# United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

_____________ No. 96-3841EA

_____________ Katherine Knight; North Little * Rock Classroom Teachers * Association; Pulaski * Association of Classroom * Teachers; Little Rock Classroom * Teachers Association; Ed * Bullington; and John Harrison, * On Appeal from the United * States District Court Appellants, * for the Eastern District * of Arkansas. v. * * * Pulaski County Special * School District, * * Appellee. *

___________ Submitted: February 25, 1997 Filed: May 1, 1997

___________ Before RICHARD S. ARNOLD, Chief Judge, HEANEY an d WOLLMAN, Circuit Judges.

___________ RICHARD S. ARNOLD, Chief Judge.

In 1992, the long-running desegregation case involving the thre e school districts in Pulaski County, Arkansas, was settled. A consen t decree, embodying the agreement of all the parties, was entered on April 29, 1992. Under this Court’s opinion in Little Rock School District v
. Pulaski County Special School District , 921

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F.2d 1371 (8th Cir. 1990), the District Court was given the job o f monito ring the settlement agreement to ensure that all parties complie d with it. The question presented in this case is whether the District Cour t had the authority, as an aspect of this enforcement responsibility, t o forb id a strike by the teachers of the Pulaski County Special Schoo l District.

On August 19, 1996, the District’s teachers, represented by th e Pulaski Association of Classroom Teachers, went on strike. Three day s later, on August 22, certain parents of PCSSD students filed suit in the Chance ryCourt of Pulaski County, Arkansas, and sought a preliminar y injunc tion against the strike, alleging state-law grounds in support o f their request. The n ext day, after a hearing on the motion, the Chancery Court denied injunctive relief on the ground that no showing of irreparabl e harmhad been made. Wilson v. Pulaski Ass’n of Classroom Teachers , No . IJ96-5788 (slip op. Ark. Ch. Ct. Aug., 23, 1996). Another hearing wa s scheduled for September 19. This state-court case is now pending before the Supreme Court of Arkansas on PCSSD’s appeal.

In the me antime, on August 27, the District itself made a motion in the fe deral district court for injunctive relief against the strike
. School opened on August 28. The District used teachers who were willing to cross the picket line and others to staff its classrooms. On that same day , the District Court held a hearing on PCSSD’s motion. At th e conclusion of the hearing, the Court ordered the teachers to return to wor k on September 3. The teachers complied with this order, and PCSSD’s school s have been open ever since. At the he art of this case lies the question of the District Court’s authority to enjoin the strike. The teachers an d their Union were parties to the school-desegregation case, having been

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allowed to intervene. See Little Rock School District v. Pulaski County Special School Distri ct , 839 F.2d 1296, 1314-15 (8th Cir.), cert. denied , 488 U.S. 869 (1988). Like all other parties, they agreed to the settlemen t agreement embodied inthe consent decree entered in 1992. The difficulty is that the settlement agreement says nothing ab out the teachers’ right to strike. The job of the District Court is to enforce the settlemen t agreement. But since the agreement is silent on the subject of a strike by the te achers, the authority of the District Court to issue its orde r must be found elsewhere, if at all.

The fact that the case has been settled does not make the thre e school districts involved wards of the Court. They are not i n rece ivership. Except as provided in the settlement agreement, or b y reasonable implication therefrom, the rights and duties of the three schoo l dis tricts and those with whom they do business, including employees an d organizations of employees, are governed by other applicable law, primaril y state l aw. As we explained in 1988, a federal district court does hav e remedi al authority, in necessary cases, to modify or even abrogat e agre ements that perpetuate segregation or impede a desegregation plan
. Such action, however, can be taken only “after an evidentiary hearing and upon a finding that t he change is essential to the desegregation remedy,” 839 F.2d at 1315, unless, of course, the parties have agreed otherwise, an event which, as we have explained, has not occurred in this case. It is suggested, though without much force, that the failure of PCSSD to increase teachers’ salaries may be a violatio n of state law, Act 917 of 1995, Ark. Code. Ann. § 6-17-1001 (Michie 1995). It is also suggested tha t the collective-bargaining agreement between the teachers and PCSSD may, by im plication, forbid a strike, because the agreement contains certai n procedures for

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resolving disputes, including declaration of an impasse and factfinding by
some neu tral person. These arguments have nothing to do with th e settlement agreement and depend on state law. L ikewise, the suggestion on the other side that state law forbids strikes by public employees raises no issue within the p articular competence of the federal courts. Because this case has been settled, the settlement agre ement becomes, in a sense,
a pa rticularization of federal law applicable to these parties. Th e jurisdi ctionof the District Court to enforce that agreement does no t include the authority to resolve other disputes among the parties or t o adjust their legal rights and responsibilities a rising from other sources. No indep endent basis of jurisdiction has been suggested. In thes e cir cumstances, and especially in view of the fact that an earlier-file d case is now pending i n the state courts, we think it best to leave issues of state law and contract interpretation to those courts. PCSSD argues that if it cannot hold school at all, it cannot carr y out the desegregation plan, and this is perhaps the most appealing argumen t the school district h as. The trouble with the argument is that it proves too much. If, for example, the school district’s water bill were raised to an exorbitant level, making it financially difficult or impossible to operate, we do not think that the District Court, as an aspect of it s authorityto monitor the settlement agreement, would have power to order the utility furnishing the water ro reduce its rates. No doubt the exampl e is an extr eme one, but it makes the point. The teachers, unlike th e putative water utility, are parties to the settlement agreement, but the agreement does not address their right to strike. Indeed, it refers t o existing collective-bargaining arrangements in s uch a way as to reinforce, rather than abrogate, their effectiveness. In addition, as a matter o f fact, the school district was not rendered inoperable by the strike, and was making plans to open its doors

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without the help of the striking teachers when the District Court issued its injunction. The operation of the schools would unquestionably hav e been impai red to some extent, but we do not think that the proof wa s suf ficientlystriking to justify the action taken. So long as th e settlement agreement is complied with, the school district must make its own way through the ordinary difficulties of lif e as an employer. Another case would be presented if the teachers were to take action pointedly aime d at interfering with d esegregation as such (to use another extreme example in order to make a point).
Finally, and perhaps as an afterthou ght, the school district asserts that the injunction a gainst the strike can be upheld as a modification of the settlement agreement. The District Court of course has power, after
a pro per showing, to modify the settlement agreement. In theory, suc h pow er could be exercised in such a way as to affect the rights of th e teachers. This suggestion, however, is wholly foreign to the present case
. No one asked the District Court to modify the se ttlement agreement, it did not say that it was modifying the agreement, and the agreement in fac t stands unmodified to this day.

We un derstand the concerns that led the District Court to protec t PCSSD and its school children from the effects o f a teachers’ strike. But
we cannot agree that the settlement agreement, even by implication, took away the right to strike, assuming such a right exists under state law, no r can we find any other source of authority for the action the District Cour t took. The order granting an injunction against the teachers’ strike i s therefore

Reversed.

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Attest:
CLERK, U.S. COURT OF APPEALS, EIGHTH CIRCUIT.