Court Opinion

ID: 9863045
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 02:57:04.044346+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:46:41.123420
License: Public Domain

Justice HOENS,
dissenting.
My dissenting colleague has ably explained the evolution of this Court’s tradition requiring four votes to grant relief when it is sought by motion. And he has well expressed how, using that time-honored and previously unquestioned approach, plaintiffs’ motion for an order directing that the State fully fund the formula embodied in the School Funding Reform Act of 2008 (SFRA), N.J.S.A. 18A:7F-43 to -63, which garnered only three affirmative votes, should have failed. I leave it to my dissenting colleague to opine further about the sweeping decision issued today by those whose votes, although comprising a simple majority, fall short of the requisite number of four. Instead, I limit this dissent to the *492substantive defects in plaintiffs’ application that, in my view, demand a different outcome.
There are three principal reasons why plaintiffs’ motion must be denied. First, the motion must fail because it cannot, and does not suggest that it can, meet the standard set forth in Rule 1:10-3, which is the basis on which relief was demanded. Second, the motion must fail because it is based on findings made by the Special Master that lack sufficient support in the narrowly-focused record that was compiled during the remand proceedings. Third, it must fail because implicit in the decision to grant the motion is an exercise of authority by this Court that treads on time-honored constitutional principles governing the power vested in our two coordinate branches of government to raise revenue and make appropriations. Any one of those reasons alone would suffice to deny relief, but taken together they make any contrary choice both unwise and unprecedented.
I.
First, plaintiffs based their application on Rule 1:10-3, a vehicle through which they sought what is commonly known as an order in aid of litigant’s rights. In truth, theirs is a request for extraordinary relief, because the order in aid of litigant’s rights is a device that springs from the Court’s contempt power. As such, it employs coercion in response to a specific kind of wrong, one that “consists of a defiance of governmental authority.” Dep’t of Health v. Roselle, 34 N.J. 331, 337, 169 A.2d 153 (1961).
Because it is a form of punishment for an act of contempt, its exercise must rest, fundamentally, on three findings. Before issuing an order in aid of litigant’s rights, the court must find: (1) that the party against whom relief is sought has been the subject of an order of the court; (2) that the party has failed and refused to comply with that order; and (3) that the party has done so although fully capable of complying with the order in question. See, e.g., Pasqua v. Council, 186 N.J. 127, 141 n. 2, 892 A.2d 663 (2006) (noting prerequisite finding that litigant was capable of *493compliance “but willfully refused to do so”); Manalapan Realty, L.P. v. Twp. Comm. of Manalapan, 140 N.J. 366, 392, 658 A.2d 1230 (1995) (observing that “ ‘before ordering any sanction, [the court] must determine that defendant has the ability to comply with the order [that] he has violated’” (quoting Essex County Welfare Bd. v. Perkins, 133 N.J.Super. 189, 195, 336 A.2d 16 (App.Div.1975))). The sort of behavior that typically supports issuance of an order in aid of litigant’s rights is an act or acts that bespeak “clear defiance of [a court’s] specific and unequivocal orders.” Abbott v. Burke (Abbott VIII), 170 N.J. 537, 565, 790 A.2d 842 (2002) (LaVecchia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
Nothing in this record supports any of those essential findings. To begin with, there is no “specific and unequivocal order” of this Court, ibid., directing that the SFRA formula be fully funded. Our decision concerning the facial constitutionality of SFRA and our conclusion that SFRA could supplant the prior funding scheme, see Abbott v. Burke (Abbott XX), 199 N.J. 140, 175, 971 A.2d 989 (2009), included references to anticipated future funding of that formula, see id. at 146, 170, 971 A.2d 989, but nothing whatsoever in Abbott XX elevated that language to the force of a constitutional mandate.
Apparently aware of the rather glaring absence in the record of a “specific and unequivocal order,” the majority instead rearticulates Abbott XX in terms more suitable to its current purpose. Lacking the direct and specific order needed to support relief pursuant to R. 1:10-3, the majority instead recites selected explanatory phrases that were used in Abbott XX and determines that they should be understood as constituting “relief [that] ... was clear and ... exacting[,] ... with the express caveat[ ] of required full funding....” Ante at 341, 20 A.3d at 1024; see also id. at 360, 20 A.3d at 1036 (describing decision in terms of “express mandates”). In stark contrast to that attempt to transform the words used in Abbott XX into an order of sufficient clarity to support the *494extraordinary relief demanded, the fact remains that the language that the Court actually, and deliberately, chose was limited.
