Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/590/470/224896/
Timestamp: 2019-08-24 11:48:22
Document Index: 539479627

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1981', '§ 34', 'art, 579', '§ 5110', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 5', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1988', '§ 1988']

Dr. Joseph T. Skehan v. Board of Trustees of Bloomsburg State College and Dr. Robertnossen and Dr. Charles Carlson and John Pittenger,superintendent of Education, Commonwealth of Pennsylvaniaand Bloomsburg State College. Dr. Joseph T. Skehan,appellant in No. 77-2311,board of Trustees of Bloomsburg State College and Dr. Robertnossen and Dr. Charles Carlson and John Pittenger,superintendent of Education, Commonwealth of Pennsylvaniaand Bloomsburg State College, Appellants in No. 77-2312, 590 F.2d 470 (3d Cir. 1978) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › Third Circuit › 1978 › Dr. Joseph T. Skehan v. Board of Trustees of Bloomsburg State College and Dr. Robertnossen and Dr. C...
Dr. Joseph T. Skehan v. Board of Trustees of Bloomsburg State College and Dr. Robertnossen and Dr. Charles Carlson and John Pittenger,superintendent of Education, Commonwealth of Pennsylvaniaand Bloomsburg State College. Dr. Joseph T. Skehan,appellant in No. 77-2311,board of Trustees of Bloomsburg State College and Dr. Robertnossen and Dr. Charles Carlson and John Pittenger,superintendent of Education, Commonwealth of Pennsylvaniaand Bloomsburg State College, Appellants in No. 77-2312, 590 F.2d 470 (3d Cir. 1978)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit - 590 F.2d 470 (3d Cir. 1978)
Argued Sept. 29, 1978. Decided Dec. 21, 1978
Before SEITZ, Chief Judge, HUNTER, Circuit Judge, and LACEY* , District Judge.
The district court held a hearing on Skehan's request for a preliminary injunction on January 11 and 12, 1973. Preliminary injunctive relief was denied in an opinion and order dated January 31, 1973. Skehan v. Board of Trustees of Bloomsburg State College, 353 F. Supp. 542 (M.D. Pa. 1973). Subsequently, the parties stipulated that a final hearing could be held on the record developed at the preliminary injunction hearing, and the district court issued its opinion on the merits on May 9, 1973. Skehan v. Board of Trustees of Bloomsburg State College, 358 F. Supp. 430 (M.D. Pa. 1973).
The district court issued its first opinion after remand on plaintiff's and defendants' cross-motions for judgment on Skehan's claim that the decision not to reappoint him after 1970-71 was for reasons violative of the first amendment. Skehan v. Board of Trustees of Bloomsburg State College, No. 72-644 (M.D. Pa., filed March 24, 1977) (unpublished opinion). The district court awarded judgment to the defendants on that claim. Three aspects of that ruling are at issue in this appeal. First, the defendants contend that the district court erred in rejecting their argument that Skehan's first amendment claim was barred by the applicable Pennsylvania statute of limitations. Skehan appeals from the court's disposition of the merits of the first amendment claim, and also contends that the court abused its discretion in denying his motion to take additional testimony on that issue.
Two recent opinions of this Court compel our disposition of this question. In Meyers v. Pennypack Woods Home Ownership Association, 559 F.2d 894 (3d Cir. 1977), this Court faced the question whether a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1982, alleging racial discrimination by a private home ownership association, was governed by Pennsylvania's two year or its six year statute of limitations. The Court noted that the Pennsylvania scheme of limitations is complex, due to the establishment of a six year period for all actions in contract and all actions of trespass by the Act of 1713, while the Act of 1895, without reference to the earlier statute, provides a two year period for actions for personal injury not resulting in death. The Court noted that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has held (citing Walker v. Mummert, 394 Pa. 146, 146 A.2d 289 (1958) and Helmig v. Rockwell Manufacturing Co., 389 Pa. 21, 131 A.2d 622 (1957)) that the Act of 1713 still governs all actions in trespass not involving personal injury. 559 F.2d at 902. Elaborating further, this Court stated that 12 P.S. § 34 "by its terms applies only to 'actions brought to recover damages' whereas (the plaintiff) seeks a broad range of equitable relief," and that the statutory phrase " 'injury wrongfully done to the person, in cases where the injury does not result in death' expresses a limitation only on actions for bodily injury whereas (plaintiff's) claim is for tortious interference with his right to contract for the purchase of a house." Id. (footnote omitted).
