Court Opinion

ID: 9701572
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:25:34.755508+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:25.399417
License: Public Domain

WILENTZ, C. J.,
dissenting.
I join Justice Sullivan’s dissent. The protection of teachers’ tenure rights is part of the legislative effort to ensure a thorough and efficient education, a constitutionally based aspect of a clear and compelling State policy of furthering the interests of school children. See N.J. Const. (1947), Art. VIII, § IV, par. 1. The majority opinion ignores and subverts that policy. After today, each time the Commissioner of Education determines to close a grade or an entire school within a district and transfer the pupils to a facility in another district, tenured teachers stand to have their job security stripped from them for no good reason and through no fault of their own. Cf. N.J.S.A. 18A:28-9, 10 (reduction in force); 18A:28-5 (grounds for dismissal of tenured teachers limited to inefficiency, incapacity or unbecoming conduct). Concededly, the majority opinion does not prohibit a receiving district from agreeing to accept tenured teachers from a district in which the Commissioner has closed a school or a grade. Nevertheless, the practical effect of today’s decision is likely to be the same. When an influx of new pupils creates *554teacher positions, what local board would choose not to do its own selection, negotiation and hiring?1
The majority accurately recognizes the absence of express authority under N.J.S.A. 18A:28-6.1 for the Commissioner to compel a district that has been ordered to accept students to accept tenured teachers as well. It is indeed clear that the statute grants no such express authority. It is also clear that the statute does not prohibit the Commissioner from exercising such authority. In fact, as Justice Sullivan has aptly pointed out, the statute is simply inapplicable to the situation before us. Nor indeed does any other section of the School Law specifically address this situation.2 The majority, however, attaches unprecedented significance to this absence in its reliance upon the Latin doctrine of expressio unius est exclusio alterius. This rule of construction unfortunately, “usually serves to describe a result rather than to assist in reaching it.” Reilly v. Ozzard, 33 N.J. 529, 539 (1960); see 2 A. Sutherland, Statutory Construction § 47.24 at 127 (4th ed. Sands 1973).
More aptly applied, this doctrine leads to the conclusion that where the Legislature saw fit to condition only one exercise of the power to close a school (by the district) on the transfer of tenured teachers, another exercise of that same power (by the Commissioner) is therefore not so limited and the Commissioner retains the power to decide whether or not to order the transfer of tenured teachers.
I would avoid a dispute over the axiom, however, for it obscures the real question, which is “whether in a given context an express provision with respect to a portion of an area reveals *555by implication a decision with respect to the remainder. The issue is one of intention. The answer resides in the common sense of the situation.” Reilly, supra, 33 N.J. at 539. See Camden v. Dicks, 135 N.J.Super. 559, 561-63 (Law Div. 1975) (absence of express authorization in Faulkner Act and Civil Service Act did not prohibit city from contracting to pay retiring employees for unused sick leave); Maywood Educ. Assoc., Inc. v. Maywood Bd. of Educ., 131 N.J.Super. 551, 554-55 (Ch. Div. 1974) (absence of express authority in Title 18A did not prohibit local board from contracting to pay employees for unused sick leave and grant of authority under N.J.S.A. 18A:27-4 to make local rules and set salaries was broad enough to encompass such payments); Plumbers and Steamfitters Local No. 270 v. Woodbridge Bd. of Educ., 159 N.J.Super. 83, 87-88 (App.Div.1978) (legislative failure to provide tenure for a specific group of employees not a prohibition against local board so providing).
The real question presented by this appeal, then, is whether this Court will give effect to the Legislature’s intent, or will seek a way not to do so. The majority apparently believes it is compelled to limit its evaluation of the correctness of the Commissioner’s action to his erroneous reliance upon N.J.S.A. 18A:28-6.1. It thus justifies its refusal to achieve a result that I believe was intended by the Legislature. Also presented is the question of this Court’s willingness to find power in an administrative agency to achieve that legislative intent.
I.
Simply put, N.J.S.A. 18A:28-6.1 does two things: first, in conjunction with N.J.S.A. 18A:38-11 and -13, it prevents one district from forcing its students upon another unless the two districts agree; second, it requires every such agreement to provide for the transfer of tenured teachers.
The majority opinion has converted N.J.S.A. 18A:28-6.1 from a strong protection of the rights of tenured teachers into an insidious weapon against them. Nothing could be more antithetical to the policies and needs served by the institution of *556tenure. In a process beginning near the turn of the century, the Legislature has created and extended the protections of tenure for teachers. L. 1909, c. 243, § 1, p. 398, as amended by L. 1934, c. 188, § 1, p. 461, L. 1935, c. 27, § 1, p. 64, supp. to L. 1903 (2d Sp. Sess.), c. 1, p. 5; L. 1909, c. 243, § 3, p. 399, as amended by L. 1935, c. 126, § 1, p. 331, supp. to L. 1903 (2d Sp. Sess.), c. 1, p. 5; R.S. 18:13-16 (1937), as amended by L. 1940, c. 43; L. 1952, c. 236, § 12; L. 1962, c. 231, § 1; R.S. (1947) 18:13-17, as amended by L. 1952, c. 236, § 13; L. 1960, c. 137, § 5; L. 1962, c. 231, § 2. The courts of this State have consistently sustained this legislative judgment. See, e. g., Lowenstein v. Newark Bd. of Educ., 35 N.J. 94 (1961) (teacher’s refusal to answer questions on Communist affiliation would not sustain dismissal on asserted grounds of “moral issue”); but see Laba v. Board of Educ. of Newark, 23 N.J. 364 (1957) (tenured teacher who invoked Fifth Amendment before Congressional Committee and refused to answer questions of local superintendent as to Communist Party membership may be discharged);3 Viemeister v. Board of Educ. of Prospect Park, 5 N.J.Super. 