Court Opinion

ID: 8757867
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 11:54:01.373598+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:01:22.074701
License: Public Domain

SANBORN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting). I agree with the majority of the court that on March 18, 1899, the board of regents of the Kansas State Agricultural College made a lawful agreement with the plaintiff, Ward, that they would employ him as a professor at a salary of $1,450 per annum until the close of the school year ending June 30, 1901, and that the provision of the statute that “they shall have the power to remove the president and any professor or teacher whenever the interest of the college shall require” entered into and became a part of the contract. But I am unable to bring my mind to the conclusion that this provision authorized the board of regents by their act of removal to violate their contract of employment or to deprive the plaintiff of his salary in the absence of some sound reason for his discharge. The only effect of this provision, in my opinion, was that the board of regents might remove the professor, subject alwaj^s to his right to enforce his contract and recover damages for its breach in case he was removed without just cause. Any other construction disables the board from making any contract of employment for a term, or for a time certain; for a pretended contract for a time certain, which one of the parties may terminate at will at any time, is no contract for a term. The question has, it seems to me, been decided by the Supreme Court of Kansas, and its decision upon this issue should control in this court. The national courts uniformly follow the construction of the Constitution and statutes of a state given by its *379highest judicial tribunal in all cases that involve no question of general or commercial law and no question of right under the federal Constitution or laws. Madden v. Lancaster County, 65 Fed. 188, 192, 12 C. C. A. 566, 570; Illinois Trust & Sav. Bank v. City of Arkansas City, 76 Fed. 271, 279, 22 C. C. A. 171, 179, 34 L. R. A. 518; Detroit v. Osborne, 135 U. S. 492, 499, 10 Sup. Ct. 1012, 34 L. Ed. 260.
In Board of Regents v. Mudge, 21 Kan. 223, 224, 228, 229, this-board of regents made a contract on July 16, 1873, for the employment of Mudge for one year. On September 4, 1873, they adopted a resolution that each professor should give and receive three months’ notice of resignation or discharge, except in case of gross-misconduct. They discharged Mudge on February 6, 1874, without notice, although he was not guilty of misconduct. For three months thereafter he was out of employment, and he sued the board for compensation for these three months. He recovered. The counsel of the board of regents urged two reasons for the reversal of the judgment. The first was stated in these words:
“The plaintiff below was subject to any resolution tbe board of regents might pass terminating the relation between the parties whenever in the opinion of the board the interest of the college required the passage of such a resolution. The Legislature has vested the government of this college in the plaintiff in error, and made it, and no other tribunal, the judge of what is for the interest of the institution; and the relation existing between-the plaintiff and defendant does not result from any contract made and entered into by them, but from the laws existing at the time for the government of the agricultural college, creating professorships, fixing, increasing, and diminishing the regular number of professors and teachers, and providing for the removal of the president, and any professor or teacher, whenever the interest of the college required it. Head v. University, 19 Wall. 526, 22 L. Ed. 160.”
The second reason was that the resolution regarding the three-months notice of resignation or discharge was immaterial and ineffective in any event. The court considered both propositions,, and decided that neither of them was tenable. The portion of the opinion pertinent to the first proposition reads in this way:
“(1) The act relating to the agricultural college (Gen. St. 1868, p. 75, c. 3> provides, among other things, as follows:
“ ‘Sec. 2. The government of such college is vested in a board of regents,’ etc.
“ ‘Sec. 3. The board of regents shall constitute a body corporate, with the right, as such, to sue and be sued, to use a common seal, and to alter the same at pleasure.’
“ ‘Sec. 4. The regents shall have power to enact ordinances, by-laws, and regulations for the government of said college; to elect a president; to fix, increase, and diminish the regular number of professors and teachers; and to appoint the same, and to determine the amount of their salaries. They shall have power to remove the president and any professor or teacher whenever the interest of the college shall require.’
“ ‘Sec. 12. The board of regents shall- have the general supervision of the-college and direction and control of all expenditures.’
“It will be seen from the foregoing sections of the statute that the power reposed in the board of regents is very extensive. They are a corporation having the entire control of all departments of the college — educational, financial, and administrative. They have the power to appoint and discharge the president, and all the professors and teachers, and to fix and increase- *380or diminish their several salaries. But with all these powers, they are not supreme, nor irresponsible. They may ‘sue and be sued,’ just as the managing officers of other public corporations, such as cities, towns, counties, townships, and school districts, may. While their powers are extensive, still they may render their board liable by the wrongful exercise of such power. Thus they have the unquestioned and the continuing power of employing a president and professors and teachers whenever they may choose, and of discharging any of them whenever they may choose; but if they agree to employ a president or professor or teacher for a period of three months, and then wrongfully discharge him before the three months has elapsed, they will leave their board responsible for the whole amount of the salary for such three months, notwithstanding such discharge. While the Legislature un■questionably intended to confer upon the board of regents extensive powers, yet it did not intend to confer upon them the irresponsible power of trifling with other men’s rights with impunity. And making the regents responsible for their acts does not in the least abridge their powers. It only tends to make them more cautious and circumspect in the exercise of their powers.”
This opinion seems to me to be a plain and authoritative ruling that if the board of regents agreed to employ a professor or teacher for a period of two or three years, and then wrongfully discharged him before this time has elapsed, they left their board responsible for the whole amount of the salary for the length of time for which he was lawfully employed notwithstanding his discharge. And this seems to me to be a just and rational ruling.
This ruling is not less effective or binding upon the federal court because the decision of the case is placed upon two propositions which were pertinent to the issue, to wit, the effect of the statute and the effect of the rule, instead of upon one. Where a court places its decision of the ultimate legal issue before it upon its decision of two legal questions which were pertinent to the issue, were •debated at the bar, and were considered and determined in the opinion, the decision of each of the two questions, and of every pertinent legal question decided in reaching either decision, has the binding force of an adjudication, and is not mere obiter dictum. Union Pac. Ry. Co. v. Mason City & Ft. Dodge R. Co., 64 C. C. A. 348, 354, 355, 128 Fed. 230, 236, 237.
In Board of Education of City of Ottawa v. Cook, 45 Pac. 119, the Court of Appeals of Kansas has reached the conclusion announced by the Supreme Court in the Mudge Case in the consideration of a similar issue. In that case the board of education employed a teacher for the term of one year, commencing in September, 1890, under a rule which read in this way:
“At the regular meeting in June or as soon thereafter as practicable the board shall elect the teachers of the public schools to hold their positions for one year unless sooner removed by vote of the board.”
On March 18, 1891,- the teacher was removed by a vote of the board. She sued to recover her salary for the remainder of the year. The court held that the clause, “unless sooner removed by vote of the board,” did not mean that the board might remove her without cause at its pleasure or caprice, and that notwithstanding she was removed by a vote of the board that removal left the board liable for her salary throughout the year, and the court affirmed a judgment in her favor for her compensation.
*381Both because a construction of the Kansas statute which gives the board of regents the power to remove its employes without cause at any time seems to me to be unreasonable and inconsistent with the existence of any contract for a term, and because the courts of Kansas have so decided this question in construing this statute, I am of the opinion that the judgment below should be reversed, and that the case should be remanded for answer and trial.