Burke v. Central Educ. Agency

• Decision Date: 27 November 1985
• Docket Number: No. 14478,14478
• Citation: 701 S.W.2d 306
• Parties: 29 Ed. Law Rep. 839 John T. BURKE, Appellant, v. CENTRAL EDUCATION AGENCY, et al., Appellees.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 306

701 S.W.2d 306

29 Ed. Law Rep. 839

John T. BURKE, Appellant, v. CENTRAL EDUCATION AGENCY, et al., Appellees.

No. 14478.

Court of Appeals of Texas,

Austin.

Nov. 27, 1985.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 8, 1986.

Leonard J. Schwartz, B. Craig Deats, Schwartz, Waterman, Fickman & Van Os, Austin, for appellant.

Jim Mattox, Atty. Gen., George Warner, Asst. Atty. Gen., Austin, for Central Educ. Agency.

Henry D. Akin, Akin & Akin, Dallas, for Plano Independent School Dist.

Before POWERS, EARL W. SMITH and BRADY, JJ.

POWERS, Justice.

A Travis County district court rendered summary judgment against John T. Burke in his suit against the Central Education Agency and the Plano Independent School District. ¹ We will reverse the judgment and remand the cause to the trial court.

Burke alleged in his original petition that his "cause of action is an appeal from a final order of the State Board of Education." It is couched generally in the familiar terms applicable to a suit for judicial review of a final order rendered by a State agency in a contested case, when that suit is governed by the provisions of § 19 of the Texas Administrative Procedure and Texas Register Act (APTRA), Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 6252-13a (Supp.1985). ² The ultimate question on appeal is whether the provisions of APTRA govern Burke's suit.

In his petition, Burke complains that Plano did not renew his term contract of employment (as a teacher) and that the Commissioner of Education and the State Board of Education erred in not reversing Plano's decision. Burke contends that the actions of the local and State officials were erroneous under a State statute--The Term Contract Nonrenewal Act. ³

Plano and the Agency appeared and answered in Burke's suit. They then moved for summary judgment on the ground that Burke's motion for rehearing, filed in the Agency proceeding, was so lacking in specificity that it did not satisfy the prerequisite for judicial review established in APTRA § 16(e). ⁴ The trial court sustained the motions for summary judgment filed by Plano and the Agency. Burke appealed to this Court as provided in APTRA § 20.

Burke contends here that the trial court erred in its summary judgment because his motion for rehearing was sufficiently specific to apprise the Agency of his contentions of error in the proceeding conducted before it. ⁵ Plano and the Agency urge the opposite interpretation of Burke's motion. All parties agree fundamentally upon the degree of specificity the law requires in such motions--they must be sufficient to apprise the agency of the error claimed so that the agency may correct it or prepare to defend against the claim that it is error. Suburban Utility Corporation v. Public Utility Commission of Texas, 652 S.W.2d 358 (Tex.1983). We conclude, however, that we need not decide whether Burke's motion is sufficiently specific to preserve on judicial review the errors he attributes to the Agency in not reversing the decision of Plano. In our view, he was not required to file any motion for rehearing at all in order to preserve his contentions of error.

The requirement of a motion for rehearing, filed in an administrative agency and objecting to its decision, is a familiar statutory prerequisite to the complaining party's right to seek judicial review of the decision. ⁶ It is not, however, a universal requirement. For example, the model act from which APTRA is basically derived does not include such a requirement. ⁷ Unless a statute requires to the contrary, a motion for rehearing is generally not a prerequisite to judicial review. ⁸ In the present case, it is axiomatic that unless APTRA itself applies to Burke's suit for judicial review, § 16(e) of that statute does not apply; and if § 16(e) does not apply, Burke was not required to file in the agency any motion for rehearing in order to preserve his contentions of error.

The applicability of APTRA to the present case has been assumed by all the parties. We conclude, however, that APTRA unquestionably does not apply to the Agency's administrative review of the actions or omissions of a local school board under The Term Contract Nonrenewal Act. Consequently, Burke was not obliged to file in the Agency any motion for rehearing and the trial court erred in awarding summary judgment on the ground that such a motion was a "prerequisite" to Burke's authority to sue for judicial review of the Agency's decision.

