Opinion ID: 1900995
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Production of Documents.

Text: We first consider the issue of whether or not the district court abused its discretion by ordering the superintendent to produce the documents described in fifty-two of the seventy-five categories of production. We begin our resolution of this issue by examining the legislature's intent with regard to a teacher's ability to compel discovery of documents and information prior to the hearing. See Ayers v. Straight, 422 N.W.2d 643, 645 (Iowa 1988) (stating that [i]n interpreting statutes, our ultimate goal is to ascertain and give effect to the intention of the legislature). Our goal is to determine whether the legislature intended a teacher to obtain documents in the course of a termination proceeding in the manner pursued by Gianforte. The preceding overview of the statutory framework governing the process of terminating the contract of a teacher reveals the legislature only provided the teacher with two opportunities to formally obtain documents and information prior to the hearing. First, the teacher's complete personnel file of employment with the school district, including all periodic evaluations, must be made available to the teacher during the proceeding. Iowa Code § 279.15(2). Second, the teacher is entitled to receive all documentation expected to be presented to the board by the superintendent at the hearing in support of the recommendation to terminate the contract. Id. No statutory provision specifically permits the teacher to discover or obtain other documents prior to the hearing. While the documents and information made available under the statute to a teacher prior to the hearing may generally be adequate for the teacher to successfully argue against a recommendation of termination at a private hearing, we have recognized that additional documents and information may be needed in some cases to enable a teacher to conduct an adequate defense. See Smith v. Bd. of Educ., 293 N.W.2d 221, 225 (Iowa 1980) (recognizing the legislative purpose of prehearing disclosure of information described in the statute is to help facilitate prehearing preparation and enable the parties to better present their cases). For example, we have held that the evaluations of other teachers in the school system may be obtained by a teacher so the board can compare the performance of the teacher with the performances of other teachers. In re Gillespie, 348 N.W.2d 233, 237 (Iowa 1984). We have also held that transcripts of students scheduled to testify against the teacher may be obtained by the teacher to permit the teacher to challenge the credibility of the students by suggesting the students were motivated to testify against the teacher due to low grades given to the students by the teacher. Id. These examples recognize the statute does not prohibit production of documents that are reasonably necessary for the teacher's defense against a recommendation of termination. Although the statute does not describe a method for the teacher to obtain or discover additional documents prior to the hearing, the statute does allow the teacher to request the board to issue a subpoena to secure the presence of a witness at the hearing and for the witness to produce documents designated by the teacher. [1] While Gianforte argues the statutory process to subpoena a witness permits a teacher to request documents from the superintendent in addition to those described in the statute, the superintendent generally argues that the legislature could not have intended for the subpoena process to operate in such a way because all documents expected to be presented at the hearing are required to be exchanged under the statute prior to the hearing. At a minimum, the superintendent argues, the statute does not permit a teacher to request the issuance of a subpoena for the production of documents after the three-day deadline for disclosure of documents. The superintendent asserts that allowing the teacher to seek additional documents by subpoena beyond the three-day deadline is inconsistent with the legislature's clear language; otherwise, the teacher could easily circumvent the unequivocally written statutory deadline in any case. In Smith, we observed the role of the board and the court in deciding if evidence not included in the prehearing exchange of information could nevertheless be accepted at the hearing. 293 N.W.2d at 225. In doing so, we held the board properly accepted testimony from a rebuttal witness who was not disclosed in the superintendent's prehearing list of witnesses. Id. We recognized the exchange-of-information deadline serves to provide a fair hearing by eliminating surprise at the hearing and facilitating advance preparation. Yet, we also observed the deadline should not operate to broadly exclude undisclosed rebuttal witnesses at the hearing because a party cannot be expected to disclose information in advance of the hearing that was not known at the time of the deadline. Id. Thus, we found the legislature only intended the witness-list requirement to limit testimony presented during a party's case in chief, but not rebuttal. Id. Clearly, the pretrial disclosure deadlines have meaning and may preclude the presentation of undisclosed witnesses at the hearing. However, Smith reveals the deadlines must be applied consistent with the statutory goals of a fair and timely hearing. The approach we took in Smith in response to undisclosed witnesses is compatible with allowing a party to present undisclosed documents not included in the prehearing