It is clear that "(g)enerally, whether a trial court will reopen a case to take more testimony is discretionary with that court." Rochez Brothers, Inc. v. Rhoades, 527 F.2d 891, 894 n. 6 (3d Cir. 1975), Cert. denied, 425 U.S. 993, 96 S. Ct. 2205, 48 L. Ed. 2d 817 (1976); See Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc., 401 U.S. 321, 331, 91 S. Ct. 795, 28 L. Ed. 2d 77 (1971). The contention that Skehan presses most vigorously in arguing that the trial court abused that discretion in this instance is that by not taking additional testimony on the first amendment claim the district court failed to comply with the mandate of this Court to make findings of fact on the causes of Skehan's nonrenewal. To the contrary, however, neither opinion of this Court specifically instructed the district court to take further evidence on any issue remanded to it for findings of fact. In fact, we feel that there was an assumption implicit in those opinions that the trial court need not reopen the record of this case for further testimony on the first amendment issue in order to make the required findings.
We believe that the concerns raised here by Skehan, and rejected by the district court, do not compel a conclusion that the trial court abused its discretion in denying his motion to take additional testimony on the first amendment nonrenewal claim. This is not one of the exceptional cases envisioned in Rochez Brothers, supra at 894-95, in which a party failed to put into evidence all the necessary elements of his claim because of a misunderstanding among the parties and the trial court; nor was the trial court unable to make findings of fact on the nonrenewal claim without the proffered testimony. See Pittsburgh Press Club v. United States, 426 F. Supp. 553, 554 (W.D. Pa. 1977), Aff'd in relevant part, 579 F.2d 751, 755 (3d Cir. 1978). Rather, as Skehan concedes, at the time of the preliminary injunction hearing, the district court and the parties probably considered the question of the College's motivation in its nonrenewal of Skehan to be merged with the first amendment challenge to his dismissal. Thus, Skehan did present evidence with respect to his first amendment activities, and the College's reaction to them, relevant to the whole period of his employment by the College. The district court in no way hindered him from offering proof that the nonrenewal decision was motivated by his engaging in conduct protected by the first amendment. Skehan's counsel made a tactical judgment to rest on the record made at the preliminary injunction hearing and, based on that record, the district court was able to detail Skehan's campus activism prior to the nonrenewal decision in the Spring of 1970 in twelve findings of fact contained in its opinion on the merits of the first amendment claim, discussed below.
Mt. Healthy did not substantially affect the affirmative burden of a plaintiff in Skehan's position to show by a preponderance of the evidence that his first amendment activities were a substantial or motivating factor in an adverse employment decision. The standard of proof adopted in Mt. Healthy is, if anything, more stringent than the standard applied by the district court in its ruling in 1973 that Skehan had failed to prove he had been terminated for reasons violative of the first amendment, 358 F. Supp. at 434 a ruling affirmed by this Court, 501 F.2d at 39. To the extent the Mt. Healthy Court adopted a "new" formulation of the test of causation for claims alleging dismissal from public employment for reasons violative of the first amendment, the "new" aspect of that formulation was the Court's holding that the defendants in such a case must be afforded an opportunity to rebut a prima facie case of impermissible motivation by showing by a preponderance of the evidence that they would have reached the same decision even in the absence of the constitutionally protected conduct of plaintiff. 429 U.S. at 284-87, 97 S. Ct. 568. Because Skehan was permitted to adduce all testimony relevant to his first amendment nonrenewal claim at the preliminary injunction hearing, and because no evidence pertinent to his affirmative case after Mt. Healthy would not have been equally pertinent then, we cannot say that Skehan was prejudiced by the court's application of a "new" legal standard to his first amendment claim.