The final paragraph of the opinion expressed precisely what we did:
The State’s motion, seeking declarations that SFRA satisfied the requirements of the thorough and efficient clause of Article VIII, section 4, paragraph 1 of the New Jersey Constitution and that the funding formula may be implemented in the Abbott districts, and further seeking an order relieving the State from this Court’s prior remedial orders concerning funding to the Abbott districts, is granted.
[Abbott XX, supra, 199 N.J. at 175, 971 A.2d 989.]
That clear and simple declaration contains no “express caveat[ ] of required full funding” or any other “specific and unequivocal” directive.
Nor is there, contrary to the majority’s view, support for the proposition that there was such an order found in the colloquy with the Attorney General that occurred during the Abbott XX oral argument. Ante at 352-53, 20 A.3d at 1031-32. Even giving that exchange its most generous reading, it was a suggestion by the Attorney General about an approach that the Court could take, but it was not in fact an approach that we embraced. Notwithstanding the Attorney General’s invitation to us to premise our holding on full funding of SFRA, we intentionally did not issue an order that directed full funding, either to the former Abbott districts or to the larger complement of “at-risk” students that SFRA identified. In light of the fact that the Court did not directly mandate full funding in spite of the Attorney General’s suggestion, the State could not have surmised that our otherwise plain order somehow included it.
Moreover, the assertion made by my concurring colleague that this Court’s remand order, issued two years after Abbott XX, can in some way serve as the basis for this extraordinary remedy, see ante at 480-83, 20 A.3d at 1108-09 (Albin, J., concurring), misses the point entirely. The motion in aid of litigant’s rights relates, as it must, to the decision we rendered in Abbott XX, not to any subsequent order. That is, if an order of sufficient clarity cannot be found in Abbott XX itself, it would be fundamentally unfair for *495this Court to rearticulate that decision and then use that subsequent language as its basis for an order in aid of litigant’s rights. Resorting to the language of the remand order only serves to support the conclusion that Abbott XX itself included no “specific order” that the State can be said to have “clearly” defied, and that there is no basis on which to grant an order in aid of litigant’s rights.
Further, even if there were a “specific and unequivocal order,” the relief demanded by plaintiffs would only be appropriate if there were proof that the State willfully refused to comply with it, although fully capable of compliance. Again, there is no such evidence in this record. Although the Special Master was not permitted to consider the effect of the State’s current fiscal crisis, there can be no doubt that, in a budget based on greatly diminished revenues that required considerable belt-tightening and shared sacrifice both generally and in education funding specifically, the funds designated for plaintiffs bore the smallest cuts of all. Indeed, only by asking this Court to close its collective eyes to the reality of an unprecedented and unforeseen fiscal calamity, with its attendant effects on budgeting decisions that affected numerous constituents, can plaintiffs hope to find a basis for the relief that they seek.
To be sure, the intentionally narrow focus of our remand order required the Special Master to make his findings in a vacuum, but this Court made clear that it remained our role to evaluate the impact of the enormous fiscal crisis, among other things, on the dispute plaintiffs have brought before us. The reality of the fiscal crisis facing our State is that it forced our two co-equal branches of government to make hard choices requiring reduction of funding affecting numerous and diverse interests, including those of constitutional dimension. The fact that these plaintiffs were not completely spared from the impact of the State’s fiscal crisis is insufficient to meet the high threshold for the relief they seek.
In point of fact, that fiscal crisis, analytically, must bear first and foremost on the threshold questions of whether plaintiffs can *496demonstrate either “defiance” of a court mandate or a refusal to comply when compliance is possible, both of which are essential prerequisites for an order in aid of litigant’s rights. But, having essentially precluded the State from offering its evidence about the impact of the fiscal crisis for consideration by the Special Master, and having promised instead that this Court would evaluate the implications of that crisis, the majority simply proceeds as if the fiscal reality is of no constitutional moment. How there can be a finding of defiance or of defiance by a party fully capable of complying in the context of that fiscal crisis remains unexplained.
