Case Name: Rosemary ABBOTT, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the NEBO SCHOOL DISTRICT, Defendant and Respondent
Court: Utah Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Utah
Decision Date: 1976-12-14
Citations: 558 P.2d 1307
Docket Number: No. 14409
Parties: Rosemary ABBOTT, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the NEBO SCHOOL DISTRICT, Defendant and Respondent.
Judges: HENRIOD, C. J., concurs.
Reporter: Pacific Reporter 2d
Volume: 558
Pages: 1307–1311

Head Matter:
Rosemary ABBOTT, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the NEBO SCHOOL DISTRICT, Defendant and Respondent.
No. 14409.
Supreme Court of Utah.
Dec. 14, 1976.
A. M. Ferro, Michael T. McCoy, Salt Lake City, for plaintiff and appellant.
Robert J. Sumsion, Provo, for defendant and respondent.

Opinion:
ELLETT, Justice:
This appeal involves an interpretation of the Utah Orderly School Termination Procedures Act, 53-51-1 et seq., Utah Code Annotated 1953 (enacted 1973), hereafter referred to as the Act; together with a document entitled "An Agreement between the Board of Education of the Nebo School District and the Nebo Education Association," hereafter called the Agreement. All statutory references are to U.C.A.1953.
Plaintiff was employed as a fifth-grade teacher for the school years of 1973-74 and 1974-75. On March 27, 1975, she was notified by letter that she would not be offered a teaching contract for the coming school year. She requested a hearing before the Board of Education, which was granted. At the hearing the Board declined to state any reason for refusal to renew her contract; however, it did make its files and record in her case available to her, but she refused to look at them. The Board further refused her request to summon and examine at the hearing plaintiff's immediate supervisor, Mr. Stansfield, the principal of the school.
A trial to the court produced a judgment holding the Act not applicable to plaintiff's fact situation and dismissing plaintiff's complaint. We affirm that judgment.
The plaintiff claims to have rights which appertain to career teachers only; that is, rights which belong to a teacher who has taught for at least three years in the district. The plaintiff had taught only one year and was in her second year under a one-year contract when she was notified that she would not be rehired for the ensuing year.
The contract between the parties entitled plaintiff to a hearing on claims based upon an event or condition affecting the interpretation, meaning, or application of the provisions of the contract, but specifically excluded any and all claims not so based. The contract made no provision that a non-career teacher (which was appellant's status) be given any reason for not being reemployed for another year.
Her claim of being deprived of property under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution is not well taken — even assuming that amendment was legally adopted.
The case of Board of Regents v. Roth held that a nontenured teacher was not entitled to a hearing before being refused a contract for the succeeding year unless it be shown that the teacher was deprived of life, liberty, or property protected by the amendment. Roth was given no reasons for not being rehired for the succeeding year. The Supreme Court held that since Roth had only a one-year contract, he had no "property interest" which was protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In the recent case of LaBorde v. Franklin Parish School Board, the teacher claimed that not only had the assistant superintendent told her that he planned to recommend her for tenure, but that the school board had rarely failed to renew the contract of a teacher who had taught for three years. The Court held there had been no violation of her procedural due process rights and stated that "An expectancy of re-employment, as that term is used in both Roth and Sindermann, connotes more than a personal feeling on the part of the teacher. The mere fact that the school board may not have exercised its prerogative to terminate other teachers at the end of their third teaching year does not negate their right under Louisiana law to follow that practice."
In the instant matter, the plaintiff had a contract which specifically provided that she had a contract to teach for one year only. The rules of the school district provided that she would have tenure status only after she had taught three years.
The plaintiff argues in her brief that practices and policies of the school board created in her a reasonable expectancy of continued employment. The record does not support this argument. Although witnesses were sworn, appellant did not testify at trial, and the stipulated facts do not include any statement that would justify a finding to that effect. The trial judge, whose duty it was to draw inferences from the testimony and stipulated facts, found against her on the points which she now would like to have this Court follow in reversing the judgment below.
It is not contested that plaintiff received notice as required by Section 5-7 of the Agreement between the Board of Education and the Nebo Education Association. She was entitled to no more. Any subsequent hearing or explanation of the reasons for not renewing her contract was merely a courtesy afforded plaintiff which the Board of Education did not have to extend.
There is no basis in law or fact to reverse this matter and require a hearing when neither the contract between the parties nor the statute required it in the first place.
We affirm the judgment as rendered. No costs are awarded.
HENRIOD, C. J., concurs.
BALDWIN, District Judge, concurs in the main opinion and also in the concurring opinion of CROCKETT, J.
. See the decision in the case of Dyett v. Turner, 20 Utah 2d 403, 439 P.2d 266.
. 408 U.S. 564, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972).
. See Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972).
. 510 F.2d 590 (Ct. of Appeals, 5th Cir. 1975).
. Id. at 593.