Whatever the true meaning of the phrase "disruptive activities" in the October 9 letter might be, we can find no error in the district court's determination that Skehan failed to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that Dr. Nossen acted to prevent the renewal of Skehan's contract because of his disagreement with Skehan's avowed positions on campus issues. Moreover, there is no evidence that the members of the Board of Trustees were even aware of Skehan's first amendment activities at the time they approved the decision not to renew his contract. Such a failure of proof requires that we credit the district court's evaluation of the testimony and affirm, as not clearly erroneous, its finding of fact that "Skehan's criticism and disagreement with the administration, specifically Dr. Nossen and the Board of Trustees . . . concerning certain campus issues . . . was not a motivating or substantial factor in the decision not to renew his contract of employment beyond the 1970-1971 year." Unpublished opinion of March 24, 1977, at 7. See Franklin v. Atkins, 562 F.2d 1188, 1192 (10th Cir. 1977); Cf. Mazaleski v. Treusdell, 562 F.2d 701, 716 (D.C. Cir. 1977) (Mt. Healthy requires that a dismissed public employee's first amendment claim be supported by more than Post hoc ergo propter hoc allegations).
On April 14 and 15, 1977, the district court heard testimony without a jury concerning, Inter alia, the nature of the interest created by Article 5e of the College's Statement of Policy for Continuous Employment and Academic Freedom, and whether Skehan's right to a hearing under Article 5e had been violated by defendant Nossen's failure to institute the proceedings called for by that provision upon receipt of Skehan's letter of September 21, 1970. In an opinion issued on May 18, 1977, the district court held that Skehan possessed a contractual right to the procedures set forth in Article 5e, that he had invoked that right within a reasonable time, and that the College's failure to afford Skehan those procedures violated the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment. Skehan v. Board of Trustees of Bloomsburg State College, 431 F. Supp. 1379, 1391 (M.D. Pa. 1977).
The defendants' cross-appeal raises two challenges to that holding: first, they assert that the district court should not have considered the Article 5e claim, even though this Court has specifically instructed that it do so, because the claim was never raised by Skehan at any stage of this litigation; second, they contend that Skehan did not have a contractual right to the procedures set forth in Article 5e because the College's Statement of Policy was not a contract supported by consideration nor one whose obligations were set forth with sufficient certainty, because it had not been practical for the College to adhere to those procedures in Skehan's case, because Skehan's behavior during the scheduling dispute had discharged the College's obligation to provide him with an Article 5e hearing and because Skehan's letter to President Nossen was not a proper invocation of Article 5e. If we reverse the district court's finding that Skehan was contractually entitled to the procedures set forth in Article 5e, the defendants rightly conclude that Skehan would have no property interest in those procedures rising "to the level of a 'legitimate claim of entitlement' protected by the Due Process Clause." Memphis Light, Gas & Water Division v. Craft, 436 U.S. 1, 9, 98 S. Ct. 1554, 1560, 56 L. Ed. 2d 30 (1978).
In spite of this Court's holding that Bloomsburg State College is an entity of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to which sovereign immunity attaches, Skehan asked the district court to consider his claim for monetary relief against the College. In its opinion on the remedial aspects of this case, filed on July 20, 1977, the district court, deeming itself bound by our earlier holding, refused to entertain Skehan's argument that this Court had erred. Skehan v. Board of Trustees of Bloomsburg State College, 436 F. Supp. 657, 665 (M.D. Pa. 1977). We, too, are bound by the determination of this Court en banc unless intervening decisions of the Supreme Court, acts of Congress, or changes in applicable state law require us to reconsider our prior holding.
Although Skehan was unable to present any arguments based on the effects of intervening law on the sovereign immunity issue to the district court, he argued before this Court that the eleventh amendment immunity of the College has been waived both by the effects of a recent decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and by recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court. We shall consider the effects of this intervening decisional law on our earlier holding that the eleventh amendment bars an award of monetary relief against the College in this case. We do so in the light of the Supreme Court's admonition that " 'an appellate court must apply the law in effect at the time it renders its decision.' " Bradley v. School Board of the City of Richmond, 416 U.S. 696, 714, 94 S. Ct. 2006, 2017, 40 L. Ed. 2d 476 (1974), Quoting Thorpe v. Housing Authority of the City of Durham, 393 U.S. 268, 281, 89 S. Ct. 518, 21 L. Ed. 2d 474 (1969).
