Court Opinion

ID: 9667894
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:57:17.628976+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:41.346766
License: Public Domain

HILL, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
The longstanding general rule in Texas school law cases is that parties must exhaust available administrative remedies before resorting to the courts when there are facts in dispute. Mission Independent School District v. Diserens, 144 Tex. 107, 111, 188 S.W.2d 568, 570 (1945). Any harm that the teachers might have suffered had they been required to pursue an appeal through administrative channels is far outweighed by the damage the majority’s departure from this rule will wreak upon the administrative law of this state.
Numerous issues of fact will have to be decided in order to resolve this dispute. As the court of appeals recognized, it is unclear from the record before us exactly how HISD’s plan would have been implemented within the various high schools in the district. Another contested central fact issue concerns the degree of autonomy the teachers have exercised in the past as to how they would spend their lunch hours. These are exactly the types of factual issues that should aptly be resolved in the first instance by authorities familiar with the day-to-day administration of public schools. The majority’s opinion thus undermines one of the most important purposes of the exhaustion doctrine: allowing administrative bodies to apply expertise to questions of fact and policy. See Public Utility Commission of Texas v. Pedernales Electric Cooperative, Inc., 678 S.W.2d 214, 220 (Tex.App.—Austin 1984, writ ref’d n.r.e.). Accordingly, I must dissent.
GONZALEZ, J., joins in this dissent.