II.
Second, the ultimate conclusion of the Special Master, that the funding levels in Fiscal Year 2011 do not “enable the districts to provide their students [with] the education required by the New Jersey Constitution,” Appendix at 465, 20 A.3d at 1099, finds only limited support in the record. The Special Master concluded that the overall cuts in educational funding fell disproportionately on the at-risk districts and that the overall effect of those cuts, as evidenced by teacher layoffs, increased class sizes, and the like, prevented those districts from being able to provide a thorough and efficient education for the children. The majority adopts those factual findings and conclusions, describing them as “provid[ing] necessary support for [its] conclusion.” Ante at 360, 20 A.3d at 1036. In accepting the conclusion that the funding has fallen short of that required for the provision of a thorough and efficient system of education, however, the majority has overlooked the fact that it is based on reasoning that is fundamentally flawed in two respects.
The first flaw arises because the analysis ignored the fact that SFRA included generous cushions in its funding formula and thus does not represent the minimum funding needed. The second flaw arises because the evidence that the districts presented in their effort to demonstrate that reduced funding prevented them from providing a constitutionally thorough and efficient education *497represents impacts that are largely the results of individualized choices they made about spending.
A.
The SFRA formula came about because the State decided, for the first time, to move away from a system that essentially enshrined existing funding levels as a floor for future funding decisions. Rather than simply continuing to assume that past funding levels, merely because they were in place, must be necessary, the State, through SFRA, adopted a new approach. In place of the old system, the State created a way to calculate, for the first time, what it should cost a district to provide the Core Curriculum Content Standards (CCCS), which this Court had equated with a constitutionally-defensible system of education. Abbott v. Burke (Abbott IV), 149 N.J. 145, 168, 693 A.2d 417 (1997). At the same time, however, SFRA moved from reliance on the funding directed to the few districts that had been the focus of this litigation, those historically designated as the Abbott districts, to an effort to calculate those costs and provide a funding formula on a statewide basis.
Stated more simply and directly, SFRA moved boldly away from a funding system based on providing the Abbott districts with what they wanted to one that quantified what any school district with at-risk children actually needed to comply with the constitutional mandate embodied in the CCCS. Relying on multiple levels of panels of educators and other experts, called Professional Judgment Panels (PJPs), the State devised the SFRA formula that we concluded passed constitutional muster. Abbott XX, supra, 199 N.J. at 174-75, 971 A.2d 989.
However, as the record we there reviewed made plain, the SFRA formula did not create funding that was minimal or that could be regarded as a floor. Rather, the process of developing the formula began by eliciting assumptions about costs from the PJPs. The development of the SFRA formula then continued with the State increasing, or “enhancing,” many of the calculations that *498arose out of those assumptions to create a formula more generous than any of the professional panelists had suggested. See, e.g., id. at 154 & n. 8, 971 A.2d 989 (acknowledging that PJPs suggested base at-risk weights for special-needs students between .42 and .46 but formula used a uniformly-enhanced weight of .47); id. at 154, 971 A.2d 989 (recognizing that “although the PJP ... suggested [a weight of] .47 [for each Limited English Proficiency (LEP) student], SFRA applies a weight of .50”); id. at app. 217, 971 A.2d 989 (pointing out that for students who qualify as both at-risk and LEP, SFRA used 25% rather than recommended 22.6% to account for non-overlapping resources); id. at app. 219, 971 A.2d 989 (explaining that because New Jersey’s special education population significantly exceeds national average, actual rather than average expenditures and classification rates were utilized, which were higher than those recommended in PJP model).
All of those enhancements resulted in a formula for funding that was neither modest nor miserly, but that was instead well in excess of what the PJP process had identified as needed to deliver a thorough and efficient system of education to all of the at-risk children in this State. That it was more than adequate, even for the former Abbott districts, is demonstrated by the fact that school districts were able to amass significant surpluses during the first two years of the formula’s implementation. As a result of the process by which it was developed, the SFRA formula is unquestionably generous and, by design, can sustain downward adjustments as needed. That being so, the majority’s conclusion that anything less than full funding of that formula so offends the constitution that it cannot be countenanced is a dubious proposition at best.
