Long v. Board of Ed. Dist. No. 1 Fr. Royal Oak Tp., City of Oak Park
| Decision Date | 26 November 1957 |
| Docket Number | No. 73,73 |
| Parties | Adelaide LONG, Plaintiff-Appellee, State Tenure Commission, Appellee by Certiorari, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION DIST. NO. 1 FR. ROYAL OAK TWP., CITY OF OAK PARK, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
Adelaide Long, 'a teacher on continuing tenure' (see article 3 of P.A.1937 [Ex.Sess.], No. 4, P.A.1941, No. 119; C.L.1948, § 38.91), was discharged by the controlling board of the appellant school district following a hearing conducted by the board under article 4 of said act 4, Comp.Laws 1948, § 38.101 et seq. She duly appealed to the state tenure commission (see articles 6 and 7 of said act 4, Comp.Laws 1948, § 38.121 et seq.). Following due and extended hearings as provided in the act, the commission reversed the board's order of discharge ordered that said Adelaide Long 'be restored to all her rights and privileges as principal of said George Washington Carver School.'
On application of the board for leave to take a delayed appeal from the commission's order, we issued certiorari to the commission. In pursuance of such writ the complete record of testimony and proceedings below has been examined for the purpose of testing the question appellant seeks to review. It is stated this way in appellant's brief:
'May the Tenure Commission, sitting as a Board of Review of a finding of a School Board, there having been evidence produced before the school board to support its ruling, vary or reverse the said finding without new material evidence being presented in the hearing on review?'
Thomas M. Kavanagh, Atty. Gen., Edmund E. Shepherd, Sol. Gen., Lansing, Maxine Boord Virtue, Asst. Atty. Gen., for State Tenure Commission.
Harold E. Bledsoe, Detroit, for defendant-appellant.
Francis M. Dent, Detroit, for plaintiff-appellee, Adelaide Long, Peter P. Cobbs, Jr., Detroit, of counsel.
Before the Entire Bench.
BLACK, Justice (after stating the facts).
It is apparent on consideration of the record and appellant's brief that some little misapprehension of the statutory function of the commission has survived our successive decisions in the Rehberg cases (Rehberg v. Board of Education, 330 Mich. 541, 48 N.W.2d 142; 345 Mich. 731, 77 N.W.2d 131). We cannot, on certiorari or otherwise, review and decide questions of fact brought by appeal to and decided by the commission. Our only function in a case like this is to determine from the record whether proof received by the board, or the commission, or both, supports findings on which it--the commission--has decided for or against the appealing teacher. Here an abundance of testimony, taken on appeal by and before the commission, supports its finding that Mrs. Long's principal accuser 'is not worthy of belief.' and that her discharge should be set aside.
We find no occasion for review of the evidence appellant discusses in its breif. It is ruled again, as in the second Rehberg case, that the commission 'may make an...
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