Doebler v. Mincemoyer

285 A.2d 159, 446 Pa. 130, 1971 Pa. LEXIS 612

• Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
• Decided: December 20, 1971
• Docket: Appeal, 49
• Status: Published

Opinions

Opinion by

Mr. Justice Pomeroy,

This is an appeal from a final order of the Court of Common Pleas of Lycoming County entering judgment against appellant in a quo warranto action.¹

The facts, undisputed, are as follows: At the General Election of November, 1967, appellant was elected a director of the Jersey Shore Area School Board. He took office in December of 1967 and has served in that capacity since that time. At the time of and at all times since his election to the School Board, appellant has been an instructor in the Willamsport Area Community College. That Community College is sponsored by nineteen school districts, one of which is the Jersey Shore Area district. A director of a sponsoring school district has the power to vote for trustees of the Community College and to vote on the approval of its annual budget.

Appellee contends that appellant is precluded, by virtue of Section 322 of the Public School Code, from concurrently holding the office of School Director and teacher at the Community College. Section 322 of the Public School Code of, 1949, P. L. 30, Article III, Section 322, as amended (24 P.S. 3-322) provides in applicable part: “. . . any person holding . . . the office of . . . teacher, or employee of any school district, shall not be eligible as a school director in this Commonwealth. This section shall not prevent any . . . teacher, or employee of any school district from being a school director in a district other than the one in which he is employed, and other than in a district with which the district in which he is employed operates a joint school or department.” The lower court held that Section 322 indicated the Legislature’s intention of prohibiting a teacher from having any supervisory control over his own employment. Accordingly, since appellant was a director of the Jersey Area School Board and since that School Board, was one of the nineteen sponsoring school districts of the Community College where appellant taught, the lower court concluded that the two positions, in light of the legislative intent as the court determined it, were incompatible. As the opinion of the court puts it, “[t]o hold otherwise would give a director supervisory control over his own employment.” We agree, and affirm.²

It is true, as appellant points out, that the Public. School Code, supra, was enacted in 1949, and the Community College Act of 1963 in that year, Act of August 24, 1963, P. L. 1132, §1 et seq., 24 P.S, §5201 et seq. Thus the incompatibility clause in the former act did not expressly encompass community college employment, nor was this accomplished when the relevant section, §322, of the Public School Code was amended in 1968, Act of January 12, 1968, P. L. , No. 2, §1, 24 P.S. 3-322. We do not, however, consider that this sequence of legislative background compels holding that the offices here involved are compatible.

“It is a frequently repeated rubric, scarcely needing repetition, that a statute must be construed to effect the intent of the legislature. Act of May 28, 1937, P. L. 1019, §51, 46 P.S. §551.” Yoke v. Lower Burrell, 418 Pa. 23, 28, 208 A. 2d 847, 850 (1965). The School Code, as noted above, expressly forbids a school teacher to be a school director in the district where he is employed, or in a district which operates a joint school or department with the district in which the teacher is employed. In the case at bar, appellant is a teacher in a community college sponsored by, among other school districts, the district in which appellant is a member of the School Board. The school directors of such sponsoring school districts annually adopt the budget of the sponsored community college; they also select the members of the board of trustees of the college. Appellant in his brief concedes that such directors “individually have a diluted measure of supervisory control over the community college”. We think that such control by one who is a teacher at the college, even though “diluted”, is precisely what the legislature intended to prohibit. While the institution where appellant teaches is indeed a college, we think it also comes within the purview of “joint school” as that term is used in Section 322 of the School Code.

The order of the Court of Common Pleas is affirmed.

Mr. Justice Baiíbiehi dissents.

1 A supersedeas petition filed by appellant at tbe same time as the filing of this appeal was denied by this Court, per curiam, on July 21, 1970.

2 The order entered below was as follows:

“Order

“And now1, this twenty-sixth day of June, 1969, judgment is entered- against the defendant The defendant shall- file with this Court, his election, in writing, stating which of the two positions he desires to retain. Such election shall be made within 30 days after this order becomes final. Each party to pay own costs.

“By the Court,.

“C. E. Greevy, P. J.’’