Bobilin v. Board of Education, State of Hawaii

• Decision Date: 31 October 1975
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 75-0205.
• Citation: 403 F. Supp. 1095
• Parties: Robert BOBILIN, Individually and as next friend of Steven Bobilin, et al., Plaintiffs, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION, STATE OF HAWAII, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Hawaii

403 F. Supp. 1095

Robert BOBILIN, Individually and as next friend of Steven Bobilin, et al., Plaintiffs, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION, STATE OF HAWAII, et al., Defendants.

Civ. No. 75-0205.

United States District Court, D. Hawaii.

October 31, 1975.

Paul E. DiBianco, James A. Wagner, American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii, for plaintiffs.

Ronald Y. Amemiya, Atty. Gen., State of Hawaii, Randall Y. Iwase, Deputy Atty. Gen., Honolulu, Hawaii, for defendants.

MEMORANDUM DECISION

WONG, District Judge.

The plaintiffs in this action seek to challenge the validity of regulations promulgated by the State Board of Education which, plaintiffs allege, require them to be subjected to cafeteria duty involutarily in violation of their constitutional rights. Accordingly, plaintiffs have moved this Court to convene a three-judge district court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2281. Plaintiffs have additionally asserted that the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq. are applicable to the cafeteria duty they seek to challenge and thus that all students engaged in such duties are to be paid the minimum wages established by the Act.

Finally, plaintiffs urge that the State Board of Education, in promulgating regulations requiring mandatory cafeteria duty, has overreached and gone beyond the scope of the authority granted to it by Hawaii Rev.Stat. hereinafter H.R.S. § 296-12 which states that the Board of Education may adopt only such rules and regulations which are not contrary to law for carrying out the general scheme of education and for the transaction of its business.¹

For the reasons which follow, this Court is compelled to dismiss each of plaintiffs' claims.

Jurisdiction

Plaintiffs have called upon the jurisdiction of this Court by invoking 28 U.S. C. §§ 1343(3), 1343(4), and 1337.

Statement of Facts

Children of school age have traditionally been required to perform cafeteria duty throughout the State of Hawaii. At one time, school children were required to work in the cafeteria all day. At the present, however, as a result of a change in recent years, the imposition upon students is markedly less. Board of Education Rule 20.6 provides:

Use of student help in the cafeteria. As school service, pupils shall assist in the cafeteria. Not more than one full day of cafeteria duty shall be required of any pupil in any one month or more than a total of seven full days in one school year. Any exception must be approved by the district superintendent.

In practice, only students from grades 4 to 12 are affected.

The plaintiffs contend, however, that such cafeteria duty is unlawful because H.R.S. § 298-9 requires that all residents of the State of Hawaii who are under the age of eighteen attend a public school for and during such school year. Thus, plaintiffs argue that through the operation of this statute and Rule 20.6, supra, the plaintiffs are required to attend school and thus serve involuntarily in the school cafeterias.

Plaintiffs also point to Rule 21 which authorizes a suspension or dismissal of one day for a failure to perform cafeteria duties.² Plaintiffs note that a failure to perform cafeteria duty has resulted in suspension for one day in each instance that any of them has refused to serve. In their prayer, consequently, they request that this Court order all records of suspension for failure to comply with Rule 20.6 to be removed from their files.

Three-Judge Court

This Court deals first with plaintiffs' request for a three-judge federal district court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2281. The Supreme Court has held in Idlewilde Bon Voyage Liquor Corp. v. Epstein, 370 U.S. 713, 715, 82 S.Ct. 1294, 1296, 8 L.Ed.2d 794 (1962):

When an application for a statutory three-judge court is addressed to a district court, the court's inquiry is appropriately limited to determining whether the constitutional question raised is substantial, whether the complaint at least formally alleges a basis for equitable relief, and whether the case presented otherwise comes within the requirements of the three-judge statute.

