Beauregard v. City of St. Albans

• Decision Date: 07 September 1982
• Docket Number: No. 431-81,431-81
• Citation: 450 A.2d 1148,141 Vt. 624
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court
• Parties: , 6 Ed. Law Rep. 790 Stanley BEAUREGARD v. CITY OF ST. ALBANS, Bellows Free Academy and Martin L. Wennar.

Page 1148

450 A.2d 1148

141 Vt. 624, 6 Ed. Law Rep. 790

Stanley BEAUREGARD v. CITY OF ST. ALBANS, Bellows Free Academy and Martin L. Wennar.

No. 431-81.

Supreme Court of Vermont.

Sept. 7, 1982.

Susan F. Eaton of Langrock, Sperry, Parker & Stahl, Middlebury, for plaintiff-appellee.

Harold C. Sylvester and Michael S. Brow of Sylvester & Maley, Burlington, for defendants-appellants.

Farrar & Counos, St. Albans, for defendant-cross appellee City of St. Albans.

Before BARNEY, C. J., and BILLINGS, HILL, UNDERWOOD and PECK, JJ.

BILLINGS, Justice.

In this action brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, plaintiff claimed he was unconstitutionally denied a position on the Board of Trustees of the Bellows Free Academy (Board) because of his religious preference. The trial court ruled for the plaintiff and defendants appeal.

In 1876 Hiram Bellows by will bequeathed to the Town of St. Albans (Town) land and stock for the purpose of erecting an academy building. Subsequently he executed a codicil which provided as follows:

To prevent the monies hereby bequeathed to the Bellows Free Academy of Fairfax and the Bellows Free Academy of St. Albans from being used to propagate the peculiar views and doctrines of any particular church, sect, religious society or denomination, I make the acceptance of these provisions a condition for taking and using said funds bequeathed by the addition of this codicil to my will, viz:

It is my will that no bishop, priest, minister, ecclesiastic or religious teacher in any church shall be trustee of the funds bequeathed by this will to the Town of Fairfax and the Town of St. Albans, that no bishop, priest, minister, ecclesiastic or religious teacher in any church shall be a trustee of the Bellows Free Academy of Fairfax or a trustee of the Bellows Free Academy of St. Albans and while I earnestly enjoin and desire that the students of such Academies shall be instructed and taught in all the purest and highest principles of morality and virtue, and be brought up to be good men and good women, I also desire that the peculiar doctrines and articles of faith of the various religious churches shall not be taught in, but shall be wholly excluded from the instruction in such Academies.

It is my further will that there shall be never more than one trustee among the said five trustees of the said board who shall belong to any one religious church or denomination at the same time, so that there shall never be more than one Episcopalian, one Roman Catholic, one Baptist, one Methodist, one Congregationalist, and one of any other church or denomination in the said boards of trustees at the same time. I do this with a view of preventing religious or sectional differences in the management and control of said Academy.

Upon his death the Town accepted the bequest according to its terms and built a school known as the Bellows Free Academy which school became the high school for the City of St. Albans (City) and surrounding towns. Absent acceptance of the bequest in accordance with its terms the bequest would have gone to an individual. By decree of the Franklin Court of Chancery in 1928 the terms of the will were construed and the court established an appointment process for trustees as follows:

That at the Annual Meeting of the Town of St. Albans ... the Selectmen of said Town, after conferring with the City Council for the City of St. Albans, and with the then Board of Trustees, and having in mind the provisions of the codicil of said will as to said Trustees, shall appoint one Trustee of the "Bellows Free Academy of St. Albans, Vermont," to serve for the term of five years; and that, at the Annual Meeting of the Town of St. Albans, on every fifth years thereafter, said Selectmen shall, in the manner above specified, appoint one such Trustee for the term of five years; and said Selectmen shall, in the manner above specified, fill any vacancy that may occur during the term of any such Trustee.

That at the Annual Meeting of the City of St. Albans ... the City Council of Said City, after conferring with the Selectmen of the Town of St. Albans, and the then Board of Trustees, and having in mind the provisions of the codicil of said will as to said Trustees, shall appoint four Trustees of the "Bellows Free Academy of St. Albans, Vermont," to serve respectively for the terms of one, two, three and four years when said Selectmen shall appoint a Trustee, said City Council shall, in the manner above specified appoint one Trustee to serve for the term of five years; and said City Council shall in the manner above specified, fill any vacancy that may occur during the term of any such Trustee.

