Title: Henley v. Fingal Public School District 54
Citation: 219 N.W.2d 106
Docket Number: 8971
State: north-dakota
Issuer: north-dakota Supreme Court
Date: June 4, 1974

219 N.W.2d 106 (1974) Charles HENLEY, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. FINGAL PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT # 54, Defendant and Appellee. Civ. No. 8971. Supreme Court of North Dakota. June 4, 1974. *107 Rausch &amp; Chapman, Bismarck, for plaintiff-appellant. Conmy, Conmy, Rosenberg, Lucas &amp; Olson, Bismarck, for defendant-appellee. EUGENE A. BURDICK, District Judge. By summons and complaint dated 28 August 1972 and served upon the respondents on 6 September 1972, Charles Henley, the plaintiff, brought this action to enjoin the respondents from hiring a third person to replace him and to require the respondents to issue a contract for him to teach in the Fingal Public School for the 1972-1973 school year, or, in the alternative, to recover damages for the amount of his contract and for other damages resulting from the alleged wrongful refusal to issue a teaching contract to him. After the respondents served their answer to the complaint, they moved for a summary judgment of dismissal of the action, which the trial court granted. The appellant perfected this appeal from the summary judgment. The facts of this case are uncontroverted and were developed for the record largely by the affidavit of Ray Kreidlkamp, chairman of respondent Fingal Public School District #54, given in support of its motion for a summary judgment. Henley is a teacher who contracted with respondent school district to teach mathematics in the Fingal Public School for the school year 1969-1970. His teaching contract was renewed for the school years 1970-1971 and 1971-1972. Because of the prospect of substantial loss of revenues for the 1972-1973 school year, the school board decided to eliminate a number of individual teaching assignments, combine certain grades, and require some teachers to teach in more than one field of preparation. The school board held a special meeting on 21 March 1972 at which "The school board then moved to inform Mr. Henley that he would not be offered a contract for the coming school year, which would be the 1972-1973 school year." However, minutes of this meeting contain no reference to Henley. On the following day, 22 March 1972, Kreidlkamp sent the following letter to Henley: On 17 April 1972 Henley sent the following letter to Kreidlkamp: On 13 June 1972 Kreidlkamp sent the following letter to Henley: Under the law of this State, "an injunction cannot be granted ... to prevent the breach of a contract, the performance of which could not be specifically enforced." Section 32-05-05, N.D.C.C.; Mevorah v. Goodman, 65 N.W.2d 278 (N. D.1954). Also, under the law of this State, "an obligation to render personal service" and "an obligation to employ another in personal service" "cannot be enforced specifically." Section 32-04-12, N. D.C.C. Accordingly, the remedy of injunction is not available to the appellant in this action. But, the appellant also pleads a duty of the respondents to issue a formal contract for the renewal of his continuing contract. While the complaint of the appellant is not in form a petition for a writ of mandamus, the action seeks essentially the same relief. We shall examine the rights and obligations of the parties in the light of relief that could have been granted by the trial court. The writ of mandamus will lie "to compel the performance of an act which the law specially enjoins as a duty resulting from an office, trust, or station, or to compel the admission of a party to the use and enjoyment of a right or office to which he is entitled and from which he is precluded unlawfully by such inferior tribunal, corporation, board, or person." Section 32-34-01, N.D.C.C. Section 15-47-27, N.D.C.C., reads as follows: Applying Section 15-47-27, N.D.C.C., to the foregoing facts, it is clear that unless his "continuing contract" was terminated, Henley became "entitled to the usual written contract for the ensuing school year." Inasmuch as his right to teach was disputed by the chairman of the school board by letter dated 13 June 1972, the writ of mandamus would be the remedy "to compel the admission of `the appellant' to the use and enjoyment of a right ... to which he is entitled and from which he is precluded unlawfully by ... such board, or person". In addition, of course, the appellant would be entitled to compensation in damages for breach of his "continuing contract" where the remedial writ of mandamus can no longer be issued in time to avoid compensatory damages. We shall now examine Sections 15-47-27 and 15-47-38, N.D.C.C., the two pertinent statutes, to determine whether appellant's "continuing contract" was terminated. While these statutes are arguably inconsistent with respect to chronology of certain events, it is our duty to construe them in such a way as to give effect to the provisions of each if that can be done without doing violence to clear language. Coulter v. Ramberg, 79 N.D. 208, 55 N.W.2d 516 (1952). Section 15-47-27, N.D.C.C., was the earlier enactment, having been enacted as S. L.1947, Ch. 146, Sections 2 and 3, and revised in 1955, 1959, 1961, and 1971. The 1961 version was recently considered by this Court in Huso v. Bismarck, Public School Board, 219 N.W.2d 100 (N.D.1974). Failure to give required notice "shall constitute an offer to renew the contract for the ensuing school year under the same terms and conditions as the contract for the then current year." Under this section, the teacher must also indicate his acceptance of the proffered re-employment before the 15th of May if the offer of employment is by the nonaction of the school district or the teacher will be deemed to have rejected the offer. This Henley did by his letter of April 17. Compare Huso v. Bismarck Public School Board, supra, in which the teacher failed to notify the school board, in writing, of his acceptance of the statutory offer of re-employment. In this case the notice informed the appellant that he would not be offered a contract for the next school year, and that his contract would terminate at the end of the school year. This leads us to a consideration of Section 15-47-38, N.D.C.C., which reads: Under this section, which was first enacted in 1967 as S.L.1967, ch. 147, and amended in 1971, the first notice given by the school board to the teacher must be one which informs the teacher that it is "contemplating not renewing" his teacher's contract. The notice given to the appellant was one of finality, of the kind the law requires in informing the teacher of "the final decision" of its failure to renew his teacher's contract. Notice of the final decision cannot be used as a substitute for the notice of the contemplated course of action. If a teacher is to benefit from a meeting and the opportunity to appear at the meeting and present his side with the hope that he may dissuade the board in its contemplated action, the action must only be contemplated and not final. Under Section 15-47-27, N.D.C. C., notice of "the determination not to renew the teacher's contract for the ensuing year" must be given "on or before April fifteenth in any year and not earlier than February fifteenth." This means that the preliminary notice, the notice required under Section 15-47-38, N.D.C.C., must be given "at least ten days prior to the... final date to renew the teacher's contract" [emphasis added], but also as much earlier as necessary to afford the teacher an opportunity to appear before the school board with respect to its contemplated course of action, and to afford the school board the opportunity to make its "final decision" and to give the required notice thereof to the teacher. This construction harmonizes the two statutes so that effect can be given to both. We conclude that the "continuing contract" of the appellant was never terminated, that the trial court should have granted the relief in mandamus requested by the appellant, but because relief in mandamus is no longer possible, the school year of 1972-1973 having been completed, the action *111 must be remanded to the trial court for the purpose of ascertaining the compensatory damages to which the appellant is entitled. Judgment reversed and case remanded for further proceedings conformable to law. ERICKSTAD, C.J., and VOGEL, TEIGEN and KNUDSON, JJ., concur. The Honorable WM. L. PAULSON deeming himself disqualified did not participate; the Honorable EUGENE A. BURDICK, Judge of the Fifth Judicial District sitting in his stead.