B.
Perhaps even more important, a reduction in SFRA funding, in and of itself, does not equate with a constitutional deprivation. That is, a reduction in funding, standing alone, tells nothing about the manner in which funds are spent and thus cannot serve as the *499sole basis for a conclusion of constitutional magnitude. The point is illustrated by the testimony of the State’s witnesses, which the Special Master found not only to be credible, but “thought-provoking.” Appendix at 450, 20 A.3d at 1089. Although the Special Master largely overlooked that testimony as beyond the scope of his mandate, Appendix at 403, 20 A.3d at 1061-62, our review of his recommendations cannot be similarly constrained.
The concurring opinion takes great pains to recite each statement in the record that lends support to the majority’s conclusion that the failure to fully fund the SFRA formula has deprived the at-risk children of a constitutionally-adequate education. In electing that approach, it ignores the significant evidence in this record that undercuts both the Special Master’s conclusions and the result the majority reaches based thereon. Although the concurring opinion’s individual recitations are not inaccurate, there is much evidence in this record to the contrary. Viewing the evidence as a whole, this Court should conclude that “[w]e are compelled to reject [the Special Master’s] recommendation because there is insufficient support in the record for the factual findings on which it is based.” State v. Chun, 194 N.J. 54, 106, 943 A.2d 114 (2008) (rejecting Special Master’s recommendation that the State be compelled to utilize additional temperature sensor in breath testing device).
The testimony of the Piscataway superintendent, for example, demonstrated that a district faced with severe cuts in funding nonetheless was able to provide educational services that meet the CCCS. That district did so by aggressively seeking creative ways to achieve efficiencies and to save money without adversely affecting the classroom to the greatest extent possible. Through sharing of services with neighboring districts, creating new revenue sources that included making its special education programs available to surrounding districts in exchange for tuition, achieving greater energy efficiency, and outsourcing some support services, Piscataway was able to provide a constitutionally adequate education in spite of being funded at a level “under adequacy.” By *500and large, that district avoided making the sorts of cuts that other districts chose to make, working to curb spending in ways other than reducing teaching staff and increasing class sizes. Likewise, the superintendent from Woodbridge conceded that his district also had been able to avoid spending cuts that would have adversely impacted student performance.
In contrast, other districts that decried the significant adverse impacts on their students brought about by the reduced funding made different choices, deciding to allocate spending in ways that were questionable when tested against a genuine desire to protect students’ educational opportunities. Clifton, for example, elected to fund eighty sports teams rather than pay to keep a basic skills supervisor even though its superintendent pointed to the loss of the basic skills supervisor as having an adverse impact on the ability to provide the CCCS. Buena Regional made a similar decision, spending more than the statewide average on its extracurricular activities while cutting an after-school instructional program that its superintendent testified had been of significant educational benefit to the students.
That sports teams and extracurricular activities are important to the growth and development of all of the children in this State cannot be questioned and, in a perfect world, there is no doubt that all children would have access to a wide array of such opportunities. The unfortunate reality, however, is that our world is far from perfect and all too often there are difficult choices that must be made. In the realm of funding for education, the constitutional mandate is not one that demands creation of absolute equality, but one that, as this Court has held, is tested against funding that is matched to creating the ability to comply with the CCCS. See Abbott IV, supra, 149 N.J. at 168, 693 A.2d 417. In this record, there is evidence that some districts confronted the tough choices about how to utilize reduced funding consistent with that goal while others avoided stepping up to that challenge. But our constitution does not mandate that the State provide a perfect system, or even one in which districts are shielded from having to *501make difficult choices. Instead, our constitution requires only funding for a system of education that is thorough and efficient.
It is striking that the Special Master, although finding all of those witnesses credible, nonetheless focused on the conclusory testimony about reduced teaching staff and increased class sizes to support his conclusions. To be sure, eliminating teachers and increasing class sizes could indeed undercut the ability to provide educational opportunities consistent with CCCS, but the larger point is that all of the cuts that were made were the product of conscious choices made by individual school districts. Whether the districts merely chose to make cuts that were easier to achieve than the ones that their more creative counterparts selected, there is ample evidence in the record to suggest that the cuts that directly affected ability to deliver CCCS were far from unavoidable.