215 (App.Div.1949) (rank of principal may not be reduced without charges and hearing); Board of Educ. of Garfield v. State Board of Educ., 130 N.J.L. 388 (Sup.Ct.1943) (wrongly dismissed teacher entitled to back pay and reimbursement); Board of Educ. of City of Trenton v. State Bd. of Educ., 125 N.J.L. 611 (Sup.Ct.1941) (salaries of tenured teachers may be reduced only for just cause as provided by statute); Stock v. Board of Educ. of Camden, 125 N.J.L. 261 (Sup.Ct.1940) (board could not reduce salaries other than after proven charges as provided by statute); School Dist. of Wildwood v. State Bd. of Educ., 116 N.J.L. 572 (Sup.Ct.1936) (marriage not grounds to dismiss tenured female teacher); Seidel v. Board of Educ. of Ventnor City, 110 N.J.L. 31 (Sup.Ct.1932), aff’d 111 N.J.L. 240 (E. & A. 1933) (tenured teacher may not be dismissed for reasons of economy when board retains non-ten*557ured teachers).4 See generally Dunellen Bd. of Educ. v. Dunellen Educ.Ass’n, 64 N.J. 17, 28-29 (1973).
Moreover, the cases make it clear that the institution of tenure is much more than a mere labor relations device. Tenure laws were designed to protect teachers in their positions, Downs v. Board of Educ. of Hoboken, 13 N.J.Misc. 853 (Sup.Ct.1935), and by virtue of the security they engender to promote a “competent and efficient” school system, Viemeister v. Board of Educ. of Prospect Park, 5 N.J.Super. 215 (App.Div.1949). The fundamental and overriding purpose of tenure is to benefit children by furthering the constitutional and legislative goal of a thorough and efficient education. See N.J.Const. (1947), Art. VIII, § IV, par. 1; N.J.S.A. 18A:7A-2, -5, -15.
A review of those statutes which deal directly with the question of tenure rights reveals a legislative design to protect tenure rights in a multitude of situations when a school district undergoes organizational or administrative change. See N.J.S.A.. 18A:6-31.1, 31.2 (whenever one district is divided into two or more, tenure rights preserved); N.J.S.A. 18A:13-42 (tenure rights preserved whenever limited purpose regional district is created, for teachers assigned to grades 7-12 in high school or junior high school of constituent districts); N.J.S.A. 18A:13-49 (tenure rights preserved when teachers in dissolving local districts are transferred to regional district); N.J.S.A. 18A:13-64 (when local/district withdraws from regional district, teachers continue in positions in withdrawing district with tenure rights preserved); N.J.S.A. 18A:28-15 (tenure rights preserved notwithstanding change in a school district’s method of government); N.J.S.A. 18A:28-16 (tenure rights preserved when Commissioner or State agency takes over school previously operated by local district); N.J.S.A. 18A:28-17 (tenure rights preserved when a local board of education undertakes operation of school previously operated by State agency); and indeed N.J.S.A. 18A:28-6.1 (tenure rights protected when districts voluntarily *558enter sending-receiving relationship). See also N.J.S.A. 18A:8-34 (tenure protected when consolidated district (predecessor of regional district) created). The totality of this scheme amounts to a pervasive pattern of tenured teachers following pupil movement, and an implicit, unmistakable legislative finding that pupils benefit from the measure of continuity such a policy affords.
More particularly, N.J.S.A. 18A:28-6.1 protects tenured teachers in a consensual sending-receiving relationship when, but for this statute, the sending board might well be able, by negotiating with the receiving board, to contract into nullity the rights of its tenured teachers. Cf. Dunellen, supra, 64 N.J. at 24-25 (Legislature, in adopting Employer-Employee Relations Act, N.J.S.A. 34:13A-1 et seq., did not contemplate State or local abdication of management responsibilities for educational policies). N.J.S.A. 18A:28-6.1 accomplishes many objectives: in conjunction with N.J.S.A. 18A:38-11, -13 and -20, it prevents one local board from unilaterally imposing its costly tenured teachers upon another.5 It also, as stated, prevents local boards from neutralizing the vested rights of the tenured teachers by agreement.
Although the Legislature clearly contemplated both voluntary and involuntary sending agreements, see N.J.S.A. 18A:38-8, nothing in either the language or the history of N.J.S.A. 18A:28-6.1 suggests the applicability of that section to a sending-receiving relationship imposed on the constituent districts by order of the Commissioner. The majority has seized upon the fact that the original version of section 6.1 did not contain the words “by agreement” to prove a deliberate legislative effort to limit tenure protections only to voluntary relationships. Yet the purpose of that amendment was to extend, not limit, tenure protection, as the statement accompanying the amended bill demonstrates:
*559The purpose of this bill is to protect the tenure, seniority, pension and accumulated sick leave rights of teaching staff members employed by a school district which discontinues one or more grades and sends its students to another school district.
Teachers in elementary and secondary schools which regionalize or consolidate have long been accorded this same protection by law.
In fact, the majority has failed to accord proper weight to another significant difference between the two versions. The first version provided that non-tenured teachers as well as tenured teachers were to be employed in the receiving district. The deletion of non-tenured teachers from the final version reinforces the articulated purpose of the bill: to protect tenure rights by requiring that the tenured teachers follow their students.