exchange of information. As with undisclosed witnesses, undisclosed documents may be accepted at the hearing when doing so does not offend the purposes of the requirement for the documents to be exchanged. Accordingly, we reject the superintendent's argument that the statutory exchange-of-information process precludes a teacher from seeking undisclosed documents from a superintendent by means of a subpoena. Instead, when the board issues a subpoena to a superintendent to produce undisclosed documents designated by the teacher, the superintendent is given the choice to comply with the subpoena or refuse to comply. Compliance will allow the hearing to proceed as scheduled, yet permit the superintendent to ask the board to reject the documents if the purposes of the requirements for pretrial disclosure are adversely impacted. Refusal to produce the documents transfers the matter to the district court and will likely delay the hearing until the dispute is resolved by the court. [2] The district court intervenes in a termination proceeding only when the subpoenaed witness fails to attend the hearing or, as in this case, refuses to produce the designated documents. Iowa Code § 279.16(3). When a subpoenaed witness refuses to produce the designated document, the issue turns to the reasons for the refusal, including noncompliance with the statutory disclosure deadlines. Consistent with our approach in Smith, the district court must not only consider a teacher's need for the documents and the reasonableness of the request, but also the ability of the board or the superintendent to timely produce the documents. A subpoena for the production of documents not included in the pretrial exchange of information is compatible with the statutory framework when the documents requested are necessary for the teacher to defend against the termination recommendation and are otherwise discoverable, but only if the board or the superintendent can comply with the subpoena consistent with the statutory goal of a prompt hearing. In this case, the superintendent argues the directive in the subpoena to produce the seventy-five categories of documents was overly burdensome. He also argues he was not provided a reasonable time for compliance. See Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.1701(4)( d )(1)(requiring court to quash a subpoena failing to allow a reasonable time for compliance). In ordering the superintendent to produce the bulk of the requested documents, the district court focused narrowly on the reasons the teacher wanted to examine each category of documents and basically ordered the production of those documents that could potentially be helpful to the teacher in the preparation of his case. While the prehearing production of documents must be consistent with the goal of providing a teacher with a fair opportunity to challenge the termination recommendation and present a defense, this goal cannot be pursued to the exclusion of the other legislative goal of a prompt, informal and summary hearing. The termination process must not become mired in discovery expeditions, or otherwise slowed by the parties' prehearing conduct, inconsistent with the intended objectives of the legislature. We conclude the district court abused its discretion in this case to order production of documents by failing to balance the legislative directive for a prompt, informal and summary hearing with the teacher's right to a fair hearing. Gianforte clearly failed to show he was attempting to obtain undisclosed documents while simultaneously respecting the statutory intent for a prompt, informal, and summary hearing. Even though some of the requests for documents may have related to relevant information, the timing and volume of the request, as well as the inclusion of requests for irrelevant documents, revealed the request was inconsistent with the statutory timeline for a hearing. This conclusion is supported by the circumstances presented in this case. Gianforte was provided approximately six weeks to prepare for his hearing. He was timely provided with the documents and information required under the statute to prepare for the hearing. Yet, he did not engage in any informal discovery of additional documents during the course of the proceedings. He made no claim the superintendent refused to voluntarily produce the specific documents he needed to prepare for the hearing. Instead, Gianforte essentially waited until the eve of the rescheduled hearing to request thousands of additional documents as part of a broad, sweeping discovery expedition. The production request left the superintendent with little or no opportunity to timely produce the documents, to sort through the specific requests with counsel to determine the nature and scope of the documents requested, or to formulate objections and other responses. The last minute production request virtually assured Gianforte of another delay in the hearing. In the end, Gianforte effectively hijacked the termination process and imposed delays unrelated to the need to defend against the recommendation. Considering these circumstances, we conclude the district court abused its discretion to order the production of additional documents. The district court should have quashed the subpoena issued to the superintendent by the presiding officer of the board. Accordingly, we quash the subpoena and remand the case to the school board to proceed with a prompt hearing. On remand, the teacher shall not be precluded from requesting a new subpoena for the production of documents in a manner consistent with this opinion.