Opinion ID: 2369484
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: is the board entitled to protection by section 2 of the kentucky constitution?

Text: Next, we must determine whether the Board is protected by Section 2 of Kentucky's Constitution, which prohibits [a]bsolute and arbitrary power over the lives, liberty and property of freemen . . . . Appellant argues that the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the Board was entitled to the protection of Section 2 of Kentucky's Constitution. Appellant asserts that this decision ignores a long line of cases which determined that Section 2 serves to protect the people of the Commonwealth from the state, and not the state from itself. See Board of Education v. Jayne, Ky., 812 S.W.2d 129 (1991); Clevinger v. Board of Education, Ky., 789 S.W.2d 5 (1990); Kentucky Milk Marketing v. Kroger Co., Ky., 691 S.W.2d 893 (1985); Cullinan v. Jefferson County, Ky., 418 S.W.2d 407 (1967). Appellant maintains that the Court of Appeals decision circumvents this case law by finding the Board to be comparable to a private corporation. He asserts that by characterizing the Board as a corporation, the Court of Appeals has ignored numerous rulings of this Court to the contrary. Clevinger v. Board of Education, Ky., 789 S.W.2d 5, 10 (1990); Smiley v. Hart Co. Board of Education, Ky., 518 S.W.2d 785, 786 (1974); Copley v. Board of Education, Ky., 466 S.W.2d 952, 953 (1971); Carr v. Wright, Ky., 423 S.W.2d 521, 522 (1968); Cullinan v. Jefferson County, Ky., 418 S.W.2d 407, 408 (1967); Wood v. Board of Education, Ky., 412 S.W.2d 877, 878 (1967). Basically, appellant contends that the Board is either a state agency entitled to sovereign immunity or a corporation entitled to protection from the excesses of the state. We disagree. In our opinion in American Beauty Homes Corp. v. Louisville, etc., Ky., 379 S.W.2d 450, 456 (1964), and numerous other decisions, we extended Section 2 protection to corporations. Remote Services, Inc. v. FDR Corp., Ky., 764 S.W.2d 80 (1989); Kentucky Milk Marketing and Antimonopoly Commission v. Kroger Co., Ky., 691 S.W.2d 893 (1985); U.S. Mining & Exploration Natural Resources Co., Inc. v. City of Beattyville, Ky., 548 S.W.2d 833 (1977); Illinois Central Railway Co. v. Commonwealth, 305 Ky. 632, 204 S.W.2d 973 (1947); City of Jackson v. Murray-Reed-Slone & Co., 297 Ky. 1, 178 S.W.2d 847 (1944). KRS 160.160(1) specifically describes a board of education as a body politic and corporate with perpetual succession. Black's Law Dictionary defines a body politic or corporate as a term that can be . . . applied to a municipal corporation, school district, county or city. Furthermore, KRS 160.160(1) grants the following powers to the board of education: It may sue and be sued; make contracts; expend funds necessary for liability insurance premiums and for the defense of any civil action brought against an individual board member in his official or individual capacity, or both, on account of an act made in the scope and course of his performance of legal duties as a board member; purchase, receive, hold, and sell property; issue its bonds to build and construct improvements; and do all things necessary to accomplish the purposes for which it is created. Of the wide variety of powers granted to the Board, we determined in Rose v. Council for Better Education, Inc., Ky., 790 S.W.2d 186, 200 (1989), that the most significant of these powers is the power to do all things necessary to accomplish the purposes for which it is created. We recognized in that case that such powers gave a school board the power to sue. With this in mind, the Court of Appeals found the power to sue in Rose analogous to the power of the Board in the present case to appeal. We agree. In Board of Education of Louisville v. Board of Education of Jefferson County, Ky., 458 S.W.2d 6 (1970), the former Court of Appeals declared that boards of education were not municipal corporations. Specifically, the Court held: [T]hough a school district possesses some of the attributes of a municipal corporation for some legal purposes as was recognized in Sims v. Board of Education of Jefferson County, Ky., 290 S.W.2d 491 [(1956)], and though a school district is regarded as a political subdivision for some legal considerations as pointed out in Board of Education of City of Corbin v. City of Corbin, 301 Ky. 686, 192 S.W.2d 951 [(1946)], a school district is, nevertheless, an agency of the state subject to the will of the legislature and existing for one public purpose only  to locally administer the common schools within a particular area subject to the paramount interest of the state. Board of Education of Louisville, 458 S.W.2d at 8-9. In Rose v. Council for Better Education, Inc., supra at 200, this Court limited the breadth of the holding in Board of Education of Louisville in its discussion of whether local boards of education could sue the Commonwealth. Specifically we asserted that the language in Board of Education of Louisville : [S]imply reiterates that the local districts are creatures of the state, and that when the issue of `appropriate legislation' (Ky. Const. § 183) is in contention, the state's decision is final, unless violative of another section of the constitution. The decision. . . certainly does not declare either directly or inferentially that a local school board cannot sue the state. Rose, 790 S.W.2d at 200. As we further stated in Rose , our General Assembly has given local districts a perpetual, corporate existence, and has in two statutes (KRS 160.160 and 160.290), specifically given local boards virtual unlimited authority to carry out their duty of promoting local education. Id. at 201. Thus, we agree with the Court of Appeals that the Board is a political body with a corporate structure which garners Section 2 protection.