Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/colorado/supreme-court/1984/82sc295-0.html
Timestamp: 2019-08-21 00:25:39
Document Index: 537299499

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 22', '§ 22', '§ 22', '§ 455', '§ 1', '§ 19']

DeKoevend v. Bd. of Educ. of West End School :: 1984 :: Colorado Supreme Court Decisions :: Colorado Case Law :: Colorado Law :: US Law :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Colorado Case Law › Colorado Supreme Court Decisions › 1984 › DeKoevend v. Bd. of Educ. of West End School
DeKoevend v. Bd. of Educ. of West End School
John F. deKOEVEND, Petitioner, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF WEST END SCHOOL DISTRICT RE-2, Kay Crane, Bill Gabriel, Ben Kilgore, Sam Puderbauch, and Lowell Watson as members of the Board of Education of West End School District RE-2, Montrose County, State of Colorado, Respondents.
"1. Improper physical contacts with students, including but not limited to, pinching, kicking, fondling or patting of breasts, buttocks and other areas of students and scuffling or wrestling with students. "2. Use of improper language toward students and calling students improper names. *222 "3. Use of improper teaching techniques and inappropriate subject matter. "4. Failure to maintain proper classroom management, control and discipline. "5. Failure and/or refusal to conform to directives, requests and decisions of the administration and Board of Education of the School District with respect to the preceding matters. "6. The preceding particulars having occurred or existed throughout or on occasion during the period of time commencing with the 1972-1973 academic year and continuing through the date of these charges."
"WHEREAS the Board of Education has duly considered the matter of dismissal of John F. deKoevend; and "WHEREAS John F. deKoevend has been duly notified by the Secretary of the Board of Education of the time, place, and purpose of this meeting; and "WHEREAS the Board of Education has reviewed the Hearing Officer's findings of fact and recommendations and has considered the same and all proceedings herein. "NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Board of Education orders that John F. deKoevend be dismissed from employment in the West End District RE-2 effective this 27th day of December 1979."
"To permit a board to look outside the four corners of the hearing panel's findings and base its ultimate findings, in whole or in part, on the `cold' hearing transcript would: `defeat one purpose of having an impartial hearing panel [to protect the academic freedom of tenured teachers by ensuring a neutral forum for the presentation of evidence] and place decisions based on the evaluation of evidence in the hands of a body which has not actually seen and heard the witnesses. Such a holding would not comport with the legislative intent underlying this statutory scheme.' "Blair v. Lovett, supra, 196 Colo. at 123, 582 P.2d at 671. The same two purposesguaranteeing the teacher an impartial fact-finder and promoting the accuracy and integrity of the fact-finding processwould be frustrated if a board's ultimate findings were to be retrospectively justified by `raw' evidence adduced at the hearing but never adopted as a finding of fact by the hearing panel. Thus, although a school board's findings of ultimate fact must be sustained if warranted in the record, the record, for purposes of judicial review of those findings, consists solely of the formal findings of basic or evidentiary fact made by the panel and forwarded to the board pursuant to section 22-63-117(8)." 627 P.2d at 1119 (footnote omitted) (emphasis in original).
For all the board's order shows, deKoevend's dismissal could have been based on immorality, a statutory ground without support in the hearing officer's evidentiary findings. Alternatively, the board might have dismissed deKoevend on the statutory grounds of neglect of duty and insubordination, both of which, in the hearing officer's view, were established by the evidence presented at the initial phase of the adjudicatory process. Other alternatives are also possible. The dismissal order might have been based on all three grounds immorality, neglect of duty, and insubordinationor the board might have decided to discharge deKoevend for incompetencya statutory basis included in the original charges but not addressed in the hearing officer's findings. Without an explicit reference to the statutory basis for dismissal, we cannot ascertain whether the order of dismissal was predicated on the evidentiary findings made by the hearing officer, nor can we assess whether the dismissal order was supported by substantial and competent evidence. SEC, 318 U.S. at 94-95, 63 S.Ct. at 462-63; Neverdahl, 141 Colo. at 190-91, 347 P.2d at 514-15; State ex rel. Newton v. Board of School Trustees, 404 N.E.2d 47, 48-49 (Ind.App.1980). Under these circumstances we are foreclosed from effectively evaluating the board's order in relation to both the statutory criteria for dismissal in section 22-63-116, 9 C.R.S. (1973), and the evidentiary findings of the hearing officer.
