DocketNumber: No. 30 18 81
Citation Numbers: 1990 Conn. Super. Ct. 1925
Judges: HODGSON, JUDGE.
Filed Date: 9/11/1990
Status: Non-Precedential
Modified Date: 4/17/2021
The court received evidence as to this application in the form of a stipulation of facts and a joint submission of documents. The plaintiff and the board stipulated that the plaintiff was hired by the board as a teacher and commenced work on September 1, 1987, and that her teaching contract was continued for the 1988-89 and 1989-90 school years On March 12, 1990, the board voted not to renew the plaintiff's contract for the following school year. The vote consisted of three votes for nonrenewal and three abstentions. The chairman declined to cast a vote. The plaintiff received notice of this decision on March 16, 1990. Pursuant to the Teacher Tenure Act,
The parties have further stipulated that the last day of the plaintiff's employment was June 30, 1990.
The plaintiff claims to have demonstrated probable success on the merits of her claims that
— the vote by three members of the ten-member board was insufficient to nonrenew her contract for the 1990-91 school year
— the board's reasons for nonrenewal were arbitrary and capricious and should be set aside by the court upon its own review of the evidence adduced at the hearing requested by the plaintiff
— the failure of the board to implement fully a statutorily required evaluation system precluded it from nonrenewing her contract for reasons related to her performance.
— the hearing afforded to her by the Board was deficient because the board's counsel also served as counsel to the school administrators, presenting the case for nonrenewal and cross-examining witnesses presented by the plaintiff. CT Page 1927
— the nonrenewal is invalid because the board did not comply with the requirements of
The purpose of a preliminary injunction is to preserve the status quo and protect the movant from immediate and irreparable harm until the rights of the parties can be determined upon a full hearing on the merits of the claim for permanent injunctive relief. Olcott v. Pendleton,
In assessing what it termed the analogous situation of the granting of a stay of an administrative order in Griffin Hospital v. Commission on Hospitals and Health Care,
The plaintiff invokes the due process clauses of the federal and state constitutions and asserts that she has been deprived of her property and liberty interests in her employment without procedural or substantive due process of law.
In order to be entitled to due process as to the termination of employees, a public employee must have a property interest in continued employment. Board of Regents v. Roth,
The plaintiff contends that despite the nonrenewal vote of the board, she had an expectancy of future employment because she had not been advised before the nonrenewal vote that her employment was in jeopardy. The legal expectancy of future employment is based on contractual or statutory entitlement, not on a teacher's mere expectation of the future staffing plans of the board of education. By law, the plaintiff was a nontenured, probationary employee as of March 12, 1990, and, like the plaintiff in Roth, supra, she had no legal expectation of continued employment. Accordingly, her procedural rights were limited to those required by
Section
The applicable portion of
(c) The contract of employment of a teacher who has not attained tenure may be terminated at any time for any of the reasons enumerated in subdivisions (1) to (6), inclusive, of subsection (d) of this section; otherwise the contract of such teacher shall be continued into the next school year unless said teacher receives written notice by April first in one school year that such contract will not be renewed for the following year.
Section (c) further specifies that non-tenured teachers who receive notice of discretionary nonrenewal may request a statement of the reasons for nonrenewal and hearing.
The stipulation of the parties includes facts establishing that the plaintiff was afforded all the procedural rights of a non-tenured teacher who is being non-renewed for a future school year at the discretion of the board.
The plaintiff further contends, however, that her nonrenewal violated her right to substantive due process in that the reasons for the board's initial vote not to renew were, she contends, so insufficient as to be capricious.
Section
The plaintiff's substantive due process argument is no more than an invitation to the court to substitute its judgment for that of the school board, a task beyond the court's jurisdiction pursuant to
The plaintiff did not establish probable success on the merits of her claim that the initial decision not to renew was invalid pursuant to the board's voting procedures. She adduced no evidence to indicate that under the board's own procedures a unanimous vote of all board members present and voting is insufficient to carry a motion.
The plaintiff contends that the board could not decline to renew her employment because it had failed fully to implement the requirements of
The remaining claim pursued by the plaintiff at the hearing as to her application for injunctive relief is that counsel for the board also served as counsel for the school administrators at the hearing which followed the vote not to renew her contract. In Mauriello v. Board of Education,
The plaintiff has failed to establish a likelihood Of success in the merits of this claim or any of the claims raised in her complaint.
Accordingly, whether or not she could satisfy the remaining requirements for preliminary injunctive relief, such relief cannot be granted because of the absence of a demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits of any of her legal claims.
The application for a preliminary injunction is denied.
Beverly J. Hodgson, Judge
Olcott v. Pendleton , 128 Conn. 292 ( 1941 )
Deming v. Bradstreet , 85 Conn. 650 ( 1912 )
Devlin v. Bennett , 26 Conn. Super. Ct. 102 ( 1965 )
Covenant Radio Corporation v. Ten Eighty Corporation , 35 Conn. Super. Ct. 1 ( 1977 )
Mauriello v. Board of Education , 176 Conn. 466 ( 1979 )
Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth , 92 S. Ct. 2701 ( 1972 )