Kavanaugh v. West Sonoma County Union High School Dist.

• Decision Date: 30 January 2003
• Docket Number: No. S101633.,S101633.
• Parties: Alta KAVANAUGH, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. WEST SONOMA COUNTY UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Defendants and Appellants.
• Court: California Supreme Court

129 Cal.Rptr.2d 811

29 Cal.4th 911

62 P.3d 54

Alta KAVANAUGH, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. WEST SONOMA COUNTY UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Defendants and Appellants.

No. S101633.

Supreme Court of California.

January 30, 2003.

Rehearing Denied April 16, 2003.

As Modified April 16, 2003.

Robert J. Henry and Nancy L. Klein for Defendants and Appellants.

James David Allen, San Diego, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

WERDEGAR, J.

We address in this case the proper interpretation of Education Code section 44916,¹ which requires an employing school district to provide new certificated employees with written notice of their employment status "[a]t the time of initial employment." If a district fails to provide such notice, or if the notice fails to indicate employment is "temporary," section 44916 prescribes a statutory remedy: "[T]he certificated employee shall be deemed to be a probationary employee," an employment classification entitling the employee to greater job protections.

Plaintiff Alta Kavanaugh, a certificated teacher, did not receive written notice of her status as a temporary employee until she had been working in the classroom more than two weeks. Although the trial court held such notice came too late and concluded Kavanaugh must be considered a probationary employee by operation of section 44916, the Court of Appeal reversed. We conclude the trial court was correct and reverse the judgment of the appellate court.

FACTS

Defendant West Sonoma County Union High School District (the District) had an opening for a high school English teacher for the 1999-2000 school year. The District's personnel manager, Susan Panas, declared she prepared an announcement for the position that explained the opening was for a temporary position.² Kavanaugh, a teacher with many years of teaching experience in other districts, applied for the position and stated in her declaration that she was not told whether it was temporary or probationary. On August 20, 1999, principal Thomas Lorch interviewed Kavanaugh and offered her the position. Kavanaugh asserts that when she asked Lorch whether the position was "only a one-year position," he replied that she would have to work two years as a probationary teacher before being eligible to become a permanent teacher. At no time, she declares, did Lorch inform her the position was only temporary, and she further declares that she would not have taken a temporary position because she had a permanent position at her former school.

By contrast, Lorch declares he never told Kavanaugh her position would lead to a permanent one, and he denies discussing the tenure procedure with her. Although he declares, "I always tell the candidates for temporary positions that the employment is a temporary one-year contract," he does not state he told Kavanaugh she was interviewing for, and being hired for, a temporary position.

Kavanaugh began working on August 26, 1999. On September 9, 1999, the Board of Trustees for the District met and ratified Kavanaugh's hiring as a high school English teacher at Analy High School "effective 8-26-99." The board's action was confirmed by a letter Panas sent to Kavanaugh dated September 13, 1999. The letter stated: "At the Board Meeting on September 9, 1999[,] the Board of Education approved your employment as a temporary teacher at Analy High School effective August 26, 1999." (Italics added.) Kavanaugh admits receiving the letter and states in her declaration that this was the first time she had any notice she had been hired as a temporary, rather than a probationary, teacher.

By October 18, 1999, Panas had verified Kavanaugh's prior academic and employment history so as to establish her proper place on the salary schedule. At that time, she notified Kavanaugh to come to the District office to sign her contract. Kavanaugh did so on November 9, 1999, at which time she asked Panas why her contract provided that she was only a temporary employee after principal Lorch had told her she would be classified as a probationary employee. Kavanaugh asserts that Panas told her: "That's just something this district does. Don't worry. If you get a good evaluation, they'll retroactively make you probationary." Panas specifically denies these allegations in her own declaration.

The parties agree that, near the end of the school year, the District was experiencing a financial crisis and, on April 20, 2000, elected not to reemploy several certificated employees, including Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh received written notice of this decision by a letter of that date. She filed a petition for a writ of mandate in Sonoma County Superior Court, alleging that the District had a duty to classify her pursuant to section 44916 as a probationary employee because it had failed to provide her with timely written notice that she was only a temporary employee. Moreover, she claimed the District had a further duty to reemploy her for the coming school year because it did not notify her by March 15, 2000, that she was being laid off. The trial court granted her petition; the Court of Appeal reversed.

DISCUSSION

A.

Plaintiff Kavanaugh sought a writ of mandate from the trial court. A writ of mandate "may be issued by any court . . . to compel the performance of an act which the law specially enjoins, as a duty resulting from an office, trust, or station. . .." (Code Civ. Proc, § 1085, subd. (a).) To be entitled to relief, Kavanaugh must show the District has a clear, present and ministerial duty to reelect (rehire) her and that she has a clear, present and beneficial right to performance of that duty entitling her to a writ of mandate. (Santa Clara County Counsel Attys. Assn. v. Woodside (1994) 7 Cal.4th 525, 539-540, 28 Cal.Rptr.2d 617, 869 P.2d 1142.) "A ministerial act is an act that a public officer is required to perform in a prescribed manner in obedience to the mandate of legal authority and without regard to his own judgment or opinion concerning such act's propriety or impropriety, when a given state of facts exists." (Rodriguez v. Solis (1991) 1 Cal.App.4th 495, 501, 2 Cal. Rptr.2d 50.) Whether the District had a clear, present and ministerial duty to reelect plaintiff Kavanaugh depends on the meaning of section 44916. Although an appellate court defers to a trial court's factual determinations if supported by substantial evidence (Kreeft v. City of Oakland (1998) 68 Cal.App.4th 46, 53, 80 Cal. Rptr.2d 137), in this case the trial court's decision did not turn on any disputed facts. Accordingly, the trial court's legal interpretation of section 44916 is subject to de novo review. (Burden v. Snowden (1992) 2 Cal.4th 556, 562, 7 Cal.Rptr.2d 531, 828 P.2d 672.)

B.

"The Education Code establishes four possible classifications for certificated employees: permanent, probationary, substitute and temporary." (Taylor v. Board of Trustees (1984) 36 Cal.3d 500, 504, 204 Cal.Rptr. 711, 683 P.2d 710.) The code authorizes the governing boards of school districts to hire, classify, promote and dismiss certificated employees (i.e., teachers) (see § 44831), but establishes a complex and somewhat rigid scheme to govern a board's exercise of its decisionmaking power. The date on which a certificated employee is first classified within one of these four employment categories is often critical, for such status has ramifications for both the teacher and the district throughout the employment relationship. For example, if a certificated probationary employee works for two complete consecutive school years and is then reelected for the next succeeding year, the employee is deemed elevated to permanent status by operation of law. (§ 44929.21, subd. (b).)³ In some circumstances, a probationary employee who is not informed of his or her nonreelection by March 15th of the current school year is deemed reelected for the following school year. (§§ 44929.21, subd. (b), 44955, subd. (c).) If a certificated employee works as a temporary employee for a complete school year and is then "reemployed for the following school year in a position requiring certification qualifications, [he or she must] be classified by the governing board as a probationary employee and the previous year's employment as a temporary employee shall be deemed one year's employment as a probationary employee for purposes of acquiring permanent status." (§ 44917; see also § 44920.)

A certificated teacher's classification also governs the level of statutory job protection the teacher enjoys and controls the level of procedural protections that apply if he or she is not reelected. In general, permanent employees may not be dismissed unless one or more statutorily enumerated grounds are shown. (§ 44932.) Probationary employees may not be dismissed during the school year except for cause or unsatisfactory performance (§ 44948.3), but, on timely notice, "may be nonreelected without any showing of cause, without any statement of reasons, and without any right of appeal or administrative redress." (Bellflower Education Assn. v. Bellflower Unified School Dist. (1991) 228 Cal.App.3d 805, 808, 279 Cal. Rptr. 179.)⁴ "Substitute and temporary employees, on the other hand, fill the short range needs of a school district and generally may be summarily released." (Taylor v. Board of Trustees, supra, 36 Cal.3d at p. 505, 204 Cal.Rptr. 711, 683 P.2d 710.) Thus, temporary teachers may be dismissed "[a]t the pleasure of the [governing] board prior to serving during one school year at least 75 percent of the number of days the regular schools of the district are maintained" (§ 44954, subd. (a)), and after that time so long as the temporary employee is notified before the end of the school year (id., subd. (b)). The overall scheme the Legislature has created in the Education Code is thus specific as to the rights and responsibilities of certificated teachers and their employers, the governing boards.

The dispute in this case arises from the heightened...