Court Opinion

ID: 9673410
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:11:19.736836+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:22.023905
License: Public Domain

Robert L. Brown, Justice, dissenting. This case involves approximately $1 billion in Minimum Foundation Program Aid funds for education. About 435,000 students in Arkansas are affected. The chancellor’s judgment declaring the school funding program unconstitutional, as it existed in 1994, was entered November 9, 1994. That declaratory judgment was immediately appealed by the State. Now, almost a year and a half later the majority declines to entertain the appeal because it concludes that the declaratory judgment was not a final order. The majority further suggests that jurisdiction in chancery court may be faulty, but it makes no decision on that point. I would hold that jurisdiction of this matter properly lies in chancery court and that the declaratory judgment is final for purposes of appeal and for this court’s review. For that reason, I dissent. I. Final Order It is statutory law in Arkansas that declaratory judgments shall have the effect of a final judgment: (a) Courts of record within their respective jurisdictions shall have power to declare rights, status, and other legal relations whether or not further relief is or could be claimed. (2) The declaration may be either affirmative or negative in form and effect and declarations shall have the force and effect of a final judgment or decree. Ark. Code Ann. § 16-111-103(a)(2) (1987). (Emphasis added.) The Commentary to the Declaratory Judgment Act supports this notion: The Declaratory Judgment may be either affirmative or negative in form and effect; it may determine some right, privilege, power or immunity in the plaintiff, or some duty, no-right, liability or disability in the defendant. The judgment is not based on any wrong already done or any breach committed. It is not required to be executed, as it orders nothing to be done. It simply declares rights and duties so that parties may guide themselves in the proper legal road, and, in fact, and in truth, avoid litigation. Prefatory Note to Ark. Code Ann. § 16-111-101 et seq. (Repl. 1995). (Emphasis added.) Here, the chancellor declared the school funding formula unconstitutional as violative of the Equal Protection Clause of the Arkansas Constitution. That declaration of rights had the force and effect of a final judgment. The chancellor then refrained from granting any supplemental relief to execute the judgment for two years in order to give the General Assembly a chance to come into compliance with her order. In staying the effect of her order, she cited as authority Helena Elementary School Dist. 1 v. State, 784 P.2d 412, 413 (Mont. 1990); Carrollton-Farmers v. Edgewood Indep. School Dist., 826 S.W.2d 489 (Tex. 1992); and Edgewood Indep. School Dist. v. Kirby, 777 S.W.2d 391, 399 (Tex. 1989). The reason for doing this is obvious. Had she immediately enjoined an expenditure of State funds under the program, public education would have come to an abrupt halt absent an appeal. What the chancellor did in declaring rights and staying her order is precisely what virtually every other jurisdiction has done when considering a similar issue. In none of these cases has the appellate court dismissed the matter for lack of finality. For example, the District Court which invalidated Texas’s school finance system in 1971 allowed the legislature two years to take corrective action. Rodriguez v. San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist., 337 F. Supp. 280 (W.D. Tex. 1971), rev’d on other grounds, 411 U.S. 1 (1973). A California trial court also set a period of six years from the date of judgment as a reasonable time to rectify an unconstitutional school funding system, and the California Supreme Court affirmed. See Serrano v. Priest, 18 Cal.3d. 728, 135 Cal. Reptr. 345, 557 P.2d 929 (1977), cert. denied sub. nom. Clowes v. Serrano, 432 U.S. 907 (1977). Likewise, in Robinson v. Cahill, 62 N.J. 473, 303 A.2d 273 (1973), cert. denied sub. nom. Dickey v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 976 (1973), the New Jersey Supreme Court agreed with the trial court that a period of time was necessary to allow the legislature an opportunity to come into compliance with constitutional mandates. A specific deadline for compliance was fixed by the court. Robinson v. Cahill, 63 N.J. 196, 306 A.2d 65 (1973) (per curiam), cert. denied sub. nom. Dickey v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 976 (1973). In the first Robinson case, the court made the case for a stay: We agree with the trial court that relief must be prospective. The judiciary cannot unravel the fiscal skein. Obligations incurred must not be impaired. And since government must go on, and some period of time will be needed to establish another statutory system, obligations hereafter incurred pursuant to existing statutes will be valid in accordance with the terms of the statutes. 