N.C. Ass'n of Educators, Inc. v. State

• Citation: 776 S.E.2d 1,241 N.C.App. 284
• Decision Date: 02 June 2015
• Docket Number: No. COA14–998.,COA14–998.
• Court: Court of Appeal of North Carolina (US)
• Parties: NORTH CAROLINA ASSOCIATION OF EDUCATORS, INC., Richard J. Nixon, Rhonda Holmes, Brian Link, Annette Beatty, Stephanie Wallace, and John Deville, Plaintiffs, v. The STATE of North Carolina, Defendant.

241 N.C.App. 284

776 S.E.2d 1

NORTH CAROLINA ASSOCIATION OF EDUCATORS, INC., Richard J. Nixon, Rhonda Holmes, Brian Link, Annette Beatty, Stephanie Wallace, and John Deville, Plaintiffs,

v.The STATE of North Carolina, Defendant.

No. COA14–998.

Court of Appeals of North Carolina.

June 2, 2015.

Patterson Harkavy LLP, by Burton Craige, Raleigh, and Narendra K. Ghosh, Chapel Hill, and National Education Association, by Philip A. Hostak, for Plaintiffs.

Attorney General, Roy Cooper, by Special Deputy Attorney General, Melissa L. Trippe, for the State.

STEPHENS, Judge.

Defendant State of North Carolina ("the State") argues that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of Plaintiffs North Carolina Association of Educators, Inc. ("NCAE"), Nixon, Holmes, Beatty, Wallace, and deVille based on the court's conclusion that the State's enactment of legislation repealing career status teachers' benefits under section 115C–325 of our General Statutes violated Article I, Section 10 of the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 19 of the North Carolina Constitution. The State also argues that the trial court erred in failing to strike certain portions of the affidavits Plaintiffs submitted in support of their motion for summary judgment. Plaintiffs cross-appeal, arguing that the trial court erred in denying summary judgment to Plaintiff Link based on the court's conclusion that, as a probationary teacher who had not yet earned career status, he lacked standing to challenge the General Assembly's repeal of section 115C–325. After careful consideration, we hold that the trial court did not err and we consequently affirm its orders.

I. Background and Procedural History

A. Legislative Background

In 1971, our General Assembly enacted a statutory scheme ("the Career Status Law") to govern the employment and dismissal of our State's public school teachers. See An Act to Establish an Orderly System of Employment and Dismissal of Public School Personnel, 1971 N.C. Sess. Laws ch. 883. For more than four decades following its passage, the Career Status Law, codified in its most recent form at N.C. Gen. Stat. § 115C–325 (2012), provided all public school teachers in North Carolina with certain procedural guarantees regarding the terms of their employment and the reasons they could be terminated.

Under the Career Status Law, teachers who were employed by a public school system for fewer than four consecutive years on a full-time basis were deemed to be "probationary" teachers. Id. § 115C–325(a)(5). These probationary teachers were employed from year to year pursuant to annual contracts, which school boards could choose to "non-renew" at the end of a school year for any cause the boards deemed sufficient, so long as the non-renewal was not "arbitrary, capricious, discriminatory, or for personal or political reasons." Id. § 115C–325(m)(2). After a probationary teacher completed four consecutive years as a full-time teacher, that teacher became eligible for career status, which was granted or denied by a majority vote of the local school board. Id. § 115C–325(c)(1). Teachers who achieved career status would "not be subjected to the requirement of annual appointment." Id. § 115C–325(d)(1). Instead, career status teachers were employed on the basis of continuing contracts and could only be dismissed, demoted, or relegated to part-time status for one of fifteen statutorily enumerated reasons, including, inter alia, "[i]nadequate performance," "[i]nsubordination," and "[n]eglect of duty." Id. § 115C–325(e)(1). Moreover, the Career Status Law further provided that, before a career status teacher could be dismissed, demoted, or relegated to part-time status, the school board was required to provide that teacher with notice, an explanation of the charges, and, if requested, a hearing before the board or an impartial hearing officer. Id. § 115C–325(h)(2), (3). In those cases in which a career status teacher chose to have a hearing before a hearing officer, that teacher had the right "to be present and to be heard, to be represented by counsel and to present through witnesses any competent testimony relevant to the issue of whether grounds for dismissal or demotion exist or whether the procedures set forth in [the statute] have been followed." Id. § 115C–325(j)(3).

