments or alternatives to the February 1973 plan during the three year period following its submission, no such revised plan was ever formally adopted by the Board of Education or submitted to the Commission; the February 1973 plan is the only submission from Pittsburgh

to the Commission. The various conferences between Pittsburgh and the Commission did not achieve any final resolution of their disagreements, and on August 18, 1976 the Commission, acting pursuant to Section 10 of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (the "Act"), Act of October 27, 1955, P.L. 744, as amended, 43 P.S. § 960, filed with the Commonwealth Court a petition for enforcement of its Amended Final Order of September 25, 1972

The Commission's petition for enforcement was answered by the School District, and the matter was argued before the Commonwealth Court. ⁵ The School District did not request an evidentiary hearing nor, insofar as the record before us indicates, did the District ever suggest that any evidentiary matters were pertinent to the issue before the court. ⁶ By [480 Pa. 405] order dated January 13, 1977, the Commonwealth Court directed Pittsburgh to prepare and submit a definitive plan to the Commission "to correct racial imbalance in its schools, in accordance with the law and the Commission's guidelines." That order further directed that the School District's plan "shall conform to the requirements of the Amended Final Order" in all respects save that of the timetable contained therein; in recognition of the passage of time during the course of the negotiations between Pittsburgh and the Commission, the court, in its order, established a new timetable for desegregation which the School District's new plan was to follow. In entering its order, the court noted that counsel for both parties had indicated that "they would be amenable to a resolution of this case by an order requiring (Pittsburgh) to submit a new plan for the correction of racial imbalance in the School District."

From the Commonwealth Court's order of January 13, 1977 the Pittsburgh School District took a timely appeal to this Court. On April 11, 1977, the PHRC filed a motion to quash the appeal and a brief in support of the motion. In the interim, acting by counsel specially retained by it, the School District filed a petition for allowance of appeal, and the Commission filed a brief in opposition to that petition. ⁷ By order dated August 5, 1977, we reserved decision on the Commission's motion to quash and specifically directed the parties to brief and argue the following questions:

(1) Whether the School District is entitled to an appeal as a matter of right; and

(2) Whether any of the issues raised by the School District had been waived or were res judicata as a result of the prior [480 Pa. 406] proceedings before the Commission and Commonwealth Court.

c. Subsequent Proceedings in the Philadelphia Case

Following the entry of its Amended Final Order on September 25, 1972, the Commission

granted several requests by Philadelphia for extensions of time within which that District might submit a desegregation plan. When Philadelphia failed and refused to submit any plan to the Commission after the expiration of the deadline, as extended, the PHRC filed a Petition for Enforcement of its Amended Final Order with the Commonwealth Court. After hearing, that court, by order dated November 14, 1973, granted the Commission's petition and directed Philadelphia to submit to the Commission by February 15, 1974, a plan and timetable to eliminate the racial imbalance of its schools in accordance with the Commission's Amended Final Order. ⁸

Following the timely submission of a plan by Philadelphia in February, 1974, the Commission reviewed that plan and disapproved it as not being in compliance with its Amended Final Order and not containing any justification for such non-compliance as allowed in the order. ⁹ In consequence, on April 2, 1974, the Commission filed a second petition for [480 Pa. 407] enforcement with the Commonwealth Court, requesting that the Philadelphia School District be found in contempt of the court's order of November 14, 1973, and further requesting that the court act to effectuate compliance with that order. Following a further hearing, the court issued a Memorandum Order of June 4, 1974, appointing Dr. David H. Kurtzman as an expert to examine the School District's February, 1974 plan and to provide the court with recommendations or modifications of that plan which would put it in compliance with the Commission's Amended Final Order or with reasons that would justify non-compliance. Dr. Kurtzman's report and recommendations were submitted to the court on August 29, 1974. ¹⁰ An evidentiary hearing was held by the court of that report, and both the Commission and the Philadelphia School District presented evidence in opposition to the Kurtzman recommendation. Faced with that situation, the Commonwealth Court, by order dated October 1, 1974, directed both the Commission and the School District to prepare definitive plans for the desegregation of the public schools of Philadelphia for submission to the court by January 31, 1975.

Following a number of extensions of time which the court granted to the parties, both Philadelphia and the Commission filed plans

with the court in July, 1975. Plans were also [480 Pa. 408] filed by the intervenors Gwynne and certain other interested persons. ¹¹ Hearings on those plans were held by the court in Philadelphia in August, 1975, at which evidence was received from the parties, from the intervenors and from members of the general public. The PHRC and the School District presented support for their own plans and produced objections to the other's proposals. After argument to the full court by all concerned parties, the Commonwealth Court found that the plans submitted by the Commission ¹² and by the School District ¹³ were unsatisfactory. ¹⁴ Accordingly, by [480 Pa. 409] opinion and order entered February 13, 1976, the Court "reluctantly" referred the matter back to the School District with the direction that Philadelphia ". . . make a realistic and effective proposal to integrate its schools . . . ." Philadelphia was ordered to prepare and submit to the Commission for its review and...