Court Opinion

ID: 9567706
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:56:59.457673+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:20:30.346830
License: Public Domain

SHEPARD, Justice
(specially concurring).
I concur in the result reached by the majority opinion. Plaintiffs herein alleged that the challenged regulation of the school district was unreasonable, capricious and arbitrary. The proof submitted by plaintiffs at trial supported such allegations. The trial court found in favor of the plaintiffs in that regard. In my opinion the allegations of the plaintiffs supported by their proof at trial overcame the presumptive validity of the regulation. On that basis the case was correctly decided by the trial court and by the majority opinion here.
I disagree with the majority opinion that this court’s decision in Murphy v. Pocatello School District No. 25, 94 Idaho 32, 480 P.2d 878 (1971) is controlling. Murphy stated that in a case of this nature the school district must meet a “substantial burden of justification” in establishing the validity of its regulation. I stated in Murphy, and reiterate herein that in my opinion cases of this nature do not involve constitutional or fundamental rights and therefore the traditional presumption of legislative validity remains. In my opinion the school board herein had no “substantial burden of justification” but the burden of overcoming the presumptive validity of the *320school board’s regulation rested on the plaintiffs. That burden they successfully carried.
It should be further pointed out that another distinction appears between the case at hand and Murphy. In Murphy the evidence of the school officials as to the relationship between student dress and behaviorial patterns was uncontradicted. In the case at bar such assertion by the school officials was sharply and successfully contradicted by the evidence of the plaintiffs.