Court Opinion

ID: 9581847
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:19:37.029483+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:17.895431
License: Public Domain

Simmons, C. J.,
dissenting.
The majority recite that the plaintiff agreed to teach “in a faithful and efficient manner.” Plaintiff also contracted “to accept all properly assigned school duties and to abide by all reasonable and lawful regulations of the School Board * * The court holds that there was sufficient evidence to justify the discharge of the plaintiff for good cause based on her contract to teach in a faithful and efficient manner. In other words, the court holds that there was evidence to sustain the trial court’s finding that plaintiff had breached her contract. Based on that breach, plaintiff was discharged.
Nevertheless the court holds that plaintiff offered to perform and is entitled to recover the unpaid balance of her wages. The offer to perform came after the breach had occurred and after defendants had discharged the plaintiff because of the breach. Certainly an offer to perform under those circumstances at that time cannot be held to reinstate the breached contract, or to affect the rights of the defendant, the innocent party. To so hold puts a premium on a breach of a contract, and allows the plaintiff to take advantage of her own wrong, collect pay for services not performed in accord with the contract, and to profit by a mere offer to perform subsequent to the breach.
The court holds that the district is estopped to discharge the teacher. The court reaches that result based on the fact that the district used a form of contract *459recommended by the state Superintendent of Public Instruction containing a provision for the termination of the contract, and the conclusion that the district had delegated its right to discharge for good cause to the state Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The contract provision does not sustain the court’s construction.
The court does not quote the full contract provision that is held to control here and to save the plaintiff harmless from the result of the breach.
In full it is: “IT IS UNDERSTOOD, That this contract may be terminated only by mutual agreement, or by the operation of law, and that there shall be no penalty for such release from this contract(The part not quoted by the court is italicized.)
Where the full covenant is considered it becomes quite apparent that the provision relates solely to the manner in which both parties may be released from the obligation of performance of the contract without penalty.
The provision is now used not to “release” both parties from the obligation of performance, but to deny one party the right to rely on a breach of contract by the other.
Such an intent is utterly foreign to the purposes of the provision, is contrary to its terms, and is without support in this record as the intent of the parties. It is negatived by that part of the provision omitted by the court and here quoted.
The sole act of the district upon which the delegation holding rests was the use of the recommended contract under the statutory provision that: “The contract form or forms to be used shall be recommended by the Superintendent of Public Instruction.” § 79-1248, R. R. S. 1943. The legislative mandate required the provision “that there shall be no penalty for release” from such contract. § 79-1250, R. R. S. 1943.
Obviously the Legislature intended a standard form *460of teacher contracts and intended that they should be used. The result, then, of the court’s holding is not that the district “contractually delegated its right to discharge appellant for good cause” to the state Superintendent of Public Instruction, but that the Legislature intended to and by the cited acts did take that right from the district. It did not lodge the right to discharge in anyone. The opinion holds that the state Superintendent of Public Instruction may revoke or suspend the teacher’s license. He cannot discharge the teacher. The district cannot discharge for breach of the contract. No one can discharge a teacher holding one of these contracts no matter how serious the breach.
The court so holds, for it finds that revocation or suspension would terminate the contract by operation of law. There is in that act of the state Superintendent of Public Instruction no exercise of a delegated power to discharge for good cause.
Section 79-1234, R. R. S. 1943, provides that a teacher’s certificate “may be revoked” by the state Superintendent of Public Instruction “for just cause”; that the revocation of the certificate shall terminate the employment; and that the teacher must be paid up to the time of receiving notice of revocation. Under that provision the contract terminates not by discharge but by operation of law. The court now makes that the exclusive and only method of termination except by mutual agreement.
Section 79-1233, R. R. S. 1943, makes a certificate a prerequisite to a valid contract of employment as a teacher. It does not follow that the possession of a certificate prevents discharge for breach of the employment contract — and yet that is the effect of the court’s decision. The power of the state Superintendent of Public Instruction is only to determine whether or not the certificate shall be revoked. If he fails or refuses to revoke, the. district is helpless.
We may properly assume that school districts generally have used this standard form of contract. By this *461decision, then, the holding is that the Legislature intended to make the state Superintendent of Public Instruction (and he now is) the arbiter of the standard of performance of each individual teacher holding such a contract; that the state Superintendent of Public Instruction has been made an administrative officer with power to determine all questions of contract obligation of a teacher; and that the district officials no longer have an independent effective power of discipline, to wit the power to discharge for substantial breach of a teaching contract.
I find no support in the act for such a conclusion with its radical departure in the administration of school affairs in this state.
I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.