Bowman v. Lumberton Independent School Dist.

• Decision Date: 31 December 1990
• Docket Number: No. C-7376,C-7376
• Citation: 801 S.W.2d 883
• Parties: 65 Ed. Law Rep. 638 Joyce BOWMAN et al., Petitioners, v. LUMBERTON INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, Respondent.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 883

801 S.W.2d 883

65 Ed. Law Rep. 638

Joyce BOWMAN et al., Petitioners, v. LUMBERTON INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, Respondent.

No. C-7376.

Supreme Court of Texas.

Dec. 31, 1990.

Jefferson K. Brim, III, David R. Richards, Austin, Truman Dean, Jr., Houston, for petitioners.

Robert J. Hambright, Kenneth D. Furlow, Beaumont, for respondent.

OPINION ON MOTION FOR REHEARING

RAY, Justice.

We grant respondent's motion for rehearing. Our opinion and judgment of December 7, 1988, are withdrawn and the following substituted therefor.

This is a summary judgment case involving whether a school district's trustees may adopt a local increment salary schedule lower than the prior year's after the school year has already begun and first month's salaries have already been paid at the prior year's rate. Following a suit to enjoin approval of the district's tax rate by certain teachers, principals and administrators, ¹ joined by other teachers, librarians, and assorted district employees as intervenors, ² the trial court concluded the school board acted within its legal discretion as a matter of law under the written contracts with the school district employees, granted the School District's motion for summary judgment, and denied a motion for partial summary judgment as to liability filed by twenty-six teachers and two librarians. ³ These twenty-eight, whom we shall collectively call the Teachers, appealed. The court of appeals affirmed the judgment, one justice dissenting. 746 S.W.2d 524. We hold that fact issues as to estoppel and ratification of the local increment terms of the contracts were raised by the Teachers precluding summary judgment in favor of the School District, but that the Teachers' motion sought interlocutory partial relief only and their summary judgment motion and evidence cannot support rendition of a final summary judgment. We reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and remand this cause to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

To support its summary judgment, the School District must have established its entitlement to judgment as a matter of law as to each classification of employee represented by the Teachers. Chessher v. Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., 658 S.W.2d 563, 564 (Tex.1983). Since the material portions of the written contracts are substantially the same, we may, for purposes of this opinion, assume that all the Teachers were "continuing contract" teachers under the Texas Education Code. ⁴ Specifically, under chapter 13, subchapter C of the Code, a school district may adopt a teacher employment plan utilizing probationary and continuing contracts. Under this system, a teacher serves a probationary period of not greater than four years before being offered a continuing contract. Tex.Educ.Code Ann. § 13.102 (Vernon 1987). Once a teacher achieves continuing contract status, the teacher's employment continues without the necessity of annual school board approval. The continuing contract system is a statutory type of "tenure" system. With a continuing contract, employment may only be severed if the teacher resigns or retires, or the district initiates an action for termination or return to probationary status for a reason and through a procedure authorized by statute. Tex.Educ.Code Ann. § 13.107 (Vernon 1972); see also Armstrong & Hollan, Teacher Termination and Non-Renewal in Texas Public Schools, 16 St. Mary's L.J. 783, 786 (1985).

Lumberton Independent School District had adopted the continuing contract system. The written contract executed by the School District and the Teachers provided:

As long as Teacher is employed by the District under the continuing contract status, then annually the Teacher shall receive a supplementary contract stating the salary to which the Teacher will be entitled under the rules of the District.

The District agrees to pay to the Teacher for all services rendered under this contract a salary at the annual rate as fixed by the Schedule of Teachers Salaries as adopted by the Board of Trustees, in no event less than the State of Texas Minimum Foundation Salary, which annual salary will be paid in twelve (12) monthly installments.

Each year the teacher received a supplement to the continuing contract which by its terms had to be signed and returned within thirty days or the teacher would be considered to have refused to accept the contract and continuing contract status. The School District required the Teachers to sign the supplement the spring of the year before the school year for which the teaching contract applied. Thus, around April of 1985, the School District had the Teachers sign a "Supplement To Continuing Contract Agreement" which stated:

You are notified your salary of the school year 1985-86 beginning on the 26th day of August, 1985, will be The State of Texas Minimum Foundation Salary plus local increment.

