Court Opinion

ID: 9670622
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:23:35.52066+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:05.689599
License: Public Domain

MADDOX, Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur that the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals must be reversed because the order of the State Tenure Commission is ambiguous. If I could read the order of the Tenure Commission as stating that the sole reason for Arthur Baugh’s dismissal was because of “political” or “personal” reasons then I would affirm its actions as did the Circuit Court and the Court of Civil Appeals.
From a reading of the order of the Tenure Commission, however, I cannot say whether the Commission determined that Baugh was guilty of the charges of incompetency and insubordination. The 'Commission should clear up this ambiguity.
I do not personally think that the Commission needs to specify in great detail why it makes a particular determination and, in this, my views are at some variance with the majority, but I do agree that the determination here is insufficient.
Although I concur that the cause must be sent back, I find myself in disagreement with some of the views expressed in the majority opinion on the scope of review of the State Tenure Commission.
The majority says that the Tenure Commission does not have a broader scope of review than is ordinarily permitted to courts reviewing decisions of administrative agencies. I believe the Legislature intended otherwise.
In State Tenure Commission v. Madison County Board of Education, 282 Ala. 658, 213 So.2d 823 (1968), this Court commented specifically on the legislative intent in establishing the State Tenure Commission as follows:
“This appellate aspect of the tenure teacher law, that is the State Tenure Commission, to which a review may be had of decisions of local school boards, is a covenant made by the people of Alabama with tenure school teachers, as expressed by legislative enactment— Chapter 13 and Chapter 13A, Title 52, Code of Alabama 1940. Thus, there now exists a ‘tenure’ law and an independent appellate forum. The legislature, no doubt, felt it was necessary to have an appellate forum for tenure teachers, so that they could be removed from the heat and the aggressiveness and pressures sometimes generated in intra-community or intra-county politics. This *291‘tenure teacher’ law establishes a ‘means’ between two extremes — the extreme of absolute local control and the other extreme of absolute freedom 'from any local control.
“* * * it is clear that the State Tenure Commission, as it now exists, expresses the intent of the legislature to protect the right of tenure teachers, and to preserve to them a certain degree of academic freedom, and freedom from harassment that is sometimes caused by intra-community political conflict; and at the same time reserve to local authorities, through the local county school boards and local school officials, such as school trustees, school principals and school superintendents of education, proper authority within the area of their particular functioning.”
While the matter is pending before the Tenure Commission it is still in the administrative process.
The proceedings upon the review of an administrative determination by a superior administrative tribunal naturally depends upon the statutory grant of authority. Although administrative review is in some respects analogous to an appeal in the judicial process, I believe that there are basic and fundamental distinctions between the process of internal review administratively and that of appellate review judicially. See 2 Am.Jur.2d, Administrative Law, § 546, p. 354. Consequently, I believe the Alabama Legislature gave the Tenure Commission the right to review the entire record before the board without indulging in any presumptions of the correctness of the findings and conclusions made by the board and to arrive at contrary conclusions on the same facts, if the commission is convinced from the record that the board was “arbitrarily unjust” or its action was based on “political or personal reasons.” When the majority defines the scope of review as being limited to the record before the board, that is correct. The Commission cannot try the matter de novo. However, I believe the Legislature intended that the Tenure Commission could re-examine the facts which were before the board and arrive at a different conclusion.
There is another reason why I think the Legislature intended that the Tenure Commission should have a somewhat broader scope of review. As this Court said in State Tenure Commission v. Madison County Board of Education, supra, the Tenure Commission was set up as an independent appellate forum. By providing for an independent examination of the facts, even though the hearing is not de novo, the Legislature, I believe, intended to accord an aggrieved teacher a forum where the teacher could plead his case anew, albeit on the same evidence. The scope of review, I propose, would seem to be fairer to the teacher, who for the first time is appearing before an independent forum.
To read the statute as I propose would seem to help remove a possible objection that some teacher might raise that the school board acts as both the prosecutor and the judge, a procedure which has been criticized. See 1 Am.Jur.2d, Administrative Law, § 78, p. 873. I make no determination here whether present statutory procedures, as they have been construed by the majority, accord procedural due process. I do call the attention of the Legislature to the fact that the Supreme Court of the United States has held that when the rights of public employees are involved, state and federal governments, even in their internal operations, do not constitutionally have the complete freedom of action enjoyed by the private employer. See Cafeteria Workers, Local 473 v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 886, 81 S.Ct. 1743, 6 L.Ed.2d 1230 (1961); Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972). I merely point out the trend. I do not adopt it or reject it.
I recognize that the state has a very valid and substantial interest to protect also. The school board has the responsibility to manage the school system. It has a legiti*292mate interest in the education of the young people in its charge. I think the Legislature recognizes this interest by providing a method by which the school board could rid itself of incompetent personnel. But I believe the Legislature intended to give the Tenure Commission a rather broad scope of review to make sure the board was not arbitrarily unjust in its decision to remove a teacher.