Hunt v. Wilson

• Citation: 72 Misc.2d 360,339 N.Y.S.2d 287
• Parties: Betty HUNT, a minor, by and through her Next Friend and Mother, Lucille Hunt, et al., Plaintiffs, v. J. M. WILSON, in his Capacity as Principal of Madison Senior High School, et al., Defendant.
• Decision Date: 28 December 1972
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (New York)

Page 287

339 N.Y.S.2d 287

72 Misc.2d 360

Betty HUNT, a minor, by and through her Next Friend and Mother, Lucille Hunt, et al., Plaintiffs, v. J. M. WILSON, in his Capacity as Principal of Madison Senior

High School, et al., Defendant.

Supreme Court, Monroe County.

Dec. 28, 1972.

[72 Misc.2d 361] Joan de R. O'Byrne, Rochester, for Richard Snitzel, plaintiff.

Adam D. Kaufman, Legal Counsel City School District, for defendant.

DECISION

EMMETT J. SCHNEPP, Justice.

Plaintiff, Richard Snitzel, through his mother Doris Snitzel, suing individually and on behalf of all other persons similarly situated, instituted this action for a declaratory judgment and injunctive relief to declare invalid the school suspensions of plaintiffs and to restrain the defendants from interfering with their right to attend the public school from which they were suspended and for other relief. The action on behalf of plaintiff, Betty Hunt, was dismissed with prejudice.

Richard Snitzel was suspended from the Charlotte Junior-Senior High School and later transferred to the Tutoring Center, a facility operated by the City School District. This center is challenged as being unauthorized, deficient in its educational program and non-educational services, and as organized for the sole purpose of segregating suspended pupils awaiting hearings to determine the need for further disciplinary action. It is further claimed that the transfer was invalid because of the failure to grant a prior hearing and obtain parental consent. In addition to a judicial declaration that Education Law, section 3214, subd. 3c requires the holding of a hearing within five days of the original suspension, and that the defendants have no jurisdiction to hold a suspension hearing or take further action on the same set of circumstances in the absence of such a hearing, plaintiffs seek to compel the defendants to readmit these pupils to the public school from which they were suspended. Before the court is a motion for preliminary relief.

There is no authority for the maintenance of a class action on the factual situation before the court. The class is alleged to comprise students suspended from the Rochester City School District and subsequently assigned to the Tutoring Center, who have not had suspension hearings prior to their transfers and who are presently prevented from attending the school from which they were suspended. It is claimed that all have suffered identical wrongs.

In Gaynor v. Rockefeller, 15 N.Y.2d 120, 129, 256 N.Y.S.2d 584, 590, 204 N.E.2d 627, 631, Chief Judge Fuld stated that '* * * a class action may not be maintained where the wrongs asserted are individual to the different persons involved and each of the persons aggrieved 'may determine for himself the remedy which he will seek' and may be subject to 'a defense not available against others'. (Society Milion Athena v. National Bank of Greece, 281 N.Y. 282, 292, 22 N.E.2d 374, 377; see Brenner v. Title Guar. & Trust Co., 276 N.Y. 230, 236--237, 11 N.E.2d 890, 893, 114 A.L.R. 1010.) 'Separate wrongs to separate persons, though committed by similar means and even pursuant to a single plan,' we declared in the Society Milion Athena case (281 N.Y., at p. 292, 22 N.E.2d, at p. 377), 'do not alone create a common or general interest in those who are wronged."

Each student suspension is individual and different, and the circumstances relating to the type of conduct involved, and whether group or individual, must by its very nature vary in each case. A determination on the merits would necessarily turn on the particular facts and circumstances involved in each situation. As the court pointed out in Christman v. Skinner, 38 A.D.2d 884, 329 N.Y.S.2d 114 (4th Dept.), a class action, '* * * varying facts may present substantially different issues which do not lend themselves to anticipatory determination.'

Each alleged invalid transfer and the alleged lack of due process in each case are separate wrongs charged against the members of this class and each pupil is free '* * * to determine for himself the remedy for redress of his grievance.' (Gaynor v. Rockefeller, 15 N.Y.2d 120, 129, 256 N.Y.S.2d 584, 590, 204 N.E.2d 627, 631, supra.) Defenses available to one are not necessarily available to others. Here, this might take the form of defending the charges at the hearing, which defenses may be based upon issues of identity or involvement, an appeal from an adverse decision to the Rochester Board of Education and the Commissioner of Education of the State of New York, by an informal conference with the principal upon the...