Bishop, Matter of

• Decision Date: 14 March 1984
• Docket Number: No. 2-69459,2-69459
• Parties: 16 Ed. Law Rep. 1373 In the Matter of the Termination of the Continuing Contract of Margaret BISHOP. Margaret BISHOP, Appellant, v. EASTERN ALLAMAKEE COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellee.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 500

346 N.W.2d 500

16 Ed. Law Rep. 1373

In the Matter of the Termination of the Continuing Contract of Margaret BISHOP.

Margaret BISHOP, Appellant, v. EASTERN ALLAMAKEE COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellee.

No. 2-69459.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

March 14, 1984.

James Burns of Miller, Pearson, Gloe, Burns & Beatty, Decorah, for appellant.

Richard T. Heiderscheit, Lansing, for appellee.

Considered by REYNOLDSON, C.J., and UHLENHOPP, McCORMICK, McGIVERIN and SCHULTZ, JJ.

SCHULTZ, Justice.

This appeal involves another attack on Iowa Code section 279.17 which requires written rejection of an adjudicator's decision in a teacher termination appeal within ten days of the filing of the decision to prevent the decision from becoming final and unappealable. Margaret Bishop, a terminated teacher, gained further review from a court of appeals decision that relied upon our holding in Wollenzien v. Board of Manson Community School District, 297 N.W.2d 215 (Iowa 1980), in affirming the district court's dismissal of Bishop's judicial review petition for failure to give the prescribed written rejection. We agree with the court of appeals and affirm the dismissal of Bishop's petition.

The present controversy involves a procedural question. As such, we are not concerned with the merits of the underlying dispute, and our explication of the facts will be confined to those necessary to resolve the procedural issue.

Following a decision of the board of Eastern Allamakee Community School District on May 10, 1982, to terminate her continuing contract of employment for the 1982-83 school year, Bishop appealed to an adjudicator. See Iowa Code § 279.17. After a hearing, the adjudicator upheld Bishop's termination. Although the decision apparently was signed by the adjudicator and mailed on August 11, 1982, it was not received by Bishop's attorney until August 17, 1982. Without designating the date of the filing, the parties agreed that within ten days of filing, on August 18 and also on August 20, Bishop orally notified the board secretary that she was rejecting the adjudicator's decision. Bishop did not then or later give the secretary written notice of her rejection. Instead, she rested on her oral notification and filed an appeal with the district court on September 3, 1982. In response, the school district by way of a special appearance contested the court's jurisdiction to hear the appeal since Bishop failed to comply with the written notice requirement. The trial court, relying on the plain language of section 279.17 and our decision in Wollenzien, rejected all the arguments advanced by Bishop in her resistance to the district's special appearance and dismissed the petition.

In her assignment of errors, Bishop claims the trial court erred in failing to conclude that: (1) Wollenzien should be overruled as unconscionable, in violation of legislative intent and statutory interpretation, and for reasons of public policy; (2) her oral notification substantially complied with the ten-day notice requirement of section 279.17; and (3) the requirement of a ten-day written notice in order to perfect a thirty-day right of appeal to district court violates her right to due process and equal protection under the state and federal constitutions.

Chapter 279 of the Iowa Code governs, among other things, teacher terminations and provides in relevant part:

The decision of the adjudicator shall become the final and binding decision of the board unless either party within ten days notifies the secretary of the board that the decision is rejected. The board may reject the decision by majority vote, by roll call, in open meeting and entered into the minutes of the meeting. The board shall immediately notify the teacher of its decision by certified mail. The teacher may reject the adjudicator's decision by notifying the board's secretary in writing within ten days of the filing of such decision.

§ 279.17 (Emphasis added).

If either party rejects the adjudicator's decision, the rejecting party shall, within thirty days of the initial filing of such decision, appeal to the district court of the county in which the administrator of the school district is located.

§ 279.18 (Emphasis added.)

I. In Wollenzien, we dismissed an appeal from a district court ruling affirming the adjudicator's decision because the teacher failed to notify the board that she was rejecting the decision. Id., 297 N.W.2d 215 (Iowa 1980). Specifically, we held that compliance with section 279.17 was a prerequisite to perfecting an appeal to district court under section 279.18 since, without notification within ten days, the adjudicator's decision became final and binding and was no longer subject to judicial review. Wollenzien, 297 N.W.2d at 218.