It is clear that plaintiffs' complaint "at least formally alleges a basis for equitable relief." It is arguable whether all other requirements of the three-judge statute have been met,³ but we need not reach that issue since we find that plaintiffs' complaint has failed to present a substantial federal question.⁴

As the United States Supreme Court noted in Goosby v. Osser, 409 U.S. 512, 518, 93 S.Ct. 854, 858, 35 L.Ed.2d 36 (1972): "Title 28 U.S.C. § 2281 does not require the convening of a three-judge court when the constitutional attack upon the state statutes is insubstantial." The lack of substantiality alone is enough to warrant dismissal of the claim.⁵ In determining the substantiality of the issue, this Court is not unmindful that: "A claim is insubstantial only if `"its unsoundness so clearly results from the previous decisions of this court as to foreclose the subject and leave no room for the inference that the questions sought to be raised can be the subject of controversy."'" (Citations omitted.) Goosby, supra, at 518, 93 S.Ct. at 859.

The Court, moreover, confines itself to the allegations of the complaint in making its determination. Ex parte Poresky, 290 U.S. 30, 32, 54 S.Ct. 3, 78 L.Ed. 152 (1933); Goosby v. Osser, supra, at 521 n. 7. Even though this Court also accepts at least the undisputed allegations of the bill of complaint as true, Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371, 373, 91 S.Ct. 780, 28 L.Ed.2d 113 (1971), it is clear to this Court that upon a review of the decisions of the Supreme Court, and other courts of competent jurisdiction, there is no substantial federal question alleged in plaintiffs' complaint.

Initially, this Court notes that plaintiffs have alleged that there is no educational purpose to the cafeteria duty. This allegation has been denied in defendants' answer as well as in their various memoranda.

Assuming, however, that plaintiffs are correct and that such duties are not educational but instead are simply services performed for the public welfare, then plaintiffs argue that a substantial claim of involuntary servitude has been made out, thus requiring the convening of a statutory three-judge district court.

Plaintiffs concede, at least implicitly, that characterizing cafeteria duties as "education" would undercut their assertion of involuntary servitude in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Were it not for the fact that this Court finds persuasive legal theories, including those advanced by the State, in support of nonsubstantiality, it might find itself constrained to take judicial notice of the educational values of cafeteria duties in the public schools.⁶

The viability and reasonableness of such a course will remain unpursued here, however, since it is manifest to this Court that previous decisions of the Supreme Court foreclose any inference that plaintiffs have, through their complaint, alleged a substantial federal question.

In reaching this decision, this Court has been guided by not only the decisions of the Supreme Court cited by the parties but also by other decisions not touched upon by the parties in their memoranda or oral arguments. For ease of discussion, however, this Court turns initially to the decisions cited by the plaintiffs to support their allegations that (1) the labor performed was involuntary; and (2) the labor performed served no compelling state interest; i. e., it is not therapeutic but is only to assist in defraying institutional expenses.

Jobson v. Henne, 355 F.2d 129, 132 (2d Cir. 1966), involved patients in a mental institution who, according to affidavits, were required to perform housekeeping duties in the school's boiler house eight hours a night, six nights a week, while working eight hours a day at assigned jobs in the village of Newark. The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, speaking through Judge Waterman, inter alia, held that: "As we cannot say that any such work program would not go beyond the bounds permitted by the Thirteenth Amendment, the complaint states a claim under § 1983."

In a footnote, id. at 132 n. 3, cited by both parties in the instant case, Judge Waterman notes in dictum:

Therefore, whether an institution's required program in any given case constitutes involuntary servitude would seem to depend on the nature of the tasks that are required of the inmate If a court can conclude that the chores are reasonably related to a therapeutic program or to the inmate's personal needs, the fact that the performance of the chores also assists in defraying the operating costs of the institution should not constitute involuntary servitude, even if inmates are required to engage in this activity. On the other hand, it would seem that the Thirteenth Amendment may be violated if a mental institution requires inmates to perform chores which have no therapeutic purpose or are not personally related, but are required to be performed solely in order to assist in the defraying of institutional costs, and it would appear that this would be so even if the inmates were compensated for their labor, for the mere payment of a compensation, unless the receipt of the compensation induces consent to the performance of the work, cannot serve to justify forced labor. Citation omitted.

Plaintiffs, relying upon the Jobson dictum, assert that there is absolutely no educational value involved in cafeteria duty.

After reviewing the decisions of the Supreme Court in the Thirteenth Amendment area, this Court believes that for reasons developed infra, the portion of the Jobson dictum which plaintiffs rely upon, while perhaps appropriate in the context of a mental institution, if accepted in the school cafeteria-duty context here at issue, would result in too broad a reading of the Thirteenth Amendment's proscription against involuntary servitude.

The second ...