Stackhouse v. School Dist. No. 1, County of Denver

• Decision Date: 02 May 1996
• Docket Number: No. 1,No. 95CA0592,C,1,95CA0592
• Citation: 919 P.2d 902
• Parties: 111 Ed. Law Rep. 533 John STACKHOUSE and William Tomlinson, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1, COUNTY OF DENVER, Board of Education of the School Districtounty of Denver, State of Colorado, Defendants-Appellees. . III
• Court: Colorado Court of Appeals

Page 902

919 P.2d 902

111 Ed. Law Rep. 533

John STACKHOUSE and William Tomlinson, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1, COUNTY OF DENVER, Board of Education

of the School District No. 1, County of Denver,

State of Colorado, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 95CA0592.

Colorado Court of Appeals,

Div. III.

May 2, 1996.

Law Offices of Jeffrey I. Sandman, Jeffrey I. Sandman, Aurora, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Semple & Jackson, P.C., Martin Semple and Franklin A. Nachman, Denver, for Defendants-Appellees.

Opinion by Judge NEY.

Plaintiffs, John Stackhouse and William Tomlinson, appeal the summary judgment entered in favor of defendants, School District No. 1 and the Board of Education of that District, (collectively the Board). We affirm the trial court's determination that § 22-63-202(2)(a), C.R.S. (1995 Repl.Vol. 9), is constitutional and reverse the summary judgment in favor of defendants.

Plaintiffs Stackhouse and Tomlinson were employed by the Board as teachers until each voluntarily resigned from his position in August 1991 and August 1992, respectively.

Relying upon the statutory provision now codified as § 22-63-202(2)(a) the Board deducted $1,000 from each of plaintiffs' final paychecks allegedly as compensation for its actual expenses related to recruiting, interviewing, and training replacement teachers.

Section 22-63-202(2)(a), as then in effect, provided:

Every employment contract executed pursuant to this section shall contain a damages provision. Pursuant to said provision, a teacher ... shall agree to pay damages to the school district, and the board thereof shall be authorized to collect or withhold damages from compensation due or payable to said teacher ... in an amount up to and including one-twelfth of the annual salary specified in said employment contract. Said damages shall be paid by the teacher ... unless the teacher ... has given written notice to the board thereof on or before July 15 that he will not fulfill the obligations of his contract during the succeeding academic year .... Said damages shall not exceed ordinary and necessary expenses of a board to secure the services of a suitable replacement teacher ....

These terms were incorporated into plaintiffs' employment contracts.

At the time each plaintiff tendered his resignation, Article 30-1-2 of the collective bargaining agreement then in effect between the teachers' union to which plaintiffs belonged, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, and the Denver Public School System provided:

New teachers will be paid up to an additional $750.00 for orientation days under Article 8-2 and for thirty-five (35) hours of inservice in addition to regular inservice for other new teachers.

(emphasis supplied)

Plaintiffs filed this action in June 1993, alleging breach of contract and violation of § 22-63-202(2)(a), the Fourteenth Amendment, and Colo. Const. art. II, § 25.

The Board successfully moved for summary judgment. In its order, the trial court noted that there was no dispute that plaintiffs' notices of resignation were tendered after July 15, and, concluding that the Board was not required to "justify or mitigate" the amount it deducted from plaintiffs' final paychecks, the trial court entered summary judgment in favor of the Board because there was no genuine issue of material fact as to plaintiffs' claims of breach of contract and violation of § 22-63-202(2)(a).

The trial court also determined that a teacher who voluntarily resigns his or her position is not deprived of a property interest protected by due process and thus, plaintiffs had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that § 22-63-202(2)(a) was unconstitutional. This appeal followed.

I

Plaintiffs contend that § 22-63-202(2)(a) is unconstitutional because it permits their property to be taken without due process. We do not agree.

Plaintiffs contend that their property interest in receiving the full amount of their final paychecks entitled them to an administrative hearing to determine the amount of the ordinary and necessary expenses incurred by the Board in finding their replacements prior to any deductions being made from their pay.

Under certain circumstances, an individual's due process rights may be satisfied after the individual has been deprived of property. See First Bank v. Department of Regulatory Agencies, 852 P.2d 1345 (Colo.App.1993) (post-deprivation hearing may satisfy due process requirements depending upon the private interest affected by the official action, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of that interest and the probable value, if any, of additional procedural safeguards, and the government's interest, including the physical and administrative burdens that the additional procedural requirements would entail).

Because judicial remedies such as an action for breach of contract are available to plaintiffs to resolve disputes concerning the Board's deductions under § 22-63-202(2)(a), we conclude that the statute need not provide pre-deprivation administrative procedures for such disputes.

Therefore, we perceive no error in the trial court's conclusion that plaintiffs...