Court Opinion

ID: 9789591
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:38:49.302171+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:23.398446
License: Public Domain

Miller, J.,
dissenting: Although I agree with the principles of law enumerated in the majority opinion, I am unable to agree with the application of those principles to the facts of this case, and therefore I respectfully dissent.
The majority’s holding is that the district court erred “in examining the issues de novo and in substituting its judgment for that of the school board,” and that “In this case there was substantial evidence of rescission by mutual assent . . .” As I read the record, the initial evidentiary hearing before the board of education was conducted on September 26, 1974. Witnesses testified and exhibits were introduced. Shortly thereafter the board ruled — and not surprisingly — that Mrs. Brinson had indeed resigned, just as the board had contended all along. No written order of the board is included in the record, so we do not know what findings of fact the board made. We must examine the *475record to see what the facts are — just as the district court did.
Mrs. Brinson appealed the board’s decision to the district court. The transcript of the testimony taken before the board, together with the exhibits there presented, constituted the entire record before the district court. The district court’s findings of fact, with the exception of the last eighteen words, may well have been the board’s findings of fact; at least they would appear to be undisputed.
The findings are as follows:
“FINDINGS OF FACT
“1. Petitioner has been employed as a teacher in Unified School District No. 431, Barton County, Kansas, for more than two years before March 15, 1974, as a certified teacher.
“2. On March 15, 1974, she was employed under a written contract covering the 1973-1974 school year.
“3. No new contract was ever entered into between the parties and no written notice of discontinuance of employment was given by either party before April 15, 1974.
“4. A few days before May 8, 1974, respondent offered a new contract to petitioner which was returned by her unsigned and as to which she appended a note addressed to her immediate superior. The note is reproduced as ‘Exhibit A’ of petitioner’s brief and incorporated herein by reference.
“5. The only material content of the note is item number ‘4,’ and it is ambiguous.
“6. Actions of petitioner in giving some books to another teacher and loading things in a pickup are considered in the light of moving a reading room and evidence no clear intentions that are material.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The trial court then ruled as a matter of law that by operation of K.S.A. 72-5411, the parties were equally bound to the other for an additional year as a legal extension of the 1973-1974 contract; that Mrs. Brinson’s note, set forth in the majority opinion, is ambiguous and is not a clear, positive and unequivocal resignation; that the board’s conclusion that Mrs. Brinson resigned was erroneous and arbitrary; and that the board must therefore pay her salary for one year, less any reduction because of mitigation. In effect, the district court found that the order of the board was not supported by substantial competent evidence; and the court proceeded to enter a proper order.
I cannot but agree with the district judge. Evidence that a teacher gives a few books to a colleague, or that a teacher takes her teaching materials home during the summer months, does not evidence a voluntary resignation. Likewise, the fact that a teacher does not sign a new contract, proffered long after the continuing *476contract law has extended a prior contract for another year, evidences no intention to resign. The stated practice of the defendant board in construing the return of an unsigned contract as a resignation should not be permitted to negate the clear import of the continuing contract law.
The note which Mrs. Brinson returned with the unsigned proposed contract speaks for itself, and is certainly not a clear declaration by the teacher which could lead to the mutual consent necessary, under the last sentence of K.S.A. 72-5411, to terminate the contract which had already arisen by operation of law. I cannot agree with the majority that “. . . there was substantial evidence of rescission by mutual assent . . .”
In short, I believe the district court properly exercised its limited function in this case and correctly held that the action of the school board, sitting first as a school board and later as a panel to review its own action, was not supported by substantial competent evidence. A modicum or a smidgen of evidence is not enough to support the decision of an obviously partial administrative body.
The district courts have the responsibility for the just and sound administration of the limited appellate function which they exercise in administrative appeals such as this. I find the district court’s opinion factually just and legally sound. The principal reason for the appellate process and the primary objective of all Kansas courts is to insure that wherever the courts of Kansas sit, justice is dispensed to her people. I cannot see that the results reached in this case satisfy that aim.
Prager, J., joins in the foregoing dissenting opinion.