Watson v. City of Cambridge

• Decision Date: 05 January 1893
• Citation: 157 Mass. 561,32 N.E. 864
• Parties: WATSON v. CITY OF CAMBRIDGE.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

157 Mass. 561

32 N.E. 864

WATSON v. CITY OF CAMBRIDGE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

January 5, 1893

COUNSEL

A.H. Russell, for plaintiff.

C.J McIntire, for defendant.

OPINION

KNOWLTON J.

The records of the school committee of the defendant city set forth that the plaintiff in 1885 was excluded from the schools "because he was too weak-minded to derive profit from instruction." He was afterwards taken again on trial for two weeks, and at the end of that time again excluded. The records further recite that "it appears from the statements of teachers who observed him, and from certificates of physicians, that he is so weak in mind as not to derive any marked benefit from instruction, and, further that he is troublesome to other children, making unusual noises, pinching others, etc. He is also found unable to take ordinary, decent, physical care of himself." The evidence at the trial tended strongly to show that the matters set out in the records were true.

The defendant requested the court to rule that if the facts are true which are set forth in the records of the committee, as to the cause of the exclusion of the plaintiff from the public schools, the determination of the school committee thereon, acting in good faith, was final, and not subject to revision in the courts. The court refused so to rule, and submitted to the jury the question whether the facts stated if proved, showed that the plaintiff's presence in school "was a serious disturbance to the good order and discipline of the school."

The exceptions present the question whether the decision of the school committee of a city or town, acting in good faith in the management of the schools, upon matters of fact directly affecting the good order and discipline of the schools, is final, so far as it relates to the rights of pupils to enjoy the privileges of the school, or is subject to revision by a court. In Hodgkins v. Rockport, 105 Mass. 475, it appeared that the school committee, acting in good faith excluded the plaintiff from school on account "of his general persistence in disobeying the rules of the school, to the injury of the school." Of the plaintiff's acts of misconduct, it is said, in the opinion in that case, that "whether they had such an effect upon the welfare of the school as to require his expulsion was a question within the discretion of the committee, and upon which their action is...