State ex rel. Stratton v. Roswell Independent Schools, s. 10957
| Decision Date | 31 January 1991 |
| Docket Number | 10958,Nos. 10957,s. 10957 |
| Citation | 111 N.M. 495,806 P.2d 1085,1991 NMCA 13 |
| Parties | , 66 Ed. Law Rep. 450 STATE of New Mexico ex rel. Hal STRATTON, Attorney General of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ROSWELL INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS, Albuquerque Public Schools, Barbara A. Perea Casey and Gary Hocevar, Defendants-Appellees. Barbara A. Perea CASEY, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Honorable Hal STRATTON, Attorney General of the State of New Mexico, et al., Defendants-Appellants, and The Roswell Independent School District, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | Court of Appeals of New Mexico |
Attorney General Hal Stratton (Stratton) appeals from separate summary judgment orders of the respective district courts of Santa Fe and Bernalillo Counties (referred to respectively as the Santa Fe County lawsuit and the Bernalillo County lawsuit) in two separate cases that have been consolidated for appeal. Both district courts independently granted the respective summary judgment motions of appellees. Stratton raises three issues on appeal: (1) whether public school teachers and administrators are "employees of the state" under NMSA 1978, Sections 2-1-3 and -4 (Repl.Pamp.1983); (2) whether two separate articles of the New Mexico Constitution bar such teachers and administrators from serving in the state legislature; and (3) whether the complaint filed against Stratton in the Santa Fe County lawsuit by appellee Barbara A. Perea Casey (Casey) presented a justiciable "case and controversy."
These consolidated appeals involve a school teacher and a school administrator who are also members of the state legislature. Casey is a teacher with appellee Roswell Independent Schools (Roswell school district) and appellee Gary Hocevar (Hocevar) is an administrator with appellee Albuquerque Public Schools (Albuquerque school district). Stratton contends that both Casey and Hocevar are prohibited, as members of the legislature, from receiving compensation for services performed as state employees under Section 2-1-3. He also maintains that, under Section 2-1-4, both the Roswell and Albuquerque school districts are prohibited from paying compensation to Casey and Hocevar, respectively, while they serve as legislators, for services performed as employees of the state. Stratton's constitutional issue is two-fold. First, he claims that Casey's and Hocevar's dual roles as teacher-legislator violate the separation of powers doctrine of the New Mexico Constitution, article III, section 1 (Cum.Supp.1990). Second, he argues that their respective employment contracts violate the constitutional provision of article IV, section 28, which prohibits legislators from receiving any direct or indirect benefit from any contract "with the state" authorized by any law passed during their terms.
We hold that (1) public school teachers and administrators are not state employees within the meaning of Sections 2-1-3 and -4; (2) Casey's and Hocevar's employment by the respective school districts does not violate article III, section 1, because school teachers and local public school administrators are not persons charged with the exercise of the sovereign powers properly belonging to the executive branch of government; (3) the prohibitive language of article IV, section 28 does not apply to Casey and Hocevar, because their respective contracts were not "with the state" and were not authorized by any law passed during their respective terms; and (4) Casey's complaint, filed as a declaratory judgment action against Stratton, presented a justiciable "case and controversy." We therefore affirm the district courts' separate orders granting summary judgment to appellees.
None of the parties contend that there are any genuine issues of material fact. Disposition of these appeals, therefore, focuses only on whether appellees were entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law, without consideration of any disputed facts.
In March 1988, Stratton issued an opinion stating that public school teachers or administrators could not legally serve in the legislature while receiving compensation from local school districts. AG Op. No. 88-20 (1988). A few weeks later, Casey filed an action for declaratory judgment against Stratton in the Santa Fe County district court, seeking a ruling that Section 2-1-3 did not prohibit her dual roles. She later amended her complaint to include the Roswell school district, her employer, as a defendant. While the Santa Fe County lawsuit was pending, and on the same day that he filed a motion to dismiss the Santa Fe County lawsuit on the grounds that there was no actual controversy, Stratton filed a complaint in the Bernalillo County district court, asserting the same or similar issues that Casey had raised in her complaint and seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. Stratton's complaint named Casey, Hocevar, the Roswell school district and the Albuquerque school district as defendants. In his first cause of action for declaratory relief against the Roswell and Albuquerque school districts, Stratton contended that school districts were arms of the state. As such, he alleged, any employees of local school districts were necessarily state employees. Stratton thus asserted that Sections 2-1-3 and -4 prohibited school districts from employing legislators.
In his cause of action for declaratory relief against Casey and Hocevar, Stratton alleged that article III, section 1 of the New Mexico Constitution prohibited school districts from employing legislators in any capacity while they served in the state legislature. Such employment, he contended, violated the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers. In his cause of action for injunctive relief against the local school districts, Stratton alleged that the school districts were employing and compensating members of the state legislature in violation of state constitutional and statutory law. He requested injunctive relief enjoining the school districts from continuing to employ and pay compensation to members of the legislature. Casey and Hocevar receive a salary and other benefits under their respective employment contracts. Their salaries are paid from funds appropriated by the state legislature.
Section 2-1-3 provides that "[i]t is unlawful for any member of the legislature to receive any compensation for services performed as an officer or employee of the state, except such compensation and expense money as he is entitled to receive as a member of the legislature." Section 2-1-4 states that "[i]t is unlawful for any officer of the state of New Mexico to pay to any member of the legislature compensation for services rendered the state of New Mexico as an officer or employee * * *." All parties have focused their respective arguments heavily on what they perceive to be the legislative history of the statutes, as well as the pertinent case law, and on the amount of control the state exerts over the operation of the local school districts by law and the amount of funding the districts receive from the state.
"[T]he intention of the legislature, in passing a statute, is the primary and controlling consideration in determining its proper construction." Reese v. Dempsey, 48 N.M. 417, 424, 152 P.2d 157, 161 (1944). "A statute should be interpreted to mean what the Legislature intended it to mean, and to accomplish the ends sought to be accomplished by it." State ex rel. Newsome v. Alarid, 90 N.M. 790, 794, 568 P.2d 1236, 1240 (1977). The supreme court emphasized the importance of looking to the intent of the legislature in State v. Nance, 77 N.M. 39, 46, 419 P.2d 242, 246-47 (1966) (citations omitted):
[I]n construing a statute, the legislative intent must be given effect by adopting a construction which will not render the statute's application absurd or unreasonable. Not only must the legislative intent be given effect, but the court will not be bound by a literal interpretation of the words if such strict interpretation would defeat the intended object of the legislature * * *.
[W]here the language of the legislative act is doubtful or an adherence to the literal use of words would lead to injustice, absurdity or contradiction, the statute will be construed according to its obvious spirit or reason, even though this requires the rejection of words or the substitution of others.
See also State ex rel. Klineline v. Blackhurst, 106 N.M. 732, 749 P.2d 1111 (1988) ().
We determine that Sections 2-1-3 and -4 are penal statutes, and we will strictly construe them to avoid broadening the definition of the actions deemed criminal by them. See State v. Allen, 77 N.M. 433, 423 P.2d 867 (1967). "If there is any doubt about the meaning of a penal statute or rule, it will be construed against the state or agency which enacted it and in favor of the accused." Bokum Resources Corp. v. New Mexico Water Quality Control Comm'n, 93 N.M. 546, 552, 603 P.2d 285, 291 (1979).
A strict statutory construction standard ordinarily requires us to determine the legislative...
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