Jameson v. Board of Education of Union Dist.
| Decision Date | 12 May 1914 |
| Docket Number | 2313. |
| Citation | 81 S.E. 1126,74 W.Va. 389 |
| Parties | JAMESON v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF UNION DIST. |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
The statute not requiring it, contracts with teachers when appointed by boards of education need not be in writing.
Where a teacher who has taught the previous year makes verbal application to the president of the board of education for re-appointment, upon the same fixed and definite terms as the previous year, and is assured by him of her re-appointment and thereafter at a regular meeting of the board at which he is present and participating and when all other teachers of the district are duly elected or appointed, such teacher is in fact re-elected or appointed to such position on such terms, such action of the board amounts to acceptance of the offer and completes a valid and binding contract between the parties, irrevocable by such board except for causes prescribed by statute.
And if after such re-appointment or election to such position of teacher verbal notice be given the president by such teacher of his or her acceptance thereof, such notice is notice to the board; and on the theory that such election or appointment constitutes a mere proposal by the board, such notice to the president is likewise notice to the board, and constitutes acceptance of such offer by the teacher and completes a valid and binding contract, irrevocable except for causes prescribed by statute.
Marriage of a female teacher after being so appointed or elected by a board of education is not of itself good ground for revocation by such board of its action or the abrogation of its contract.
Error to Circuit Court, Marshall County.
Action by Hallie Jane Jameson against the Board of Education of Union District. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff brings error. Reversed, and judgment entered.
Martin Brown, of Moundsville, for plaintiff in error.
John P Arbenz, of Wheeling, for defendant in error.
MILLER P.
Plaintiff on November 13, 1911, sued before a justice, and obtained judgment for $150.00, salary as music teacher for the first two months of the school year beginning September 11, 1911, at the rate of $75.00 per month. On appeal by defendant to the circuit court she there obtained a verdict for the same amount, which on motion was set aside and the defendant awarded a new trial, and on a writ of error awarded her we are now asked to reverse that judgment and pronounce judgment on the verdict in her favor.
Plaintiff had been appointed and served as music teacher at the same salary during the preceding year, and after application to the president, was, at a regular meeting of the board, on July 3, 1911, when all the other teachers were appointed, re-appointed at the same salary for the year beginning September 11, 1911.
Plaintiff was Miss Hallie Janes. On July 20, 1911, she was married to J. F. Jameson, and two days afterwards, through her husband, she notified the president of the board of her acceptance of the position, and that she proposed to go on with the work the next year.
The president admits this notice, but says that it was given in a social conversation, and that he at that time told Mr. Jameson, "in conclusion, that I rather suspected that she had better tender her resignation, as it was the precedent that had been established, that we had not been having any married women to teach in the schools."
This was the only information plaintiff appears to have had of any objection to her teaching, until about August 11, 1911, when she received a letter from the superintendent of schools, expressing regrets, and saying that the board would not meet ahead of schedule time, August 8, and that when they did meet they were obdurate, and could not be changed, and had declared her place vacant, and that they stood a unit against the employment of a married woman.
After the school year began plaintiff presented herself regularly every school day at the different schools where she was appointed to teach, and was denied the right, and was told by the different superintendents that she would not be permitted to do any teaching.
On the motion for a new trial the court below was of opinion that the evidence showed no contract between the parties, that it did not appear that the minds of the parties had ever met in a binding contract. The sole question presented for decision, therefore, is, was there a binding contract between the parties?
One point urged in support of the judgment, not noted in the opinion of the circuit judge, is that the alleged contract was not in writing. Plaintiff was appointed music teacher, not for a sub-district, by sub-district trustees, but by the board of education of the district, and to teach music in the schools throughout the entire district. While by section 56, chapter 45, serial section 2097, Code 1913, the appointment of teachers by sub-district trustees, must be in writing, according to the form prescribed by the state superintendent of free schools, and filed with the secretary of the board, by section 65, of the same chapter, serial section 2106, as construed in Hines v. Board of Education, 49 W.Va. 430, 38 S.E. 550, and Board of Education v. Holt, 51 W.Va. 437, 41 S.E. 337, sub-district trustees are or were under the supervision and control of the board of education. Now, however, by section 164, of the same chapter, serial section 2238, Code 1913, a new section added by Acts of 1908, in force when the alleged contract involved here was made:
"The board of education may take charge of schools so supervised and appoint the teachers therefor and may provide that all the schools in the district shall begin on the same date."
The preceding section, also new, provides for the appointment of district superintendents by boards of education. In Robinson v. Board of Education, 70 W.Va. 66, 73 S.E. 337, construing this section, we said, that a board of education might, by proper action at a regular meeting, employ such a district superintendent without a written contract, the statute not requiring the contract to be in writing, and this seems to be the rule generally with respect to contracts by public corporations. Section 56, of the same chapter, serial section 2097, Code 1913, requiring contracts made with trustees of sub-districts to be in writing and filed with the secretary of the board, was evidently that the board of education might have a record of all such contracts for its information. When contracts with teachers are made directly with the board it has record thereof by its minutes, and needs no other evidence thereof for any practical purposes. Wherefore the absence of any such requirement when the contracts are made directly with the board.
We do not see that Lance v. McCoy, 34 W.Va. 416, 12 S.E. 728, is authority against this construction of the statute. That case related to the appointment of a committee for an insane person. It seems that the statute at that time required notice where the appointment was by the circuit court, but no notice was in terms required where the appointment was by the county court, both courts then having concurrent jurisdiction of the subject of such appointment. It was decided, however, that notice was also required as well where the appointment was by the county court as when made by the circuit court. This was clearly a proper construction of the statute to render the proceedings thereunder due process of law. The necessity for that construction is therefore apparent. But there is no necessity here for supplying by construction the absence from the statute of the provision requiring contracts to be in writing, when made directly with boards of education. The general rule stated in Robinson v. Board of Education, supra, is, therefore, applicable.
On the two theories relied on by plaintiff, it is conceded, on the first, that if plaintiff's application to the president, as to which there is little or no conflict in the evidence, constituted an application to the board, and her appointment on July 3, 1911, an acceptance thereof; or, on the second, that if her appointment by the board constituted a proposal on its part, and her notice of its acceptance, through her husband, to the president of the board, on July 22, 1911, constituted legal notice thereof to defendant, in either case she had a binding contract, entitling her to a recovery. The learned judge below concluded on a motion to set aside the verdict that plaintiff had failed to make out a case on either theory, and set aside the verdict. In this we think he clearly erred.
To support her first theory plaintiff was permitted to prove the manner and method of her application and appointment the previous year. She proved by the secretary that he did not remember, but did not think she had made a written application, and by the minutes of the meeting of July 5, 1910, introduced in connection with his evidence, she proved a resolution that "the board employ a music teacher who shall teach music in all the schools of Benwood and McMechen"; that witness was not sure the board then had a written application, but that on August 9th, as the minutes introduced with his testimony shows, "Miss Hallie Janes was appointed music teacher, at a salary of seventy-five dollars per month." The witness proved that under the appointment thus made for the previous year Miss Janes taught music and received the salary voted her for the entire year.
And respecting plaintiff's appointment or employment for the year now in question, plaintiff proved by the same witness and by the minutes of the meeting of the board of July 3 1911, at which all the members were present, the appointment of various trustees of...
To continue reading
Request your trial