The eleventh amendment has been construed by the Supreme Court not to bar an action in federal court against the state or its officers acting in their official capacities for prospective injunctive relief from unconstitutional state actions. See Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 664, 94 S. Ct. 1347, 39 L. Ed. 2d 662 (1974); Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S. Ct. 441, 52 L. Ed. 714 (1908). Thus, this Court earlier held that the eleventh amendment presented no impediment to Skehan's request for prospective reinstatement as relief for the constitutional violations he established. 538 F.2d at 63. However, Edelman made it clear that, absent consent to suit by the state, a federal court may not award relief against state officers or agencies that constitutes a compensatory money judgment payable out of the state treasury, even if that relief is labeled as equitable in nature. 415 U.S. at 666, 94 S. Ct. 1347.
The Supreme Court has held that "(i)n deciding whether a State has waived its constitutional protection under the Eleventh Amendment, we will find waiver only where stated 'by the most express language or by such overwhelming implications from the text as (will) leave no room for any other reasonable construction.' " Edelman, supra at 673, 94 S. Ct. at 1360-61, Quoting Murray v. Wilson Distilling Co., 213 U.S. 151, 171, 29 S. Ct. 458, 53 L. Ed. 742 (1909). This rule has been applied to cases in which a state has consented to suit in its own courts by statute; consent to a similar suit in the federal courts has not been inferred absent a clear declaration in the statutory language that the state intended to waive its eleventh amendment immunity as well as its sovereign immunity under state law. See Kennecott Copper Corp. v. State Tax Commission, 327 U.S. 573, 577, 66 S. Ct. 745, 90 L. Ed. 862 (1946); Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury of Indiana, 323 U.S. 459, 465, 65 S. Ct. 347, 89 L. Ed. 389 (1945); Great Northern Life Insurance Co. v. Read, 322 U.S. 47, 54, 64 S. Ct. 873, 88 L. Ed. 1121 (1944).
We would face an apparently novel application of this rule were we required to interpret the effect of a state's abrogation of its state law sovereign immunity by judicial decision on its eleventh amendment immunity from damage actions in federal court. See Greenfield v. Vesella, 457 F. Supp. 316, 319-20 (W.D. Pa. 1978) (holding that the decision in Mayle has waived the Commonwealth's eleventh amendment immunity). Recent action by the Pennsylvania legislature has precluded our need to enter this thicket.
On September 28, 1978, the Pennsylvania legislature enacted House Bill No. 2437, Act No. 1978-152, reaffirming and preserving sovereign immunity as a bar to claims brought against the Commonwealth and its agencies, officials, and employees. See 1978 Pa.Legis.Serv. 629-36. Section 2 of that Act amends the Judicial Code, Act of July 9, 1976, P.L. 586, Act No. 142, 42 Pa.C.S.A., by adding new sections 5110 and 5111, limiting the scope of the Commonwealth's waiver of sovereign immunity to particular types of actions and limiting recovery to particular types of damages. Section 5(a) of the Act, entitled "Construction and Application," states the legislature's intent that the Act "specifically respond to and prescribe limitations on the decision of Mayle v. Commonwealth . . . ." Moreover, section 5(b) (1) bars any cause of action against the Commonwealth not permitted under 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 5110, regardless of when it arose, unless it would not have been barred by applicable statutory or decisional law prior to the Mayle decision. Finally, section 5(e) provides that "(n)othing contained in this act shall be construed to waive the Commonwealth's immunity from suit in Federal courts guaranteed by the eleventh amendment to the United States Constitution." The Act went into effect on the date of its enactment, September 28, 1978.