All of that testimony is consistent with the State’s expert’s opinion, which the Special Master also found to be both credible and thought-provoking, that the key lies not in how much money is spent but in how that money is spent. Appendix at 449, 463, 20 A.3d at 1089, 1097. To the extent that the Special Master disregarded the force of that logic, ignored the creative cost-saving techniques implemented by some districts and that were equally available to all districts, overlooked the questionable choices made by other districts, and instead embraced the notion that reduced funding forced school districts to make cuts that directly and adversely impacted their ability to deliver the CCCS, his conclusion that the FY 2010-11 funding levels are insufficient to meet the constitutional mandate is flawed because it lacks the required support in the record.
III.
Third, the reasoning underpinning plaintiffs’ demand that this Court order full funding of SFRA going forward and the majority’s decision instead to limit relief solely to the former Abbott *502districts are both constitutionally unsound and significantly at odds with our decision in Abbott XX.
A.
Plaintiffs essentially demand that this Court direct the State to make a particular level of funding available to particular parties for a particular purpose. They cloak their demand in the language of a constitutional imperative, pointing to the clause that requires “maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system” of education. N.J. Const. art. VIII, § 4, ¶ 1. To their way of thinking, there are no other constitutional considerations and no other concerns.
There are, of course, other considerations, some of constitutional dimension, but plaintiffs ask this Court to proceed with blinders on. Indeed, plaintiffs would have us ignore the effect that acceding to their demand will have on the rights of the unrepresented school districts and of any other person, program, or interest, including those of potentially equivalent constitutional dimension. They ask us to likewise ignore the effect of massive added funds from the federal government that were designed to avoid the very cuts they insist were forced upon them by last year’s budget. See Abbott XX, supra, 199 N.J. at 173, 971 A.2d 989 (‘We cannot ignore the State’s estimation that the Abbott districts will receive cumulatively over the next two years, approximately $630 million in federal funds.”). They ask us to ignore the fiscal crisis and its effects except, that is, for the effects that they argue touched them.
Plaintiffs’ approach also overlooks key provisions in our Constitution, including the requirement that the budget be balanced, see N.J. Const. art. VIII, § 2, ¶ 3, and the provision assigning to the Legislature the exclusive authority to appropriate funds, N.J. Const. art. VIII, § 2, ¶ 2, albeit with “a vital constitutional role in the budget process” vested in the Governor, see Karcher v. Kean, 97 N.J. 483, 489, 479 A.2d 403 (1984). In asking us to sidestep *503these provisions, plaintiffs seek to elevate their interpretation of their funding needs above and ahead of all others.
The majority’s approach, although recognizing the existence of countervailing constitutional provisions, pronounces that plaintiffs are now “akin to ... wards of the state,” ante at 340, 20 A.3d at 1023, apparently finding in that rather remarkable view of their status sufficient reason to proclaim those other constitutional considerations to be of lesser import. The majority’s expression of its belief that plaintiffs should be treated as if they are wards of the state is all the more remarkable when compared to this Court’s observations in Abbott XX acknowledging the enormous strides made over the past several decades. Abbott XX, supra, 199 N.J. at 171-72, 971 A.2d 989 (“It was previous indifference to a constitutional deprivation that started us down the Robinson/Abbott path. Although that may have been our point of embarkation, today we are in a different place.”).
Having adopted that view of plaintiffs’ status, however, the majority rejects the State’s Appropriations Clause argument out of hand, announcing that “the Appropriations Clause creates no bar to judicial enforcement[.]” Ante at 363, 20 A.3d at 1038. In part, that conclusion rests on the majority’s recitation of a single set of circumstances narrowly tailored to mirror what the majority sees as being those that surround this application for relief. Id. at 363-64, 20 A.3d at 1038. Apart from that pronouncement, and the reiteration of its view that these plaintiffs have suffered “a real, substantial, and consequential blow to the achievement of a thorough and efficient system of education,” id. at 364, 20 A.3d at 1038, the majority offers no rationale for its approach.
B.