303 A.2d at 298. State appellate courts have also modified trial court orders to provide for stays to give legislatures time to act in comparable situations. Rose v. Council for Better Educ., Inc., 790 S.W.2d 186 (Ky. 1989) (withheld finality of judgment until 90 days after the adjournment of the General Assembly at its regular session); Washakie County Sch. Dist. No. 1 v. Herschler, 606 P.2d 310 (Wyo. 1980), cert. denied sub. nom. Hot Springs County Sch. Dist. No. 1 v. Washakie County Sch. Dist. No. 1, 449 U.S. 824 (1980) (court ordered that the conversion be in effect and underway not later than July 1, 1982); Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1 v. State, 90 Wash.2d 476, 585 P.2d 71 (1978) (en banc) (opinion deemed all acts taken under existing statute valid until July 1, 1981); Horton v. Meskill, 172 Conn. 615, 376 A.2d 359 (1977) (stayed judicial intervention to afford the General Assembly an opportunity to take appropriate legislative action). By dismissing this appeal, the constitutionality of school funding is placed in limbo with nothing resolved. Presumably, as of November 9, 1996, the chancellor’s opinion will be final in the majority’s eyes. What happens then? The State could refile the same appeal, but a considerable period of time will have been lost in reviewing the chancellor’s order. II. Mootness The General Assembly has passed school-funding legislation since the chancellor’s order. See Act 917 of 1995. We have said that when one act has been superseded by a second act, we generally dismiss an appeal from a declaratory judgment action construing the first act for mootness. Nathaniel v. Forrest City School Dist. No. 7, 300 Ark. 513, 780 S.W.2d 539 (1989). The Nathaniel case was an election matter, and we went on to say in our opinion that when an issue is capable of repetition, even though moot, we will entertain it. We concluded that Nathaniel presented such a case, and we addressed the merits. We have further stated: [W]hen the case involves the public interest, or tends to become moot before litigation can run its course, or a decision might avert future litigation, we have, with some regularity, refused to permit mootness to become the determinant (citing authority). Campbell v. State, 300 Ark. 570, 572, 781 S.W.2d 14, 15 (1989). Thus, when matters of great public interest are involved that might arise in the future, we have decided them even though the precise matter on appeal is moot. Dotson v. Ritchie, 211 Ark. 789, 202 S.W.2d 603 (1947). The matter presently before us is arguably moot because the General Assembly has passed a new school funding law in the form of Act 917. However, the issue that remains is whether the chancellor was correct in her analysis of what a school funding formula must provide to pass constitutional muster. That issue is before this court in this appeal, and it is left hovering in the air by today’s decision. There may well be a second lawsuit by the Lake View School District to decide whether Act 917 complies with the chancellor’s order. (Compliance of Act 917 with the chancellor’s order has not been raised in this appeal.) However, a second lawsuit on compliance would necessarily have to include whether the chancellor’s reasoning in her declaratory judgment was right. I would decide that issue in this appeal. Education receives high priority status under the Arkansas Constitution, as it should: Intelligence and virtue being the safeguards of liberty and the bulwark of a free and good government, the State shall ever maintain a general, suitable and efficient system of free public schools and shall adopt all suitable means to secure to the people the advantages and opportunities of education. Ark. Const, art. 14, § 1. I would treat this case as the matter of high public interest that it is and review the merits of the chancellor’s decision. To do otherwise runs the risk of causing delay and fomenting uncertainty and instability in the educational system. III. Jurisdiction Jurisdiction in chancery court has been questioned by the majority opinion, but no resolution of the matter has been made. I believe that chancery court had jurisdiction of this case. Mandamus is clearly a legal remedy, but it is supplemental relief, as already discussed. A declaration of rights concerning an illegal application of State funds and injunctive relief fall readily in chancery’s domain. See, e.g., Hartwick v. Thorne, 300 Ark. 502, 780 S.W.2d 531 (1989); DuPree v. Alma School Dist. No. 30, 279 Ark. 340, 651 S.W.2d 90 (1983). The upshot of today’s opinion is to place in doubt chancery’s jurisdiction over this case while leaving a decision on the matter to another day. Having not addressed the jurisdictional point in connection with the present appeal, it would be unfair in the extreme to dismiss a subsequent, related appeal emanating from chancery court for lack of jurisdiction. IV. Summary To summarize, I would hold that the jurisdiction of this matter appropriately lies in chancery court. I would further view the declaratory judgment as final for purposes of our review. And, lastly, though superseding legislative action in 1995 may have rendered the constitutionality of the previous formula moot, the chancellor’s analysis is the polestar against which Act 917 of 1995 must ultimately be measured. I would decide whether that analysis missed the mark or correctly assessed constitutional mandates. For that reason, I respectfully dissent.