Pauley v. Kelly, No. 14036

• Court: Supreme Court of West Virginia
• Writing for the Court: HARSHBARGER; NEELY
• Citation: 162 W.Va. 672,255 S.E.2d 859
• Parties: Terry Gene PAULEY, etc., et al. v. John H. KELLY, Treasurer, State of West Virginia, et al.
• Docket Number: No. 14036
• Decision Date: 20 February 1979

Page 859

255 S.E.2d 859 162 W.Va. 672 Terry Gene PAULEY, etc., et al.
v.
John H. KELLY, Treasurer, State of West Virginia, et al. No. 14036. Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. Feb. 20, 1979.

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Syllabus by the Court

1. "The trial court, in appraising the sufficiency of a complaint on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, should not dismiss the complaint unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief. Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957)." Syllabus Point 3, Chapman v. Kane Transfer Co., Inc., W.Va., 236 S.E.2d 207 (1977)

2. The provisions of the Constitution of the State of West Virginia may, in certain instances, require higher standards of protection than afforded by the Federal Constitution.

3. The mandatory requirements of "a thorough and efficient system of free schools" found in Article XII, Section 1 of the West Virginia Constitution, make education a fundamental, constitutional right in this State.

4. Because education is a fundamental, constitutional right in this State, under our Equal Protection Clause any discriminatory classification found in the State's educational financing system cannot stand unless the State can demonstrate some compelling State interest to justify the unequal classification.

5. The Thorough and Efficient Clause contained in Article XII, Section 1 of the West Virginia Constitution requires the Legislature to develop a high quality State-wide education system.

[162 W.Va. 673] Daniel F. Hedges, Charleston, Peter J. Nickles and Paul A. Zevnik, Covington & Burling, Richard S. Kohn and David C. Long, Washington, D.C., for appellants.

Chauncey H. Browning, Atty. Gen., F. Layton Cottrill, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Charleston, for appellees.

HARSHBARGER, Justice: ¹

Appellants are parents of five children who attend the public schools of Lincoln County. They filed this action for declaratory judgment in the Circuit Court of Kanawha County on behalf of themselves and as a class action on behalf of the other students in the Lincoln County school system. Defendants are the State Treasurer and State Auditor, the members of the West Virginia State Board of Education and the State Superintendent of Schools.

The Pauleys allege that our system for financing public schools violates West Virginia's Constitution by denying plaintiffs the "thorough and efficient" education required by Article XII, Section 1, and by denying them equal protection of the law. They particularly direct us [162 W.Va. 674] to inequalities that exist in secondary education opportunity and achievement, created by markedly out-of-balance annual funding, facilities, curriculum and personnel of schools in property-poor counties, such as Lincoln, compared with those in more wealthy counties in the State.

The first section of our Constitution's education article is:

"The legislature shall provide, by general law, for a thorough and efficient system of free schools."

The Constitution's equal protection mandates are:

"No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . . ." (Article III, Section 10) ²

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and

"The courts of this State shall be open, and every person, for an injury done to him, in his person, property or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law; and justice shall be administered without sale, denial or delay." (Article III, Section 17) ³

The case was decided on pleadings, admissions, affidavits and statistical material from public documents. No testimony was offered. Plaintiffs moved for summary judgment; defendants moved to dismiss because the complaint did not state a cause of action.

[162 W.Va. 675] The court then made factual findings to the effect that the Lincoln County school system is inadequate, ⁴ apparently[162 W.Va. 676] by comparison with four other counties: Kanawha, Marshall, Brooke and Hancock.

Its legal conclusions were that State government has not created a thorough and efficient system of public schools in Lincoln County, but has met "the constitutional mandate in some counties . . . ." Also:

"(T)here has been no evidence that public school children residing in those (property-poor) counties are necessarily poorer than such children who reside in counties with higher overall property values. In the absence of such evidence, the classification here has not been shown to be based on social class or wealth of the plaintiff class, but merely to be based on geography of county lines. The nature of the classification thus does not fall into that category of classifications which are automatically considered to be suspect."

(R. 330)

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So equal protection guarantees were inapplicable.