On 24 July 2013, our General Assembly repealed the Career Status Law, both prospectively and retroactively, by enacting Sections 9.6 and 9.7 ("the Career Status Repeal") of the Current Operations and Capital Improvements Appropriations Act of 2013, which Governor Pat McCrory subsequently signed into law as S.L. 2013–360. Under the Career Status Repeal, as of 1 August 2013, any teacher who had not achieved career status before the beginning of the 2013–14 school year will never be granted career status, but will instead, with limited exceptions, be employed on the basis of one-year contracts until 2018. See 2013 N.C. Sess. Law 360 § 9.6(f). Further, as of 1 July 2018, the Career Status Repeal revokes the career status of all teachers who had previously earned that status pursuant to the Career Status Law. Id. § 9.6(i). Instead, all teachers will be employed on one-, two-, or four-year contracts that can be non-renewed at their school board's discretion on any basis that is not "arbitrary, capricious, discriminatory, for personal or political reasons, or on any basis prohibited by State or federal law." Id. § 9.6(b). Moreover, the Career Status Repeal provides no right to a hearing for former career status teachers; although such teachers will be permitted to request a hearing after receiving notice of non-renewal, local school boards will have unfettered discretion to decide whether or not to hold one. Id. Finally, the Career Status Repeal's "25% Provision" mandates that before the beginning of the 2014–15 school year, school districts must select one quarter of their teachers with at least three years of experience and offer them four-year contracts, providing for a $500 raise in each year of the contract, in exchange for their "voluntarily relinquish[ing] career status." Id. § 9.6(g), (h).

B. Procedural History

On 17 December 2013, NCAE and six public school teachers filed a complaint in Wake County Superior Court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief based on their allegations that the Career Status Repeal amounts to both a taking of property without just compensation in violation of Article I, Section 19 of the North Carolina Constitution, and an unconstitutional impairment of their contractual rights under Article I, Section 10 of the United States Constitution. The State filed an answer and motion to dismiss pursuant to N.C.R. Civ. P. 12 on 17 January 2014. Plaintiffs then filed a motion for summary judgment pursuant to N.C.R. Civ. P. 56 on 10 March 2014.

In support of their Rule 56 motion for summary judgment, Plaintiffs submitted affidavits from:

• NCAE president Rodney Ellis, whose nonprofit organization's membership includes thousands of public school teachers, administrators, and education support personnel who either had already attained career status or would have been eligible for it in the coming years, and who, Ellis explained, relied on the Career Status Law for "peace of mind because they know that any issues implicating their jobs will be handled fairly and with due process;"

• Plaintiffs Nixon, Holmes, Beatty, Wallace, and deVille, each of whom are public school teachers who relied on the statutory promise of career status rights in exchange for meeting the requirements of the Career Status Law in accepting their teaching positions, had already attained career status prior to the Law's repeal, and considered its protections to be a fundamental part of their overall compensation that offsets their relatively low pay and allows them the opportunity to grow and improve by being innovative in the classroom, as well as the ability to advocate for their students by raising concerns about instructional issues to administrators without fear of losing their jobs;

• Plaintiff Link, a public school teacher who had not yet attained career status before the Career Status Repeal but would have been eligible for it by the end of the 2013–14 school year and who relied on the statutorily promised opportunity to earn the protections career status provides when he chose to accept a teaching position here in North Carolina over a job offer in Florida;

• eight public school administrators who explained that career status protections help attract and retain teachers despite the relatively low salaries established by State salary schedules; that the Career Status Law's four-year probationary period provided more than adequate time for school districts to evaluate teachers and make informed decisions that ensure career status is only granted to teachers who have proven their effectiveness; that the Career Status Law already provided school administrators with sufficient tools to discipline and/or dismiss teachers who have already earned career status and thus did not impede their ability to remove such teachers for inadequate performance; and that although, in the vast majority of cases when a school district seeks removal of a career status teacher, the teacher agrees to resign without a hearing, on the few occasions when hearings do occur, the process is not onerous for the district;

• Representative Richard Glazier, who represents North Carolina's 44th district in the State House of Representatives and explained that before the Career Status Repeal was enacted as part of the Appropriations Act, the House had already passed legislation aimed at reforming the Career Status Law in the form of House Bill 719, which would have "added definitions of teacher performance evaluation standards, teacher performance ratings, and teacher status, thus creating greater consistency in the determination of career status and revocation of career status based on evaluation ratings," by

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