The essence of due process is basic fairness in procedure. In re Murchison, 349 U.S. 133, 136, 75 S. Ct. 623, 625, 99 L. Ed. 942 (1955); Lamm v. Barber, 192 Colo. 511, 522-23, 565 P.2d 538, 546 (1977) (disapproved on other grounds, i.e., standing, in Board of County Commissioners v. Fifty-First General Assembly, 198 Colo. 302, 599 P.2d 887 (1979)); Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Co. v. Department of Labor and Employment, 184 Colo. 334, 338, 520 P.2d 586, 588 (1974). Administrative agencies have the obligation, as do courts, to be fundamentally fair to the individual in the resolution of a legal dispute involving governmental action that threatens to deprive an individual of a significant property interest. E.g., Withrow v. Larkin, 421 U.S. 35, 46-47, 95 S. Ct. 1456, 1464-65, 43 L. Ed. 2d 712 (1975); Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Co., 184 Colo. at 338, 520 P.2d at 588. While an administrative proceeding is entitled to a presumption of regularity, the presumption is only a rebuttable one. Ricci, 627 P.2d at 1117. Different situations may entail different types of procedures, but there is always the general requirement that there must be some type of neutral and detached decision maker. Withrow, 421 U.S. at 47, 95 S. Ct. at 1464; *228 Murchison, 349 U.S. at 136, 75 S. Ct. at 625. One of the purposes of the Teacher Tenure Act is "to assure tenured teachers [are provided] an impartial forum in which ... to defend themselves against charges alleging any of the statutory grounds for dismissal." Lovett v. Blair, 39 Colo.App. 512, 515-16, 571 P.2d 731, 733 (1977), aff'd, 196 Colo. 118, 582 P.2d 668 (1978). Not only is actual fairness mandated, but the integrity of the administrative process also requires that the appearance of fairness be preserved.
Several reasons point us to the conclusion that a reconsideration by the board, rather than automatic reinstatement, is the appropriate remedy in this case. Nothing in the record remotely suggests any prejudgment of the facts of the case by a board member or a manifestation of personal bias or prejudice against deKoevend by any member of the board, both of which would be grounds for disqualifying that member. E.g., Cinderella Career and Finishing Schools, Inc. v. FTC, 425 *229 F.2d 583 (D.C.Cir.1970); American Cyanamid Co. v. FTC, 363 F.2d 757 (6th Cir. 1966). Rather, our concern here is with an error in procedure committed by an administrative body during the formal administrative process. The fact that the board acted improperly in permitting two witnesses to be present during its deliberations does not necessarily mean that board members, on that account, would be incapable of carrying out their statutory responsibilities upon reconsideration of the casethat is, to impartially determine whether the hearing officer's findings of evidentiary fact are supported by substantial and competent evidence and whether those findings provide a sufficient basis for dismissal of the teacher or one-year probation; or instead, whether the teacher should be retained because the findings either are unsupported by the evidence or do not warrant an ultimate finding of one of the statutory grounds for dismissal. § 22-63-117(10), 9 C.R.S. (1983 Supp.); Ricci, 627 P.2d at 1118.[5] Furthermore, section 24-4-106(7), 10 C.R.S. (1973), of the State Administrative Procedure Act, which applies to judicial review of a school board's decision under the Teacher Tenure Act, § 22-63-117(11), 9 C.R.S. (1983 Supp.), expressly authorizes a remand of the case for further proceedings when, as here, the agency action is "not in accord with the procedures or procedural limitations of this article or as otherwise required by law." See Maul v. State Board of Dental Examiners, 668 P.2d 933, 937 (Colo.1983) ("When the Board fails to observe its statutory duties and substantially departs from the procedural requirements of the statutory scheme, the appropriate remedy is a rehearing conducted in accordance with the statutes enacted by the General Assembly.") The board, moreover, is the only tribunal authorized to make a decision on deKoevend's dismissal or retention. If it is not permitted to act, the implementation of those provisions of the Teacher Tenure Act directed to the maintenance of professional responsibility and competence in the classroom of our public schools would be seriously thwarted.[6]