Given this stated objective, it is erroneous to conclude that the phrase “by agreement” in N.J.S.A. 18A:28-6.1 is a limitation on tenure protection. Rather, the phrase must mean that the status of tenured teachers was not to be subject to any inter-board negotiations inherent in establishing a voluntary sending-receiving relationship. The Legislature could no more have intended a sending board to lighten its payroll of tenured teachers by transferring students than it could have intended to allow a receiving board to condition its acceptance of pupils or grades on the forced disappearance of tenured teachers. The boards may, indeed must negotiate over tuition costs, lunch arrangements, transportation and facilities; but N.J.S.A. 18A:28-6.1 protects tenure rights from the vagaries and pressures of this process.
Nevertheless, that which the Legislature so wisely refused to allow local boards to do, even if by agreement they wish to do so, a majority of this Court is prepared to force the Commissioner to do. Two resultant evils are immediately suggested. First, in any future case where for educational reasons the Commissioner must consider whether to close a school, his decision will necessarily be affected by the specter of unemployed teachers whose conscientious performance has earned them worthless *560tenure rights.6 Second, it is not unforeseeable that the potential loss of tenure when a Commissioner closes a grade or a school may be perceived as a weapon against individual districts or indeed groups of teachers. The compelling ideal of a thorough and efficient school system, see Robinson v. Cahill, 62 N.J. 473 (1973), cert. den. 414 U.S. 976, 94 S.Ct. 292, 38 L.Ed.2d 219 (1973), would be ill-served by such a draconian limitation upon the Commissioner’s power to reach educational decisions.
In Jenkins v. Township of Morris School Dist., 58 N.J. 483 (1971), this Court found that the Commissioner had sufficiently broad powers under the Constitution and the then-existing7 statutes to direct a merger of school districts when they were unlikely to merge voluntarily under N.J.S.A. 18A:13-34. See 58 N.J. at 508. The Commissioner then ordered the merger and directed that the costs of the newly formed district be allocated among the component districts by valuations, as opposed to by enrollment. See Morris Twp. Committee v. Board of Educ. of Morris Twp., 60 N.J. 186, 188-89 (1972) (per curiam). One of the districts attacked that part of the Commissioner’s order, arguing that under N.J.S.A. 18A:13-34 only the voters of the component districts could determine how to allocate costs. 60 N.J. at 190. This Court held that the referendum provisions of N.J.S.A. 18A:13-34 applied only to voluntary mergers and had no application whatever to a merger directed by the Commissioner. If the statute had been held applicable, the Court observed, the Commissioner would have been disabled from taking an effective step toward fulfilling the State’s policy. Id. at 191.
The statutory scheme then in effect included N.J.S.A. 18A:4-23, which authorized the Commissioner to supervise all schools and to enforce the rules of the State Board, and N.J.S.A. *56118A:4-24, which authorized him to inquire into the thorough and efficient operation of any school or district. See generally Booker v. Board of Educ. of Plainfield, 45 N.J. 161, 180 (1965) (Commissioner had authority to require broad “reasonable plan” for entire Plainfield district consistent with sound educational values and procedures).
More recently, the Legislature has emphatically declared that it is the policy of this State to provide every child between 5 and 18 years of age a thorough and efficient education, monitored and corrected when necessary to realize that goal, N.J.S.A. 18A:7A-2. To this end, N.J.S.A. 18A:7A-15 empowers the Commissioner to recommend, and the State Board to implement, any appropriate and necessary changes to correct perceived deficiencies in a school district. See generally Robinson v. Cahill, 69 N.J. 449 (1976).
Thus, to the extent that a gap in the tenure protections of the School Law is perceived, it is filled not only by the policy considerations which underlie the statutes cited supra at 557-558, but also by the Commissioner’s powers under that law and under the Public School Education Act of 1975, N.J.S.A. 18A:7A-1 et seq. The Commissioner’s mistaken reliance on an inapposite section, N.J.S.A. 18A:28-6.1, should not, in view of the public interest at stake here, deter this Court from reaching a correct result. Cf. Jenkins, supra, 58 N.J. at 500-01, 508 (Commissioner mistakenly determined that he lacked power to direct a merger).8
II.
I also take issue with the majority’s reliance on Burlington Cty. Evergreen Mental Hosp. v. Cooper, 56 N.J. 579 (1970). In *562that case the Court refused to imply into the Public Employee Relations Law the power for the Public Employment Relations Commission to define unfair labor practices. Not only had the Legislature not made such a grant, but an overpowering legislative history shows that the Legislature had rejected the opportunity to do so. 56 N.J. at 594-96. A contemporary bill enumerating unfair labor practices never left committee. Id. at 596. A legislative report surveyed comparable statutes of 13 different states which dealt with unfair labor practices. Id. at 595. The legislators were also aware of the significantly broader scope of the comparable federal act. Id. at 594-95.
The totality of the history before the Burlington Hospital Court reveals not only the impossibility of judicial implication of power in that case, but the crucial distinction between it and the case before us today. The inclusion of labor practices in the jurisdiction of PERC represented a far-reaching extension into a broad and hitherto unlegislated area.
The school law and its tenure provisions, however, deal both in general concept and in detail with a multitude of related issues. The issue decided today represents merely a small gap in this overall scheme of tenure protection. The question is how best to fill that gap, not whether to fill it at all. Such interstitial lawmaking has always been within the scope of delegated authority to administrative agencies.
I would reverse the Appellate Division and reinstate the decision of the State Board.
Justice PASHMAN joins in this opinion.
For modification and affirmance—Justices CLIFFORD, SGHREIBER, HANDLER and POLLOCK—4.
For reversal—Chief Justice WILENTZ, Justices SULLIVAN and PASHMAN—3.