Nor is the majority’s election to limit its mandate today to a directive that only the former Abbott districts will benefit from full funding in the next budget defensible. Indeed, even one of the others who comprise the three votes in favor of relief does not *504agree that there is anything left to that historical designation. Ante at 352-55, 20 A.3d at 1031-33 (Albin, J., concurring).
That we eliminated the distinction between the former Abbott districts and all others in favor of a focus on at-risk children wherever they reside cannot be doubted. Clear evidence of that is found in our order in Abbott XX itself. There, we expressly denied plaintiffs’ motion seeking to preserve the status quo that would have entitled them to supplemental funding in the form of continued parity funding, thus completely replacing all of the Court’s earlier orders and decrees. Abbott XX, supra, 199 N.J. at 175, 971 A.2d 989. Those prior orders, as the majority notes, were binding, ante at 347—48, 20 A.3d at 1027-28, but in Abbott XX, we swept them away entirely through our determination to grant the relief requested by the State while denying that urged upon us by plaintiffs.
Nonetheless, the distinction that we eliminated in Abbott XX between the school districts where the original plaintiffs went to school and all others, see Abbott XX, supra, 199 N.J. at 147, 971 A.2d 989 (holding that “[t]he State shall not be required to continue separate funding streams mandated under past remedial orders”), is now inexplicably revived by two of those who comprise the majority today. And it is revived in spite of the fact that the logic underlying the SFRA funding formula itself rendered that distinction meaningless.
Regardless of what others might suggest, the truly remarkable step embodied in SFRA had little to do with its funding formula. The great beauty of SFRA was that it recognized that at-risk children live in many school districts, not just in the former Abbott districts in which the original plaintiffs resided. The clear recognition of SFRA that a truly constitutional funding formula must be tethered to the needs of school children wherever they live took us well beyond the outmoded distinctions between the few who could claim Abbott status and the many who could not. To proclaim, as does the majority, that the remedy is limited to a *505group of students not recognized in SFRA is to take a step backward to the inadequate approaches of the past.
IV.
The method of funding schools has come a long way from the days when this Court was compelled to act. See generally Abbott XX, supra, 199 N.J. at 171-72, 971 A.2d 989; Abbott v. Burke (Abbott II), 119 N.J. 287, 297, 575 A.2d 359 (1990); Robinson v. Cahill, 62 N.J. 473, 303 A.2d 273 (1973). In recent years, our Legislature and our Governor have worked diligently to create a funding mechanism that meets not only this Court’s numerous directives, but that secures the right to a “thorough and efficient system” of education for all of our State’s school children. By any objective measure, funding for all school children and particularly for the “at-risk” children is more than adequate; over time that funding has reached levels that might best be described as generous.
Merely because our co-equal branches of government stepped up to the challenges presented by the State’s recent fiscal crisis in a manner that requires plaintiffs to shoulder some reduction in funding does not mean that the careful and thoughtful efforts undertaken by those branches of government were unconstitutional. Indeed, the majority’s decision today ignores our recognition in Abbott XX that “[t]he political branches of government ... are entitled to take reasoned steps, even if the outcome cannot be assured, to address the pressing social, economic, and educational challenges confronting our State.” Abbott XX, supra, 199 N.J. at 175, 971 A.2d 989. In doing so, the majority likewise does precisely what we cautioned against in Abbott XX by effectively locking our co-equal branches in a “constitutional straitjacket.” Ibid.
Because there is no evidence in this record sufficient to meet the high standard imposed as a prerequisite for the extraordinary relief of an order in aid of litigant’s rights, because there is insufficient support for the Special Master’s findings that less than *506full funding of the SFRA formula prevented school districts from delivering a constitutionally adequate education, because the relief demanded of this Court treads on the constitutional prerogatives of the Legislature and the Executive branch, because the remedy fashioned today finds no basis in SFRA itself, and because the majority has turned the clock back to a time very different from the one in which we find ourselves today, I respectfully dissent.
For grant—Justices LaVECCHIA and ALBIN and Judge STERN (temporarily assigned)—3.
For dissent—Justices RIVERA-SOTO and HOENS—2.
Not Participating—Chief Justice RABNER and Justice LONG—2.