Case Title: LARAMIE COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT #2 V. ALBIN CATS CHARTER SCHOOL, INC.

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 2005-04-13T00:00:00Z

Document:
LARAMIE COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT #2 V. ALBIN CATS CHARTER SCHOOL, INC.2005 WY 43109 P.3d 552Case Number: 04-199Decided: 04/13/2005
APRIL TERM, A.D. 2005

 
 
                                                                                                                                   

 
 
 
 

LARAMIE 
COUNTYSCHOOL DISTRICT 
#2,

 
 
Appellant

(Respondent),

 
 
v.

 
 
ALBIN 
CATS CHARTER SCHOOL, INC.,

 
 
Appellee

(Petitioner).

 
 

 
 

Representing 
Appellant:

 
 
            
Bruce S. Asay of Associated Legal Group, LLC, Cheyenne, Wyoming.

 
 

Representing 
Appellee:

 
 
            
Brian S. Bailey and Henry F. Bailey, Jr. of Bailey, Stock & Harmon, 
P.C., Cheyenne, Wyoming.

 
 
 
 
Before 
HILL, C.J., and GOLDEN, KITE, and VOIGT, JJ., SPANGLER, D.J. 
Ret.

 
 

            
VOIGT, Justice.

 
 
[¶1]      In this appeal, a 
school district board of trustees challenges a district court's order remanding 
to it for action a charter school application.  We affirm in part, reverse in part, and 
remand.

 
 
FACTS

 
 
[¶2]      Wyo. Stat. Ann. 
§§ 21-3-301, et seq. (LexisNexis 2001 
and 2003), provide for the creation of charter schools within Wyoming's existing school 
district system.  Application for 
establishment of a charter school is made to the local school district board of 
trustees.  The application shall be denied if the board 
determines that "its sole purpose is to avoid consolidation or closure of any 
school . . .."  Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 
21-3-303(b).

 
 
[¶3]      On September 9, 
2002, the Laramie County School District No. 2 Board of Trustees (the District 
Board) closed the junior and senior high schools in Albin, Wyoming.  
On December 9, 2002, the District Board received a document entitled 
"Charter Application for AlbinCATSSchool (Creative Academic 
Teaching Strategies)."  The District 
Board considered the application to be filed on January 2, 2003, the date it 
received notice that "Albin CATS Charter Schools, Inc." (the Applicant) was 
approved by the Wyoming Secretary of State as a non-profit 
corporation.

 
 
[¶4]      Pursuant to 
statute, the District Board held a public hearing on the application on January 
27, 2003, and it considered the matter further at a special meeting on March 3, 
2003.  At the latter meeting, a 
board member moved as follows:

 
 
            
I move that [as] the Board moves ahead with its consideration of the 
proposal and submitting a proposed contract that it is the determination of this 
Board that the effort by Albin CATS to create a charter school was not for the 
"sole" and only purpose of avoiding a closure of the Albin Junior and Senior 
High Schools.

 
 
The 
motion was seconded.  Of the nine 
members of the District Board, eight were present.  The vote was four to four.  Treating the vote as a failure of the 
motion, and, therefore, a determination that the application was 
for the sole purpose of avoiding closure of the Albin schools, the 
District Board entered an Order Denying Application.

 
 
[¶5]      On March 11, 
2003, the Applicant submitted a Notice of Appeal with the Wyoming State Board of 
Education (the State Board).  The 
gravamen of the appeal was the contention that the tie vote, rather than being a 
vote against the motion's negative propositionthat the purpose of the 
application was not 
to avoid school closureand therefore, in effect, a vote in favor of the 
opposite propositionthat the purpose of the application was to avoid school closurewas not 
a vote at all, and was the same as taking no action at all.  Finally, the Applicant contended that 
this inaction violated the mandate of Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 21-3-308(a) that the 
District Board "shall either approve or deny the application within sixty (60) 
days of receipt."  Following a 
hearing on May 14, 2003, the State Board upheld the District Board's decision on 
the ground that the decision was based upon Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 21-3-303(b), and 
was supported by the record.

 
 
[¶6]      On September 29, 
2003, the Applicant appealed the ruling of the State Board to the district 
court.  In that appeal, the 
Applicant complained that the following finding from the District Board's Order 
Denying Application, "The Board on a tied vote . . . found in fact, Albin CATS' 
sole purpose in submitting its Application to convert the existing school to a 
Charter School was, in fact, to avoid closure of the Albin Junior and Senior 
High Schools[,]" violated the requirement in Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 21-3-105 
(LexisNexis 2003) that "[n]o action of the board of trustees shall be valid 
unless such action shall receive the approval of a majority of the members 
elected to the board of trustees."