The reasons for such a choice are economic as well as political, but are rarely educational. A newly graduated teacher enters the low end of a district’s salary scale, typically at $10,000-$ 13,000. A tenured teacher with many years of service can reach a level of $22,000 and upwards. Accepting tenured teachers would be to a district’s advantage only in the event of a drastic and widespread teacher shortage, a phenomenon virtually unknown in this part of the country since colonial times.

See statutes cited infra at 557-558.

Cf. Donaldson v. Board of Educ. of City of No. Wildwood, 65 N.J. 236 (1974); Katz v. Board of Tr’ees of Gloucester College, 125 N.J.Super. 248 (1973) (even non-tenured employees may not be dismissed for exercise of constitutional right).

 A host of similar administrative holdings is reported in New Jersey School Law Decisions.

N.J.S.A. 18A:38-13 and -20 require the approval of the Commissioner before a Board withdraws from a voluntary sending-receiving relationship. See Jenkins v. Township of Morris School Dist., 58 N.J. 483, 503 (1971).

Even if the teachers directly affected are certified to teach other grades, they may “bump” other tenured teachers by reason of seniority.

 The Public School Education Act, N.J.S.A. 18A:7A-1 et seq., which to some extent codifies the principles of a thorough and efficient education, was enacted in 1975 in reaction to the Robinson cases.

Because the question is not before the Court, I do not find it necessary to consider whether under this analysis, the Commissioner invariably must order tenured teachers transferred when he directs the formation of a sending-receiving relationship.