Court Opinion

ID: 9649100
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:42:16.890629+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:00:27.449466
License: Public Domain

Justice NIGRO,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority because I believe that the Board of School Directors of the McGuffey School District (the “Board”) did not have the right to suspend Appellant Anthony Burger without pay or benefits pending his termination hearing and that Appellant properly sought mandamus relief from that action.
Pursuant to the Public School Code (the “Code”), superintendents may only be removed from office based on charges of misconduct or neglect if a majority of the board of school directors votes for such a removal following a hearing. See 24 P.S. § 10-1080. In my view, this statutory provision clearly precludes the board of school directors from taking any disciplinary action against a superintendent that effectively results *587in a removal without first holding a hearing. As suspending a superintendent and denying him his contractual right to pay and benefits is, for all intents and purposes, a removal, I agree with Judge Pellegrini that the statute prohibits such a suspension absent “a full blown due process hearing.”1 Burger v. Bd. of Sch. Directors of the McGuffey Sch. Dist., 805 A.2d 663, 669-70 (Pa.Commw.2002) (Pellegrini, J., dissenting); see also Mulligan v. School Dist. of Hanover Tp., 241 Pa. 204, 88 A. 362, 362 (1913) (school districts are creatures of the legislature and therefore school districts and their officers only have those powers expressly granted to them by statute or necessarily implied under the statute); Giacomucci v. Southeast Delco School Dist., 742 A.2d 1165, 1170 (Pa.Commw.1999) (as school district is an administrative arm of the legislature, its authority springs only from legislative enactments). Accordingly, in my view, the Board acted outside of its statutory authority when it suspended Appellant from office and took away his pay and benefits without initially holding a hearing on the allegations of misconduct against him.
Moreover, because I believe that the Board’s suspension of Appellant violated the Code, I would find that Appellant properly sought mandamus relief from that action. See e.g., Burns v. Bd. of Directors of Uniontown Area Sch. Dist., 748 A.2d 1263, 1269 (Pa.Commw.2000) (“[t]he actions of the re*588organized Board to remove Superintendent by a mechanism other than expressly provided by law in the School Code is extraordinary in and of itself’). Further, contrary to the findings of the Commonwealth Court below, I believe that Appellant’s ability to appeal from the Board’s decision following his termination hearing, which occurred two months after his suspension, was not a complete and adequate remedy from the Board’s wrongful deprivation of his salary and benefits for that two month period.
Accordingly, I would reverse the order of the Commonwealth Court and reinstate the order of the trial court granting Appellant his salary and benefits for the two month period before the Board held a hearing and voted to remove him from office.
Justice CASTILLE joins this dissenting opinion.

. The majority finds that the board of school directors has the right to make such suspensions pursuant to section 211 of the Code, which vests school districts with powers that are necessary to carry out provisions of the Code. See 24 P.S. § 2-211. However, in my view, section 10-1080 limits the board's powers under section 211 insofar as it specifically requires the board to conduct a hearing before terminating a superintendent or effectively terminating him by suspending him without pay. Thus, I do not believe that section 211 alone is dispositive regarding the board's inherent disciplinary powers.
Moreover, contrary to the majority, I do not believe that this Court's decision in Rike v. Secretary of Educ., 508 Pa. 190, 494 A.2d 1388 (1985), in any way implies that the board has the inherent authority to suspend superintendents without pay before holding a hearing. In that case, this Court solely found that the board of school directors had the inherent authority to impose a lesser form of discipline than complete termination of a teacher after hoIding a hearing. See id. at 1391. We in no way held that the board could suspend a tenured teacher without pay or benefits absent a hearing.