Burke's claim, regarding his teaching contract, and the corresponding duties of Plano and the Agency derive solely from The Term Contract Nonrenewal Act, which we have summarized in a footnote. ⁹ Should a dispute arise under that statute, it must be adjudicated first in a hearing before the governing body of the school district. The hearing is a trial-type hearing as in district court, characterized by representation by counsel, introduction of evidence, cross-examination of witnesses, legal argument, briefs, and other trial-type procedures. 19 Tex.Admin.Code §§ 61.231-.252. The requirement for this kind of adjudicatory hearing applies to various kinds of disputes required to be adjudicated by a local board of trustees--they are not limited solely to disputes arising under The Term Contract Nonrenewal Act. See, e.g., Spring Ind. School Dist. v. Dillon, 683 S.W.2d 832 (Tex.App.1984, no writ). But in cases arising under the Term Contract Nonrenewal Act, it is quite clear that the local board of trustees, and not the Commissioner, makes original original fact findings and determinations of the law and administrative policy.

The Term Contract Nonrenewal Act as well as § 61.251(2) of the Agency regulations contemplate that a decision of the local school board of trustees may be appealed to the Commissioner of Education for administrative review by that officer, and to the State Board of Education for further administrative review of the Commissioner's decision.

Other parts of the Code make similar provisions for appeal to the Commissioner and the Board from other determinations made by a local board of school trustees. In such appeals generally, the Commissioner's review is not limited to reviewing a record compiled in connection with the local-board hearing and adjudication. Instead, the Commissioner receives evidence anew and makes his own fact findings and applications of law. 19 Tex.Admin.Code §§ 157.41-.58. This clearly is not the case, however, with regard to the Commissioner's administrative review of adjudications by a local board of school trustees under The Term Contract Nonrenewal Act. Section 21.207 of that statute provides quite explicitly for a different kind of administrative review:

(a) If the teacher is aggrieved by the decision of the board of trustees, he may appeal to the State Commissioner of Education pursuant to Section 11.13 of this code. The Commissioner may not substitute his judgment for that of the board of trustees, unless the decision below was arbitrary, capricious, unlawful, or not supported by substantial evidence.

(emphasis added). The emphasized portion of § 21.207(a) directs, in unmistakable terms, that the Commissioner, in his administrative review of adjudications made under The Term Contract Nonrenewal Act, shall conduct a review based upon the record compiled by the local board, the scope of the Commissioner's review being to determine if the local board's decision was arbitrary, capricious, or unlawful, or if its findings of fact are not supported by substantial evidence. The Commissioner is specifically precluded from substituting his own judgment as to such matters; that is to say, he may not make the findings of fact or applications of law or administrative policy that the local board should have made. The record in the present case reflects that the Agency so construed § 21.207 of the Act and that the Commissioner proceeded accordingly in Burke's appeal to him. The Commissioner's review was therefore limited to the record compiled before the local board of school trustees and his "findings of fact" and "conclusions of law" are really his determinations about whether the local board acted arbitrarily, capriciously, unlawfully, or without substantial evidence in its application of law and policy and in its findings of fact.

We believe, and hold, that the Agency has in this respect correctly construed § 21.207 of the Act. We might add that § 21.207 appears to represent a sensible orchestration of the authority of local school boards and that of the Agency, a matter discussed at length in Spring Ind. School Dist. v. Dillon, supra, at 840.

Against the form and scope of administrative review contemplated by § 21.207 and applied in the present case by the Commissioner, we must compare the scope and applicability of APTRA to determine whether the administrative proceedings we now review fall within APTRA generally, so that a motion for rehearing must be filed in the Agency as a prerequisite to any suit for judicial review under APTRA § 19.

It is beyond dispute that APTRA represents a much-needed and comprehensive statute governing the rulemaking and adjudicatory functions of State administrative agencies. ¹⁰ It is not, however, universally applicable to such functions; that is to say, APTRA does not, by its very terms, purport to apply to every instance of rulemaking and adjudication by every public body in this State possessing such powers. Indeed, the Legislature quite carefully circumscribed the statute's applicability in three ways.

First, APTRA § 21 sets out several kinds of agency proceedings which are expressly excepted from the statute. These deal with such proceedings as driver's license suspensions, parole proceedings, welfare-benefit proceedings, and other specified proceedings.

Next, the scope of APTRA (insofar as it governs an agency's exercise of an adjudicatory power) is limited by the statutory definition given the expression "contested case," as that definition is set out in APTRA § 3(2):

"Contested...