There are significant practical consequences attaching to the distinction between, on the one hand, setting aside the discharge of a teacher and ordering a remand for further proceedings, and, on the other, ordering the teacher's reinstatement. The former restores the teacher to his status prior to the procedural error and preserves the teacher's right to an impartial review by the board. Automatic reinstatement, in contrast, nullifies the teacher's temporary suspension and is the equivalent of a dismissal of the pending charges. In this respect automatic reinstatement not *230 only provides the teacher with an unwarranted windfall but, more important, totally ignores the significant public interest in requiring teachers, in the performance of their professional responsibilities, to abide by those standards of conduct and competence that are commensurate with the importance of public education to our social well-being. If a school board determines that a suspended teacher should be retained, that teacher would be entitled to back pay from the date of suspension. § 22-63-117(12), 9 C.R.S. (1983 Supp.).[7] So too, in the event it were to be ultimately determined on judicial review that a school board's order of dismissal was unsupported by the evidence, reinstatement with back pay would be appropriate. Where, however, as here, a school board's order of dismissal is invalidated because of an error in procedure during the board's statutory review of the hearing officer's evidentiary findings and recommendation, we hold that the teacher is not entitled to automatic reinstatement to his former position with back pay, but rather to an administrative review by the board in accordance with proper procedure. District of Columbia v. Gray, 452 A.2d 962 (D.C.App.1982); White v. Board of Education, 54 Hawaii 10, 501 P.2d 358 (1972); Puglisi v. School Committee of Whitman, 11 Mass.App. 142, 414 N.E.2d 613 (1981); Miller v. Independent School District, 609 P.2d 756 (Okla.1980); DiCello v. Board of Directors of Riverside School District, 33 Pa.Commw. 39, 380 A.2d 944 (1977).
[6] The rule of necessity is sometimes invoked to permit a judicial or administrative tribunal to act when no other body is authorized to make a decision. For example, in Evans v. Gore, 253 U.S. 245, 40 S. Ct. 550, 64 L. Ed. 2d 887 (1920), the United States Supreme Court decided that Article III, Section 1 of the United States Constitution prohibited Congress from taxing the salaries of federal judges, a decision later repudiated in O'Malley v. Woodrough, 307 U.S. 277, 59 S. Ct. 838, 83 L. Ed. 1289 (1939). In Gore, the Court pointed out that there was no other tribunal to which the plaintiff could resort and "the only course open to us is to consider and decide the causea conclusion supported by precedents reaching back many years." 253 U.S. at 247-48, 40 S. Ct. at 550-51. See also United States v. Will, 449 U.S. 200, 101 S. Ct. 471, 66 L. Ed. 2d 392 (1980) (rule of necessity prevails over judicial disqualification standards of 28 U.S.C. § 455 in class action filed by federal judges challenging federal compensation statute as violative of Article III, § 1 of United States Constitution, which prohibits diminution of judge's salary during continuance in office). It has been suggested that when the rule of necessity requires an administrative tribunal to act because no other body is authorized to make the decision, a reviewing court should make an intensive study of the administrative record in order to make certain that no injustice was done to the party aggrieved by the administrative decision. K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise, § 19:9 at 404-05 (2d ed. 1980).