In Edelman, supra, the Court of Appeals had held that Parden compelled a similar finding of consent to suit waiving the eleventh amendment. There plaintiffs had sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for retroactive payment of welfare benefits allegedly withheld from them by the Illinois Department of Public Aid in violation of applicable federal laws and the equal protection clause. The Court of Appeals held, and three dissenters from the Supreme Court's reversal of that holding agreed, that § 1983 created a private cause of action to enforce the applicable provisions of the Social Security Act, and that the state's participation in the federally assisted welfare program constituted constructive consent to suits challenging the state's failure to comply with the terms of participation in that program. See Edelman v. Jordan, supra at 688-96, 94 S. Ct. 1347 (Marshall & Blackmun, JJ., dissenting); Id. 678-87, 94 S. Ct. 1347 (Douglas, J., dissenting).
The Court majority disagreed, however, holding that a federal court's remedial power under § 1983 was limited by the eleventh amendment to awarding prospective injunctive relief against the state, absent "the threshold fact of congressional authorization to sue a class of defendants which literally includes States . . . ." Id. 672, 94 S. Ct. at 1360. Section 1983 was held by the Court not to be such an authorization because it was not deemed to authorize suits against the states themselves but only against state officers. Id. 675-77, 94 S. Ct. 1347.
The Supreme Court, in unanimously reversing that judgment, noted that in Fitzpatrick "(o)ur analysis begins where Edelman ended, for in this Title VII case the 'threshold fact of congressional authorization,' . . . to sue the State as employer is clearly present." 427 U.S. at 452, 96 S. Ct. at 2670. The Court reiterated that neither the Social Security Act nor § 1983 had provided that threshold predicate to a finding of eleventh amendment waiver in Edelman. The Court explained that § 1983 had not been read as such an embodiment of congressional intent to abrogate sovereign immunity because "(it) had been held in Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 187-191 (, 81 S. Ct. 473, 5 L. Ed. 2d 492) (1961), to exclude cities and other municipal corporations from its ambit; that being the case, It could not have been intended to include States as parties defendant." 427 U.S. at 452, 96 S. Ct. at 2669. (emphasis supplied).
Significantly, in this context of Congress' exercise of its enforcement powers under § 5 of the fourteenth amendment, the Court did not even discuss the requirement earlier expressed in Parden And Edelman that a valid waiver of the state's eleventh amendment immunity depends upon its consent to congressional authorization of damage actions by private parties against state defendants. See Field, The Eleventh Amendment and Other Sovereign Immunity Doctrines: Congressional Imposition of Suit Upon the States, 126 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1203, 1235-37 (1978).
Justices Brennan and Stevens separately concurred in the Court's judgment in Fitzpatrick on grounds not applicable to our discussion here. See 427 U.S. at 457-58, 96 S. Ct. 2666 (Brennan, J., concurring); Id. 458-60, 96 S. Ct. 2666 (Stevens, J., concurring).
Such a remand is unnecessary in this case because, absent a much clearer statement by the Supreme Court to the effect that § 1983 must now be construed as waiving the states' sovereign immunity from awards of monetary damages, this Court considers itself bound by the holding of Edelman to the contrary. We note that of the present members of the Supreme Court, Justice Brennan has expressed his view that it is at least an open question whether Edelman has been overruled by Monell. See Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 700 - 704, 98 S. Ct. 2565, 2579-81 (1978) (Brennan, J., concurring). Justice Powell, joined by the Chief Justice and Justices White and Rehnquist, has argued, to the contrary, that the vitality of the Edelman holding has not been undermined Sub silentio by Fitzpatrick And Monell. See id. 708 n.6, 98 S. Ct. at 2583 n.6 (Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Thus, the conclusion that Edelman is no longer good law is certainly not an inescapable one. We feel that it would be inappropriate for this Court to hold that Edelman has been overruled by Monell, an opinion issued only four years later, when such a result was not even intimated by the authors of the majority, concurring and dissenting opinions in Monell. We conclude that Skehan's argument that the College's sovereign immunity has been waived by the congressional imposition of suits upon the states in § 1983 is precluded by the Supreme Court's opinion in Edelman v. Jordan.