In her brief and argument, Bishop mounts a full-scale attack on Wollenzien's holding and reasoning. We find nothing in her arguments that would cause us to abandon that holding, and we see no benefit gained by an extensive post-mortem of that case. The bottom line is that we still believe the statutes are clear and mean what they say when they require filing of a written rejection of the adjudicator's decision by the party who wishes to prevent the decision from becoming final and unappealable. Claims of unfairness and unconscionability are more appropriately presented by the constitutional challenge. Bishop's claim that the statute violates public policy should be addressed to the legislature.

II. While Bishop admits she did not literally satisfy the statutory requirements and give written notice, she claims her situation is distinguishable because, unlike the teacher in Wollenzien who gave no notice at all, she orally notified the board secretary on two separate occasions that she was rejecting the adjudicator's decision. Essentially, she contends her oral notice constituted substantial compliance since it fulfilled the minimal purposes advanced in Wollenzien for the ten-day notice requirement. Id., 297 N.W.2d at 218. As a result, she insists the board was not prejudiced by lack of written notice while she was seriously harmed by dismissal of her appeal. Even assuming the school board in this case was not injured by Bishop's failure to give written notice, we think her claim of substantial compliance nevertheless must be rejected.

The statutory requirements in Iowa Code section 279.17 were intended to govern all teacher termination proceedings. While the hiring or budget needs of Eastern Allamakee School District may not have been significantly affected by the lack of written notice, the same may not be true in other teacher termination cases. In addition, a holding that oral notice constitutes substantial compliance could inject considerable confusion in subsequent termination cases. In the future, whenever a teacher appeals an adverse decision, a school district might not only be required to defend the validity of that decision in district court but also to litigate whether a teacher substantially complied with the notice requirements of section 279.17. Surely, one purpose of written notice was to avoid the uncertainties and disputes that might arise over whether the party adversely affected by the adjudicator's decision provided sufficient notice of rejection to their opponent. Moreover, the agent for filing notice, the board's secretary, is entitled to rely on the simple guideline provided by the legislature. It is unreasonable to require the secretary to gauge the reliability of oral statements of a disgruntled party to the termination proceedings in determining whether a board meeting is required to plan its course of action. The potential for abuse and protracted disputes over the issue of notice is virtually unlimited if we allow oral notice to satisfy the requirements of section 279.17.

Additionally, the school district or a teacher may well be prejudiced if oral notice is retroactively held to constitute substantial compliance with section 279.17. Where a statute requires the party adversely affected by an adjudicator's decision to reject that decision in writing, the other party should be able to rely on the absence of written notice in assuming the adjudicator's decision is final and no longer subject to further review. Otherwise, either party may rely on a favorable decision and enter or forego other contracts to their detriment.

Finally, we think Iowa law is not supportive of Bishop's substantial compliance claim. For instance, in Shearer v. Perry Community School District, 236 N.W.2d 688 (Iowa 1975), we held that neither actual knowledge on the part of school officials about an accident resulting in an injury to one of the school's students nor oral notification to the school superintendent by the student's mother constituted substantial compliance with section 613A.5 requiring written notification to a governmental subdivision of a tort claim. Specifically, we stated:

The knowledge on the part of the school officials and employees certainly cannot be construed as substantial compliance with the notice requirements of the statute. We are not informed as to the substance of the [oral] notification to the superintendent by the student's mother, but in any event we are not prepared to say such [oral] notification constituted substantial compliance with a statute clearly and specifically requiring written notice.

Id., 236 N.W.2d at 693-94 (emphasis added). See also Franks v. Kohl, 286 N.W.2d 663, 666 (Iowa 1979) (actual knowledge by governmental body of incident giving rise to city employee's tort claim does not supplant section 613A.5 requiring written notice of claim even though employee claimed that city had opportunity to investigate matter and was not prejudiced by lack of written notice). Similarly, although the fighting issue in Wollenzien was no notice rather than substantial compliance with the notice requirement, we stated that section...