 
 
[¶7]      The District 
Board filed a Motion to Dismiss in the district court, alleging that the 
District Board, rather than the State Board, should have been the named 
appellee, that the Applicant should have filed a petition for review rather than 
a notice of appeal, and the notice of appeal failed to include the information 
required by W.R.A.P. 12.06.  On June 
18, 2004, the district court entered an order dismissing the State Board from 
the action and substituting the District Board as "respondent."  After finding that the tie vote of the 
District Board was not effective under Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 21-3-105, the district 
court remanded the matter to the District Board "for action by a majority of the 
members elected to it."  On July 9, 
2004, the district court denied the District Board's motion for 
rehearing/reconsideration.  The 
present appeal is taken from the orders of June 18, 2004, and July 9, 
2004.

 
 
ISSUES

 
 
            
1.         
Did the district court err in remanding this action to the District 
Board?

 
 
            
2.         
Did the district court err in ignoring the jurisdictional defects 
contained in the Notice of Appeal?

 
 
            
3.         
Was the agency decision supported by substantial 
evidence?

 
 
STANDARD 
OF REVIEW

 
 

[¶8]      Our standard for 
the review of appeals from administrative agency action is well known and need 
not be repeated here.  See Davis v. City of Cheyenne, 2004 WY 
43, ¶¶ 6-7, 88 P.3d 481, 484-85 (Wyo. 2004); State ex rel. Dept. of Transp. v. Legarda, 
2003 WY 130, ¶¶ 9-10, 77 P.3d 708, 711-12 (Wyo. 2003); and Newman v. State ex rel. Wyoming Workers' 
Safety and Compensation Div., 2002 WY 91, ¶¶ 7-26, 49 P.3d 163, 166-173 
(Wyo. 2002).

 
 
DISCUSSION

 
 
[¶9]      In the interests 
of judicial economy, we will not consider the issues individually, but will 
directly address the dispositive issue.  
The motion before the District Board said, in effect, that the 
application was not for the sole purpose of avoiding school closures.  That motion failed on a tie vote.  In other words, the only action of the 
District Board was a failure to find the negative proposition.  Nevertheless, based upon that vote, the 
District Board entered an order affirming the opposite positive proposition that 
the tie vote was a finding that the sole purpose of the application was to avoid 
school closures.  The problem in 
this case is simply that the District Board's order was inconsistent with its 
actual factual determination.

 
 

[¶10]   The district court found, and the 
Applicant now argues, that the effect of the tie vote was that the District 
Board took no action, as it is required to do by Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 21-3-308 
("the district board shall either approve or deny the application within sixty 
(60) days of receipt").  The 
District Board counters by arguing that, under its operative rules, as well as 
under traditional parliamentary law, a tie vote results in failure of 
adoption.  See Hirschfield v. Board of County Com'rs  
of County  of Teton , 944 P.2d 1139, 1143-44 ( Wyo. 1997) and 59 Am.Jur.2d Parliamentary Law §§ 3, 17 
(2002).  The District Board then concludes that, 
given its failure to find a statutory precondition for consideration of the 
application, the application had to fail.

 
 
[¶11]   We cannot fully accept either of 
these positions.  First, it is clear 
that the District Board did, indeed, take action; it denied the 
application.  The problem is that 
the District Board never found one way or the other on the statutory 
precondition before it took that action.  
The District Board's failure to find that the application was 
not made solely to avoid school closures was not a finding that the 
application was made solely to avoid school 
closures.

 
 
CONCLUSION

 
 
[¶12]   We affirm the decision of the 
district court remanding this matter to the District Board because the District 
Board's action was not supported by an appropriate finding on a statutorily 
required precondition.  However, we 
reverse that portion of the district court's order that requires the District 
Board to vote anew on the application, because the effect of this decision is 
simply to vacate the Order Denying Application, leaving the application still 
pending before the District Board.  
It is not for the courts in this circumstance to tell the Applicant and 
the District Board whether to continue to pursue that application.  The question of potential future courses 
of action is not presently before this Court.

 
 
[¶13]   Affirmed in part, reversed in part 
and remanded to the district court for further remand to the District 
Board.