In March 1979 a vacancy occurred on the Board and plaintiff submitted a letter of intent to be a candidate. Upon being interviewed for the position, plaintiff stated that he had a religious preference but declined to indicate of what persuasion. Plaintiff was subsequently elected a member of the Board of Trustees by the City Council on a three to two vote, but the City Council did not confer with the selectmen of the Town of St. Albans as required by the 1928 court decree. Following a meeting with the Trustees of Bellows Falls Free Academy and with the mayor of the City of St. Albans at which plaintiff again refused to state his religious denomination, the mayor vetoed plaintiff's election to the Board and forwarded the following letter to the City Council:

As Mayor of the City of St. Albans and with the powers invested in me by its Charter, after careful consideration, I hereby veto the March 12th Council appointment of Mr. Stanley Beauregard, as Trustee of Bellows Free Academy.

It is my opinion that the City Council must appoint a person as Trustee to B.F.A. who will first, represent the City of St. Albans and to administer the will of Hiram Bellows as it is written.

Also, I feel the Council has failed to confer with the Selectmen of the Town of St. Albans as required in the will of Hiram Bellows.

Subsequent thereto the City Council elected the defendant Wennar to the Board of Trustees.

In July of 1979 plaintiff sought declaratory and injunctive relief alleging that the veto by the mayor and the provisions of the codicil violated his rights under the United States and the Vermont Constitutions. The superior court held for the plaintiff and reinstated him to the Board of Trustees. The alleged offending provisions of the codicil were stricken by the decree pursuant to the cy pres doctrine which application was not appealed. Plaintiff's request for attorney's fees was denied.

Defendants Bellows Free Academy and Wennar appealed only the following issues: (1) whether the codicil violates the first and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, (2) whether the codicil violates chapter I, article 3 of the Vermont Constitution, and (3) whether the City's failure to confer with the Town was a constitutionally independent and legitimate ground for the mayor's veto. Plaintiff filed a cross-appeal on the denial of attorney's fees. The City of St. Albans appeared only on the cross-appeal. The State of Vermont appeared below but did not appeal.

On appeal no one has challenged the trial court's finding that there is state action here, or the finding that the position of trustee is a public office in the nature of a member of a local school board. In this context, there is no question that the codicil violates the free exercise clause of the first amendment as applied to the states through the fourteenth amendment.

In Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488, 81 S.Ct. 1680, 6 L.Ed.2d 982 (1961), an applicant for public office was required by the Maryland Constitution to declare a belief in God as a requisite to holding such office. The Supreme Court declared the requirement unconstitutional holding that, whether or not there is a right to hold public office, a person cannot be barred from holding office by criteria forbidden by the constitution. Id. at 495-96, 81 S.Ct. at 1683-84.

In Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 83 S.Ct. 1790, 10 L.Ed.2d 965 (1963), a Seventh-Day Adventist was denied unemployment benefits because her religious beliefs prohibited her from working on Saturday. In holding the denial of benefits unconstitutional the Supreme Court stated:

The door of the Free Exercise Clause stands tightly closed against any governmental regulation of religious beliefs as such, Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 303 [60 S.Ct. 900, 903, 84 L.Ed. 1213]. Government may neither compel affirmation of a repugnant belief, Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 [81 S.Ct. 1680, 6 L.Ed.2d 982], nor penalize or discriminate against individuals or groups because they hold religious views abhorrent to the authorities, Fowler v. Rhode Island, 345 U.S. 67 [73 S.Ct. 526, 97 L.Ed. 828] ....

Id. at 402, 83 S.Ct. at 1793.

In McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U.S. 618, 98 S.Ct. 1322, 55 L.Ed.2d 593 (1978), a Tennessee statute provided that ministers could not serve as delegates to state constitutional conventions. The decision holding the provision unconstitutional was unanimous. The Court, however, split as to the correct basis for this finding. The fact that the provision applied solely to "Minister[s] of the Gospel, or Priest[s] of any denomination" gave the Court some difficulty and accounted for the split, but need not concern us here. As Chief Justice Burger...