Opinion ID: 1945205
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Scope and Standards of Judicial Review.

Text: In Wright v. Superintending School Committee, Me., 331 A.2d 640 (1975), this Court considered a teacher's appeal from a dismissal by the local school committee under § 473(4) in the context of an appeal from an administrative body under M.R.Civ.P. 80B. The Wright case suggests a two-fold test for judicial review of a § 473(4) dismissal. 331 A.2d at 646. First, facts found by the school committee will be upheld by the courts if supported by substantial evidence. There should be a causal or reasonable relation of the facts found to the statutory grounds for dismissal. The relationship of the facts to the statute is a matter of evidentiary proof, see 331 A.2d at 647 (concurring opinion), also to be measured, on a Rule 80B appeal, by the substantial evidence test. Secondly, under Wright, courts may review the school committee action for error of law. Id. at 646. Such review would include construction of the relevant statutory grounds as a matter of law and would also include, as bases for error of law, such grounds as arbitrariness or abuse of discretion by the school committee. See Frank v. Assessors of Skowhegan, Me., 329 A.2d 167, 170 (1974). In the present case, defendant School Committee found that plaintiff absented herself from school without authority on March 26 and 27, 1973; that she was absent from her teaching stations at that time because she took an unauthorized trip to Jamaica; and that she took said trip despite the fact that her plans to be away from school at the time had been expressly disapproved in writing by the Superintendent of Schools, by his letter to her dated March 8, 1973. An examination of the testimony before the school committee and of the record in this case persuades us that there was substantial evidence to support the school committee in these findings of fact and that they are therefore final. Whether the facts found by the school committee establish, as a matter of evidentiary proof, that the conduct of the plaintiff was causally or reasonably related to the policy or language of the statute under which plaintiff was dismissed, is here a question of law to be reviewed under our application of the statute to the facts presented. We note, however, that the certificate of dismissal does not purport to find as fact or to establish by factual argument that the plaintiff's conduct impaired her usefulness as a teacher, or that the good of the school actually required her dismissal. In the present case these omissions are not fatal, because the plaintiff's willfulness and defiance axiomatically establish these points. But it is highly desirable, under the statutory grounds for dismissal, that school committees prove insofar as possible by factual demonstration the deleterious consequences of the alleged teacher misconduct. A failure to prove a relation to the statutory grounds risks misapplying the law to the facts of the case. See Wright, supra, 331 A.2d at 646-47; cf. id. at 647-48 (concurring opinion).