Court Opinion

ID: 9763664
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:51:46.145382+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:47.662449
License: Public Domain

WILHOIT, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion because I believe that this appeal *221should have been dismissed as moot. The contract in question terminated by its terms on the “first scheduled work day for all teachers for the 1978-1979 school year.” No claim has been made by any party of a denial of any right secured under the contract during the period of its effectiveness. Since the contract by its terms is no longer effective and all rights which could be claimed under it have expired, our decision can have no practical legal effect on the parties. “It is the universal rule that courts will not consume their time in deciding abstract propositions of law or moot cases and have no jurisdiction to do so.” Hud-speth v. Commonwealth, 204 Ky. 606, 265 S.W. 18, 18 (1924) (emphasis added); see also Kentucky West Virginia Gas Co. v. Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, Local No. 3-510, 549 F.2d 407 (6th Cir. 1977). If some cases can be more moot than others, then this case is in the more moot category since the present school board has strongly indicated that it has no intention of entering into a contract such as that involved here.
Appeals are simply not allowed “for the purpose of settling academic or moot questions however interesting or desirable such disposition may be.” Civil Service Commission v. Tankersley, Ky., 330 S.W.2d 392, 393 (1952).
By taking positions on appeal opposite from those taken by them at trial, the parties have managed to induce this Court to give them an advisory opinion on the question of whether a school board may recognize an exclusive bargaining agent. While I would agree with the majority that Board of Trustees of the University of Kentucky v. Public Employees Council No. 51 American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO, Ky. 571 S.W.2d 616 (1978) would seem to be dispositive of this question, I would have serious questions about the majority’s abandonment of the long-standing principle that where the parties cannot agree as to what they intended and a contract is susceptible to different interpretations that which renders it enforceable will prevail.