Neither the Schedule of Teachers Salaries nor the local increment (as part of the Schedule) had been adopted for the next school year at the time the Teachers signed the contract supplements.

For the 1985-86 school year, the School District had not adopted a salary schedule when the Teachers began work. The events leading to that anomaly gave rise to the present suit. Because this is a summary judgment case in which all doubts and inconsistencies in the evidence and all inferences from the evidence must be taken favorably for the nonmovant, ⁵ we shall state the facts using that standard but attempting at the same time to detail the irregular circumstances giving rise to the controversy. We first address a few other significant dates and statutory detriments associated with the dates.

Some of the Teachers were twelve-month employees; for these teachers the employment duties for the 1985-86 school year began July 1, 1985. One of the continuing contract provisions in the Education Code provides that probationary or continuing contract teachers may resign "without penalty" by August 1, but that teachers who resign without consent of the school board outside the time prescribed "shall be ineligible for employment by any other Texas school district" for that contract year, with suspension of the teacher's teaching certificate. ⁶ Although the school district apparently must institute administrative proceedings to suspend the teacher's certificate, ⁷ the Commissioner of Education has noted the "mandatory terms" of the statute, held that the teacher need not be given opportunity to seek consent of the board, and enforced it despite evidence offered by the teacher of equitable considerations. ⁸

Because of an increase in state funding, the School District had given substantial raises to most of its teachers for the 1984-85 school year. By the spring of that school year, however, the budgeted state contributions had been curtailed because the Texas Education Agency determined that the School District was making a lesser "tax effort" as defined in House Bill 72 (H.B. 72, 2nd Called Session, 68th Leg., 1984). ⁹ The district was further informed that its accreditation was in danger ¹⁰ because, among other matters, the district's board of trustees failed to follow its own policies and Texas Education Agency mandated policies and procedures, apparently including some related to budget adoption and teacher salaries. The district was further informed that its state funding would likewise be curtailed for the 1985-86 school year. Members of the board of trustees were made aware of such notifications at least by June of 1985. The reduction in state funding left the district with less than its anticipated surplus at the end of the 1984-85 school year. The trustees were further on notice that state funding would be substantially reduced for the following school year.

The Education Code provision in effect at that time required the president of the school board to have prepared a budget not later than August 20 for the upcoming school year, with the budget "itemized in detail according to classification and purpose of expenditure" prepared according to applicable rules and regulations. ¹¹ The summary judgment record does not include the applicable rules and regulations, and the "detail" required for the teacher salary portion of the budget cannot be determined. The evidence indicates that over seventy-five percent of the budget was teacher salaries.

The board did not consider or act on any budget for 1985-86 until its August 26, 1985 board meeting, when the budget was already past due. At the direction of the board president, the superintendent had prepared a proposed salary schedule and budget that substantially would have left the prior year's local increments and salary schedule intact. A budget committee had prepared one or more alternative budget and salary proposals, also at the direction of the school board president. To attempt to meet the deadlines imposed by statute and administrative rules, the board voted to "adopt" the 1984-85 budget as the 1985-86 budget.

At the same time, the board expressly declined to approve a 1985-86 salary schedule, and directed further refinements of the proposed salary schedules discussed at that meeting. The board also failed to set the tax rate. There was an assumption on the part of the superintendent and administrative officers of the district that some form of the superintendent's proposed budget would be adopted. The district consequently continued to pay its teachers at the same salary schedule as in the prior year's budget.

The board had two further meetings on the tax rate and salary schedule. Rather than increase taxes significantly to pay for any version of the prior year's salary schedule, on September 16, 1985, the board adopted a very modest tax increase and a salary schedule developed by one trustee who served on the budget committee. The salary schedule adopted reduced proposed expenditures by significantly cutting the salaries (by decreasing the local...