Hopkins v. Inhabitants of Bucksport

• Decision Date: 18 December 1920
• Citation: 111 A. 734
• Parties: HOPKINS v. INHABITANTS OF BUCKSPORT.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

111 A. 734

HOPKINS

v. INHABITANTS OF BUCKSPORT.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Dec. 18, 1920.

Report from Supreme Judicial Court, Hancock County, at Law.

Action by Lucinia Heath Hopkins against Inhabitants of Bucksport. Case reported. Judgment for plaintiff.

Argued before CORNISH, C. J., and SPEAR, HANSON, PHILBROOK, MORRILL, and WILSON, JJ.

Fellows & Fellows, of Bangor, for plaintiff.

W. C. Conary, of Bucksport, for defendant.

MORRILL, J. It appears in this case that the plaintiff, a teacher of 17 years experience, was duly employed to teach the West Side intermediate school in the defendant town for the year beginning in September, 1918, and that before the school opened in September she was dismissed by the superintending school committee. That she had the necessary certificate for teaching and was qualified to teach is admitted. In justification of the action of the committee, the defendant relies upon R. S. c. 16, § 38, par. 3, which reads as follows:

"Sec. 38. Superintending school committees shall perform the following duties: * * *

"III. After due notice and investigation, they shall dismiss any teacher, although having the requisite certificate, who proves unlit to teach, or whose services they deem unprofitable to the school; and give to said teacher a certificate of dismissal and of the reasons therefor, a copy of which they shall retain, and such dismissal shall not deprive the teacher of compensation for previous services."

The certificate given by the committee to the plaintiff, a copy of which they retained, is as follows:

"Whereas on the 16th day of September, A. D. 1918, at a meeting of the superintending school committee of the town of Bucksport, Maine, duly called and held at the office of W. C. Conary in said Bucksport, at 7:30 p. m., and after due notice to Lucinia E. Hopkins, teacher of the West Side intermediate school, so called, in said Bucksport, that said committee would meet at above time and place to act upon the advisability of Lucinia E. Hopkins teaching said school, and at which time and place said Lucinia E. Hopkins might present herself and be heard in the matter, if she desired:

"Now, therefore, we, the undersigned superintending school committee, having met as above set forth, the said Lucinia E. Hopkins being present at said meeting, and after due investigation and deliberation on the above matter, it was voted that the teacher for the West Side intermediate school, so called, in said Bucksport, Lucinia E. Hopkins, be and hereby is dismissed, as her services in the judgment of said committee would be unprofitable to said school on account of her admitted associations with a German alien enemy of the United States of America, under suspicion and under investigation at this time by the government,

"Dated at an adjourned meeting of said superintending school committee, at Bucksport, Maine, this twenty-third day of September, A. D. 1918. W. C. Conary, Archie L. White, Superintending school committee Bucksport, Maine."

Counsel for the defendant contends that the "committee had judicial authority given them by the Legislature," and that their proceedings constituted "a judicial deliberation and decision of that committee," which is binding upon the plaintiff.

We think that the defense cannot be sustained. We have not been furnished with the record of the proceedings before the committee, except the certificate above copied. It appears from the testimony of the plaintiff, who was the only witness at the trial below, that in the summer of 1918 she purchased an automobile to enable her to teach in Bucksport, and to return to her home in Verona each night on account of her mother's illness. Her husband secured the services of one Margraf to teach her to run the automobile, and in company with him she drove to Bucksport several times and about Verona. Margraf was a German alien, a near neighbor of the...