Owens v. Board of Education

California Court of Appeal Aug 28, 1924 No. Civ. No. 4748.Published

Before: Nourse

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Holding. The court held that a teacher whose contract expired at the end of the 1921-22 school year, following proper notice of non-reemployment, was not entitled to reinstatement as a permanent teacher under the Teachers' Tenure Act because her employment did not continue into the 1922-23 school year.

Issues

Whether a teacher was entitled to reinstatement as a permanent teacher under the Teachers' Tenure Act after her contract was terminated at the end of the 1921-22 school year.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“Inasmuch as the appellant’s contract of employment terminated- at the end of the school year of 1921-22, and nothing appearing from which it could be inferred that a contract under the tenure act arose, it follows that there is no legal duty upon the board to reinstate her.”

NOURSE, J.

Plaintiff instituted proceedings in

mandamus

to require the defendants to reinstate her as a perma

[404]

nent teacher in the elementary schools of the Santa Cruz school district. Her petition contained the essential averments of facts showing the legal duty on the part of the defendants, her demand that they perform it, their refusal, and her right to the enforcement of the duty. These allegations were not denied except through the pleader’s conclusions, but two separate defenses were interposed—the first setting up a written contract between the plaintiff and another school district by reason of which it was claimed that plaintiff had rendered herself unable to perform her duties with the defendant district, and the second alleging that the Santa Cruz district was not one employing at least eight teachers under a principal who devotes at least two hours a day to supervision in the schools under his control.

The cause was tried before the court and findings of fact were made from which the court drew the conclusion of law that by reason of the second contract the plaintiff was not ready, able, and willing to perform her duties as a teacher in the Santa Cruz school on August 28, 1922, the date the schools of that district were reopened. From the judgment which followed for the defendants the plaintiff has appealed on the judgment-roll and a bill of exceptions.

All the evidence was offered by the appellant and stands without conflict. It shows that she was regularly employed as a teacher by the respondents for the school year commencing July 1, 1919, and was automatically re-employed for the two successive years following—1920-21 and 1921-22. About May 10, 1922, she was orally notified by the superintendent of the school district that she would not be re-employed for the following school year. At the same time she was advised by the superintendent to look for a school elsewhere, and, acting on this alone, on May 19, 1922, she secured a contract to teach with an adjacent school district for the ensuing school year. Thereafter and on May 29, 1922, the board of education' of the Santa Cruz district, by resolution, directed the superintendent, who was also secretary of the board, to notify the appellant that she had not been re-elected as a teacher in that district. The appellant was then advised that by reason of the statute, which will hereafter be referred to, she could not be so dismissed from her position. She so notified the respondent and arranged

Owens v. Board of Education

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NOURSE, J.

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