City of Lawrence v. State Bd. of Ed.

• Decision Date: 07 April 1970
• Citation: 257 N.E.2d 461,357 Mass. 200
• Parties: CITY OF LAWRENCE et al. v. STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 461

257 N.E.2d 461

357 Mass. 200

CITY OF LAWRENCE et al. v. STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

Argued Feb. 3, 1970.

Decided April 7, 1970.

Salvatore J. Basile, Lawrence, for petitioners.

Thomas A. Sheehan, Boston, for respondent.

Before WILKINS, C.J., and SPALDING, KIRK, SPIEGEL, and REARDON, JJ.

REARDON, Justice.

In this petition for review brought under the provisions of G.L. c. 30A, § 14, the petitioners appeal from an order of the Superior Court denying their motion to require that the respondent Board of Education (Board) file a record of a hearing held by the Board, and from an order allowing a motion of the Board that the proceedings be remanded to the Board. The facts alleged are as follows.

On June 14, 1967, the city of Lawrence was threatened by an illegal strike of certain teachers within the school system, and on the following day only one third of the teachers in the system reported for work. Confronted by this situation the petitioner school committee voted to close the schools for the remaining five school days of the year.

The school committee thereafter applied to the Board for an exemption under the provisions of G.L. c. 71, §§ 1 and 4A, which provisions require the schools to be open for the number od days determined by the Board. This exemption was necessary to enable the city of Lawrence to obtain its share of State aid funds under the provisions of c. 70. A hearing to determine the question of exemption was conducted on July 25, 1967, by the Board and the testimony of the witnesses was recorded and certified by an official court stenographer. On September 20, 1967, the Board notified the superintendent of the Lawrence public schools that an exemption would be allowed for one day but denied for four days, thus causing a loss in State aid to the city of Lawrence in the amount of $36.000.

The petitioners allege that they were aggrieved by the Board's decision of September 20, 1967, in that it was 'arbitrary, capricious and a gross abuse of discretion,' because the Board had prejudged the merits of the case prior to the hearing, had failed to consider the evidence before it, and had based its decision on an erroneous concept of law.

In considering a petition for review the trial judge is given by statute the power to remand the matter for further proceedings before the agency. The court's power to remand, however, is predicated on a 'consideration of the entire record, or such portions of the record as may be cited by the parties.' G.L. c. 30A, § 14(8).

In this case the Superior Court did not have before it either the 'entire record, or such portions of the record as * * * (might have been) cited by the parties,' What was laid before it comprised only the petition, the decision of the Board, and the motions of the parties. The court, nevertheless, denied the petitioners' motion that the Board be ordered to file the record on the ground that the 'meeting' held on July 25, 1967, 'was not a full and fair hearing, and was not an 'Adjudicatory Proceeding" as required by G.L. c. 30A, § 10. Not having before it the transcript of the proceedings before the Board, the court was not in a position to make a determination whether there had been a full and fair hearing and, if so, whether in fact the hearing was adjudicatory. It has been stated in Marlborough Hosp. v. Commissioner of Pub. Welfare, 346 Mass. 737, at p. 738,...