Court Opinion

ID: 9825717
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 14:00:34.278716+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:41:18.359280
License: Public Domain

Robins, J., concurring. I concur in the result reached by the majority in this case, but I cannot agree with all that is said in the opinion. The allegation in the counter-claim of appellants to the effect that appellee obtained the contract to teach by knowingly misrepresenting his status to the directors was sufficient to state a cause of action on the part of the district to recover back money alleged to have been thus obtained from it by fraudulent deceit. For that reason I agree that the lower court erred in sustaining demurrer to this counter-claim. But the majority goes further, unnecessarily, it seems to me, and holds that without any showing of fraud, appellants would be entitled to recover against appellee if they proved that during the period involved appellee did not possess the necessary license. Under this holding a teacher may, under an honest belief that he has a proper license, do his duty and efficiently teach the children of the district, for an entire school year, receive his salary monthly, and then at the end of the year be compelled to return all his salary to the district simply because it develops that his license for some reason is invalid. Now the legislature has not seen fit to provide that money paid to a teacher who has in good faith done his work as teacher may be recovered back by the district in event the teacher does not possess proper license. No decision of this court is a precedent for the recovery back of money paid a teacher under such circumstances. Most, if not all, of the decisions relie'd on in support of the majority opinion on this phase of the case were rendered in cases where an unlicensed teacher sought to recover from the district for his services. Those cases, of course, present an entirely different situation from one in which the teacher has been paid and it is sought by the district to recover from the teacher the amount paid him for salary. The plaintiff in any case assumes the burden of showing that he is entitled to the relief .sought by him; and an unlicensed teacher seeking to recover for his services is met at the very threshold of his suit by the proposition that the contract on which he seeks to recover is one that is forbidden by law. But such is not the case here. Here the district permitted an unlicensed teacher to teach and now seeks to take back from him the salary that he actually earned. The state has a right to demand from the citizen honesty and fairness in his dealing with the sovereign; and the state and its governmental subdivisions ought to deal fairly with the citizen. I do not believe that it is fair or honest for a school district, to whose officers the records showing eligibility of teachers are open and available, to accept the services of a teacher, who believes himself to be eligible and who renders good and faithful service to the district and afterwards seek, on the ground of the technical ineligibility of the teacher, to take away from the teacher the salary that he has earned. Before a court of last resort promulgates a rule of law not based on statute or precedent the court ought to be able to say that the proposed rule is consonant with ordinary justice between man and man. In my opinion, this cannot be said of the above mentioned rule laid down herein by the majority.