On the other hand, the court's order enabled Skehan to return to the College's payroll pending the proceedings to which he was entitled and, thus, he was not "unduly limited in his ability to pursue the hearing remedy."436 F. Supp. at 664. We believe that the relief afforded by the district court presented an equitable accommodation of the interests of both the College and Dr. Skehan. Noting the admonition of the Supreme Court that, "(i)n shaping equity decrees, the trial court is vested with broad discretionary power; appellate review is correspondingly narrow," Lemon v. Kurtzman, 411 U.S. 192, 200, 93 S. Ct. 1463, 1469, 36 L. Ed. 2d 151 (1973), we hold that the district court's failure to order the College to provide Skehan with teaching responsibilities pending his Article 5e and pretermination hearings did not constitute an abuse of discretion.
During the proceedings below Skehan based his claim for an award of attorney's fees on the provisions of the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976,4 which had been enacted subsequent to this Court's en banc opinion. The district court made factual findings, unchallenged here, that would preclude a fee award based on the alternative grounds of the defendants' bad faith either in the prelitigation stages of this case or in the pursuit of their defense. See 436 F. Supp. at 663. The court also denied Skehan's request for attorney's fees under the provisions of the Awards Act. Skehan's challenge to this aspect of the district court's order is governed by the opinion of the Supreme Court in Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 98 S. Ct. 2565 (1978).
In Hutto the Court held that under the Awards Act fees may be recovered from governmental entities otherwise entitled to immunity under the eleventh amendment. This holding was based on the Act's legislative history, clearly indicating Congress' intent to allow recovery of attorney's fees from the states or local governments, and on the fact that attorney's fees "as a part of the costs" have traditionally been awarded without regard for the states' sovereign immunity. 437 U.S. at 692 - 700, 98 S. Ct. at 2575-79. The Court also made clear that the Awards Act applies to cases, such as this one, that were pending on the date of its enactment. Id. at ----, n.23, 98 S. Ct. at 2576, n.23. See generally Bradley v. School Board of City of Richmond, 416 U.S. 696, 710-11 & n.14, 94 S. Ct. 2006, 40 L. Ed. 2d 476 (1974). Moreover, the Court held that whether or not state agencies are named as defendants in a § 1983 action, the Awards Act contemplates that the prevailing plaintiff may recover fees from the individual defendants in their official capacities or directly from the state agencies. 437 U.S. at 699-700, 98 S. Ct. at 2578-79. Thus, the district court need not determine whether the College is a person subject to liability under § 1983 in order to grant Skehan's request for attorney's fees from the College. See Part III, B, 2 Supra.
It is intended that the standards for awarding fees be generally the same as under the fee provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. A party seeking to enforce the rights protected by the statutes covered by (§ 1988), if successful, "should ordinarily recover an attorney's fee unless special circumstances would render such an award unjust." Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U.S. 400, 402 (, 88 S. Ct. 964, 19 L. Ed. 2d 1263) (1968).
Skehan's final ground for appeal questions the district court's award of court costs. In its final opinion the district court stated that, "(b)ecause each party was at fault in this case, it seems appropriate that each party shall bear his own costs." 436 F. Supp. at 667. In its original opinion on the merits of this case, entered on May 9, 1973, the district court stated that "the Clerk will be directed to enter judgment in favor of the Plaintiff . . . together with costs." 358 F. Supp. at 436. We shall assume that Skehan's entitlement to costs connected with the earlier proceedings in the district court, which were taxed against defendants on June 4, 1973, was not meant to be rescinded by the district court's order directing that each party bear his own costs with respect to the proceedings after remand. Given that assumption, we find no basis to alter the district court's determination as to costs.
Because we have affirmed the determination that neither the College nor any of the individual defendants are liable to Skehan for a back pay award, we need not consider the defendants' argument that the earlier directions of this Court concerning the appropriate amount of such an award, See 538 F.2d at 63; Part III, A Supra, must be reconsidered in light of the Supreme Court's intervening decision in Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. 247, 98 S. Ct. 1042, 55 L. Ed. 2d 252 (1978)
The Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976, Pub. L. No. 94-559, 90 Stat. 2641, Amending 42 U.S.C. § 1988, was enacted on October 19, 1976. It provides: