Lea v. Grier, COA02-538.
| Decision Date | 18 March 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. COA02-538.,COA02-538. |
| Citation | 577 S.E.2d 411,156 NC App. 503 |
| Court | North Carolina Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Shelia D.P. LEA, individually and as the President of the Guilford County Association of Educators, Elizabeth H. Seel, Catherine L. Hazelton, Edward C. McMillan, III, Guilford County Association of Educators, and the North Carolina Association of Educators, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Dr. Terry GRIER, Superintendent, Public Schools of Guilford County, in his Official Capacity Only, and Guilford County Board of Education, Defendants-Appellees. |
Ferguson, Stein, Chambers, Wallas, Adkins, Gresham & Sumter, P.A., by John W. Gresham and Corie Pauling, Charlotte, for plaintiffs-appellants.
Brooks, Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard, L.L.P., by Jill R. Wilson and James C. Adams, II, Greensboro, for defendants-appellees.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd, the Guilford County Board of Education ("the Guilford County School Board") restructured the school calendar to satisfy statutory requirements for the minimum hours of school instruction. Appellants, four Guilford County teachers and the North Carolina Association of Educators (collectively "the teachers"), brought an action alleging the calendar restructuring violated their constitutional, statutory, and contractual rights. From the dismissal of their claims under Rule 12(b)(6), the teachers appeal to this Court. We find no error with respect to the dismissal of the teachers' statutory and constitutional claims; however, we remand with instructions to reinstate the teachers' breach of contract claims.
The underlying facts to this appeal tend to show that at the outset of the 1999-2000 school year, the provisions of N.C. Gen.Stat. § 115C-84.2 (1999) provided that:
After the devastation of Hurricane Floyd, the North Carolina General Assembly recognized that many school districts had lost a significant number of instructional days and faced problems in meeting the required minimum of 180 instructional days. Accordingly, the General Assembly enacted the "Hurricane Floyd Recovery Act of 1999" which amended the school calendar by providing for "a minimum of either 180 days or 1,000 hours of instruction." N.C. Gen.Stat. § 115C-84.2(a)(1)(a) (1999) (emphasis added). The Floyd Recovery Act, however, did not amend any other provisions of N.C. Gen.Stat. § 115C-84.2. By February 2000, the Guilford County School Board was forced to cancel a total of twelve instructional days because of weather conditions including Hurricane Floyd. Consequently, the existent school calendar dropped to 168 days and less than 1,000 hours of instruction. To meet the statutory hours minimum, the Guilford County School Board voted on 3 February 2000 to (1) add thirty minutes of instructional time to each school day, (2) alter six scheduled teacher workdays to instructional days, and (3) various other measures. These modifications allowed the Guilford County School Board to provide 1,000 instructional hours in 174 days.1
In their 4 January amended complaint, the teachers alleged that as a result of the modifications, they were (1) required to work extra hours without compensation; (2) forced to forfeit planning periods in violation of N.C. Gen.Stat. § 115C-301.1;2 and (3) required to work 206 days, six more than permitted, respectively, by N.C. Gen.Stat. §§ 115C-84.2(4-5), 115C-84.2(a), and 115C-84.2(b)(1),3 because the "Board's actions brought the total number of teacher workdays to 26 days, [and] increased the school calendar to 226 days." Furthermore, the teachers alleged that a number of schools under the Guilford County School Board's authority "acknowledged that the increase in instructional time of thirty minutes each day also increased teachers' overall workloads and thus allowed teachers to use this additional time to substitute for optional workdays." The teachers contended the failure of the Guilford County School Board to adopt a uniform policy applicable to all teachers contravened the equal protection guarantees of the United States and North Carolina Constitutions.
Based on these modifications, the teachers initially sued the Guilford County School Board in 2000; voluntarily dismissed the action without prejudice; and on 24 September 2001, re-filed the action under Rule 41(a) seeking declaratory, injunctive, and monetary relief for alleged violations of statutory, constitutional, and contract law. On 26 November 2001, the Guilford County School Board filed a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) of North Carolina's Rules of Civil Procedure for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. On 16 January 2002, the trial court granted the Guilford County School Board's motion to dismiss and dismissed all of the teachers' claims with prejudice. From that dismissal, the teachers timely filed a Notice of Appeal making four assignments of error.4
By their first two assignments of error, the teachers contend the trial court erred in granting the Guilford County School Board's motion to dismiss because the teachers stated a cognizable claim for declaratory, injunctive, and monetary relief for violations of N.C. Gen.Stat. §§ 115C-84.2 and 115C-301.1. We disagree, and will address the standard of review, and the teachers' claims for declaratory and private relief, in turn.
334 S.E.2d at 755. However, where the "requested relief [is] not authorized by statute, the [complaint is necessarily]" defective because "the court [is] powerless to grant [the relief] regardless of what facts could be proved." Forrester v. Garrett, 280 N.C. 117, 122, 184 S.E.2d 858, 861 (1971).
North Carolina's Declaratory Judgment Act provides that: "Any person ... whose rights, status or other legal relations are affected by a statute ... may have determined any question of construction or validity arising under the ... statute ... and obtain a declaration of rights, status, or other legal relations thereunder." N.C. Gen.Stat. § 1-254 (2002). "Although the North Carolina Declaratory Judgment Act does not state specifically that an actual controversy between the parties is a jurisdictional prerequisite to an action thereunder, our case law does impose such a requirement." Sharpe v. Park Newspapers of Lumberton, Inc., 317 N.C. 579, 583, 347 S.E.2d 25, 29 (1986). Accordingly, where "the complaint does not allege an actual, genuine existing controversy, a motion for dismissal under ... Rule 12(b)(6) will be granted." Gaston Bd. of Realtors, Inc. v. Harrison, 311 N.C. 230, 234-35, 316 S.E.2d 59, 62 (1984).
In this case, the teachers failed to allege "an actual genuine existing controversy." The teachers alleged that the Guilford County School Board violated the mandates of N.C. Gen.Stat. §§ 115C-84.2 and 115C-301.1 during the 1999-2000 school year. Although the teachers state in their amended complaint that "the actions of [the Guilford County School Board], if allowed to continue, have created a legal controversy ... and will lead to unavoidable litigation," the teachers failed to allege that the Guilford County School Board has continued, or will continue, violating the mandates of Sections 115C-84.2 and 115C-301.1. Our Supreme Court has made it eminently clear that "a litigant [who] seeks relief under the declaratory judgment statute, must set forth in [the] pleading all facts necessary to disclose the existence of an actual controversy between the parties." Lide v. Mears, 231 N.C. 111, 118, 56 S.E.2d 404, 409 (1949). Here, the teachers did not meet this threshold burden. Accordingly, the trial court properly dismissed the teachers' request for declaratory relief under the aforementioned statutes.
Next, the teachers sought injunctive and private relief under N.C. Gen.Stat. §§ 115C-84.2 or 115C-301.1. However, "[o]ur case law generally holds that a statute allows for a private cause of action only where the legislature has expressly provided a private cause of action within the statute." Vanasek v. Duke Power Co., 132 N.C.App. 335, 339, 511 S.E.2d 41, 44 (1999). Here, neither Section 115C-84.2 nor Section 115C-301.1 expressly creates a private cause of action. Moreover, appellants have failed to make any arguments that N.C. Gen.Stat. §§ 115C-84.2 or 115C-301.1 implicitly create a...
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