Court Opinion

ID: 9528923
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:45:18.308317+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:28.194735
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(dissenting).
This decision is damaging to the school districts of this state. It follows on the heels of Wessington Springs Ed. Ass’n. v. Wessington Springs Sch. Dist., 467 N.W.2d 101 (S.D.1991) (Henderson, J. dissenting). I have consistently maintained, for well over a decade, that the school boards should run the school districts and not agencies and judges. Unfortunately, I have seen the autonomy of the school boards eroded. The voters in this state choose their school board members from outstanding citizens. These citizens, as a duly elected board, have the right to manage the schools. Matters of teacher employment, as a general rule, rest exclusively and absolutely with the school board. Fries v. Wessington School District No. 2-4, 307 N.W.2d 875 (S.D.1981). Communities are losing their input into the needs and best welfare of school children and surfacing is a new legal culture engrossed in the school houses. It is a substitution of a false value. Rather, this language is supportive of a good school ethic:
School boards are creatures of the legislature and are a part of the legislative branch of government. Therefore, the judiciary may not invade the province of the school board’s decision making unless such decision making is done contrary to law.
Strain v. Rapid City School Board, 447 N.W.2d 332 (S.D.1989). Accord: Moran v. Rapid City Area School Disk, 281 N.W.2d 595, 598 (S.D.1979). This school district’s decision was not contrary to law. A school district has the administrative power to exercise discretion; as long as the district is legitimately and legally exercising its statutory duties, the courts may not interfere or supplant the district’s decision making powers. Schaub v. Chamberlain Board of Education, 339 N.W.2d 307 (S.D.1983).
In an analysis of this case, we should consider that the district’s decision — relating to Rininger — carries a presumption that it was made in good faith and the burden is upon Rininger — to overcome this presumption. Schneider v. McLaughlin Ind. School District, 90 S.D. 356, 241 N.W.2d 574 (1976); Jones v. Sully Buttes Schools, 340 N.W.2d 697 (S.D.1983).
With all of the above principles and precedent in mind, not to mention the specific holding in the Heege case relative to the burden of proof, the majority opinion has shifted the burden of proof onto the Bennett County School District. This is wrong.
Here, Rininger deceived the school district in his request for a leave of absence. He breached his contract. He should not prevail in his grievance. Rininger sought a job in Alaska which paid him $5,000 more than the salary he would have received in South Dakota; this deceitful conduct was at the same time that he provided a false reason for his leave. This deceitful conduct was perpetrated so that he could be assured of his teaching position in South Dakota when he decided to return to South Dakota. South Dakota has a teacher’s “Code of Professional Ethics” now adopted via state statute, SDCL 13-43-25; this is codified at ARSD 24:08:03. Inter alia, it commands “[i]n fulfilling their obligations to the public, educators shall ... [n]ot exploit the local school district or governing board for private gain,” ARSD *43024:08:03:02(4).1 The Department found the “... probability that Rininger told Gannon he wanted the leave to see his mother in Michigan is ... equally likely as not,”2 there seems little doubt that Rininger failed to meet his burden to demonstrate that the school district’s action was erroneous. Thus, the decision in favor of Rininger should be reversed. See, 48 Am.Jur.2d, Labor and Labor Relations § 1752 at 221 (1979): “... the employer is not required to convince the state labor relations board that the discharge was for good cause ... the burden is on the [complainant] to establish the [wrongfulness of the discharge] by substantial and legally credible evidence.” The burden of proof is squarely upon the party who alleges that the school district acted illegally. Gourley v. Board of Trustees of S. Dakota, 289 N.W.2d 251, 253 (S.D.1980). In light of our former precedent, the lower court’s decision should be reversed.
Clincher: It appears undisputed that Rininger did not tell Superintendent Gan-non that he had, within the last few days, become interested in a teaching job in Alaska and would be actively pursuing such other employment. It is undisputed that Gannon told the school district that Rininger sought leave because his father died. It is undisputed that had Rininger told the truth, i.e., that he was taking a job in Alaska, that his leave would not have been granted.3
This decision is an injustice to a South Dakota School District; it weakens educational strength; it repudiates settled law; and it achieves an unconscionable result. I would reverse the Department and the trial court.
*431The petition for review is dismissed.

. Justice Sabers’ special concurrence is belied by the facts of this case and fails to make the necessary quantum leap of logic under the evidence testified to in the lower proceedings. It is simply conclusory in nature. It beggars the imagination as to how the quantum leap can be made that Rininger met his burden of proof when, as the Chief Justice has pointed out that the factfinder below could find "no inconsistency that would make Rininger more credible than Gannon, or vice versa.”

. A burden of proof "is not sustained when the probabilities are equal.” King v. Johnson Bros. Construction Company, 83 S.D. 69, 155 N.W.2d 183, 186 (1967).

. The Board granted Rininger’s application on July 9, 1981, and requested that Rininger state the reasons, in writing. Superintendent Gan-non relayed this to Rininger by telephone. Rin-inger, full well knowing that he was looking for work in Alaska and had made an application for a teaching job in Alaska, withheld this information from the Board and Superintendent Gan-non and, instead, signed petitioner’s exhibit 2, received in evidence, stating that he requested a leave of absence and expressed: “I understand that the same teaching position cannot be guaranteed upon my return.” Shortly thereafter, Rininger was hired for the Alaskan job. Rininger "covered up” his wrongdoing. Rininger did not want to put it in writing because he was trying to hide his deceit.