The court dismissed the complaint, denied plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment, and plaintiffs appealed, asserting:

"1. The Circuit Court should have granted the relief requested by plaintiffs in light of its findings of fact and its conclusions of law that Lincoln County schools are inadequate under the 'thorough and efficient' constitutional standard of the State of West Virginia.

"2. The Circuit Court should have granted the relief requested by plaintiffs in light of its findings that significant disparities exist among West Virginia counties in the quality and extent of educational services provided, thus constituting a violation of equal protection and due process principles safeguarded by the West Virginia Constitution." (Appellants' Brief at 8)

[162 W.Va. 677] We note what may have been a fundamental procedural error. Apparently defendants' motion to dismiss was granted because plaintiffs had not demonstrated, in their affidavits, admissions and other documents, that the poor school system in Lincoln County is a product of the present school financing system as they alleged. This may have been sufficient reason to deny plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment, but could not justify granting a motion to dismiss against them. A motion to dismiss is designed simply to test the legal sufficiency of a complaint. We have held that such motions are not favored and in considering them, plaintiffs' factual allegations must be construed favorably to them and considered for purposes of the motion to be true. John W. Lodge Dist. Co. v. Texaco, Inc., W.Va., 245 S.E.2d 157 (1978).

The trial court in its memorandum opinion recognized that the plaintiffs had asserted valid constitutional challenges to the present school financing system. It was not their legal theories that were deficient, and therefore a motion to dismiss was improper.

It is true that defendants filed an affidavit by Dr. James T. Ranson which questioned some of plaintiffs' factual allegations, but the court did not consider it to be a summary judgment request by defendants under Chapman v. Kane Transfer Co., W.Va., 236 S.E.2d 207 (1977). Even if it had elected to do so, summary judgment for defendants would have been inappropriate because defendants' affidavit did no more than raise issues of material fact. We have held that even though both parties move for summary judgment, the court cannot thereby dispose of the case where disputed issues of facts exist. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. v. Federal Insurance Co. of New York, 148 W.Va. 160, 133 S.E.2d 770 (1963).

The case must be remanded for further evidentiary development and, because there are significant and far-reaching public issues involved, it is advisable that we propose certain guidelines to the Circuit Court. We shall [162 W.Va. 678] analyze applicable constitutional standards and then review the State's role in education and identify areas that require evidentiary development to allow judgment of the State's performance of its role.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES

Equal Protection

The trial court correctly recognized that federal Fourteenth Amendment equal protection rights are not available to children seeking educational equality. San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973). ⁵ It properly [162 W.Va. 679] concluded

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that a state is not constrained by the federal constitutional standard, but must examine its own constitution to determine its education responsibilities. It relied upon similar analyses made by other state courts. Horton v. Meskill, 172 Conn. 615, 376 A.2d 359 (1977); Robinson v. Cahill, 62 N.J. 473, 303 A.2d 273 (1973). We have stated that we may interpret our own Constitution to require higher standards of protection than afforded by comparable federal constitutional standards. Adkins v. Leverette, W.Va., 239 S.E.2d 496, 499 (1977).

Robinson affirmed a lower court judgment, holding the New Jersey school financing statute to be unconstitutional. The case has considerable relevance to our jurisdiction, because New Jersey's constitution contains a thorough and efficient clause and an equal protection section. We will mention the former later.

The court discussed equal protection and concluded that its legislature was required to provide a thorough and efficient education system throughout the state; that this made education a fundamental, constitutionally mandated right in New Jersey; and therefore the educational funding system must be strictly scrutinized to see if there was a compelling state interest served by any statutorily created inequalities. ⁶

[162 W.Va. 680] However, the Robinson court refused to place entire reliance on its equal protection clause to test the state's school financing

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formula, because it recognized there may be instances where the state must spend unequal amounts among the various school districts or counties:

"We hesitate to turn this case upon the State equal protection clause. ( ⁷ ) The reason is that the equal protection clause may be unmanageable if it is called upon to supply categorical answers in the vast area of human needs, choosing those which must be met and a single...