Hamburg v. Commonwealth

458 A.2d 288, 73 Pa. Commw. 225, 1983 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 1472
CourtCommonwealth Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedMarch 31, 1983
DocketAppeal, No. 2414 C.D. 1980
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 458 A.2d 288 (Hamburg v. Commonwealth) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hamburg v. Commonwealth, 458 A.2d 288, 73 Pa. Commw. 225, 1983 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 1472 (Pa. Ct. App. 1983).

Opinion

Opinion by

Judge Rogers,

Bernice Hamburg, a tenured second grade classroom teacher employed for some twelve years by the North Penn School District, here seeks review of an Order of the Secretary of Education (Secretary)1 affirming the decision of the school authorities to terminate her employment on the ground of incompetency.

Before examining the petitioner’s assertions of error we must note that a number of factors contribute to the difficulty of this appeal. First among these is the appellant’s failure to comply with Pa. R.A.P. No. 2116(a) requiring a statement of questions presented to be included in the written argument presented to this Court. Instead, the appellant unhelpfully represents our scope of review as the “Question Involved”2 and then proceeds with a thirty-seven page statement of the case followed by a forty-seven page legal argument, the aggregate well in excess of the maximum permitted by Pa. R.A.P. No. 2135 and, in violation of Pa. R.A.P. No. 2119, undivided into questions presented. In addition, the appellant’s brief does not include as an appendix the adjudication of the North Penn School Board although Pa. R.A.P. No. 2111(b) so requires and, as we shall indicate, it is the Board’s adjudication to which the appellate focus of this Court is primarily directed.

Compounding this set of difficulties is the breadth of the record created before the school hoard. Twenty-three evidentiary hearings were held between July, [228]*2281979, and the end of November, 1979, producing nearly four thousand pages of exhibits and transcribed testimony. The school board’s adjudication contains fifty-eight findings of fact — that of the Secretary of Education; thirty-three factual findings. The appellant contends .that none of the Secretary’s findings related to her incompetency as a teacher are supported by substantial evidence of record. In this regard the appellant discusses at some length the asserted insufficiency of the evidence expressly relied on by the Secretary with respect to each such finding. Distressingly, all of this discussion misses the mark. Although the parties may have reasonably embraced a contrary view, it is now clear that the function of this court, in appeals like that here presented where the Secretary has taken no additional evidence is to review the decision of school board and to determine inter alia whether that decision contains unsupported but necessary factual findings. Strinich v. Clairton School District, 494 Pa. 297, 431 A.2d 267 (1981), cert. denied, U.S. ; Board of School Directors of Eastern York School District v. Fasnacht, 64 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 571, 441 A.2d 481 (1982). On this score, the appellee’s brief refers to and offers citations to the record in support of some thirty factual findings, unnumbered but separated by typographical indention, which resemble in many particulars those contained in the school board’s adjudication but which also depart from that document significantly by means of additions, deletions, and material changes in language.

In sum, one of our tasks is to consider the evidentiary support contained in this gargantuan record for each of the fifty-eight factual findings of the school board called into question by the appellant. However, the school board’s findings as such are not the target of any attack. No,r are they, — without omissions and exceptions — now the subject of supporting argument. [229]*229For this reason alone, it is necessary that we remand this matter for further proceedings.3

Due to the protraoted nature of this litigation we have endeavored in the face of the substantial difficulties described briefly above to finally decide the legal issues here presented. For the reasons we now [230]*230discuss, such, a final decision of the questions of law raised’by the appellant is also impossible and. we are compelled with respect to those issues to remand the record for further proceedings by the Secretary of Education.

[231]*231The appellant was notified by letter dated June 20, 1979, of the grounds for her discharge as follows

At the meeting of the Board of School Directors of the North Penn School District to be held on the 21st day of June, 1979, I will recommend to the Board of School Directors of the North Penn School District that your professional contract with the school district be terminated on the basis of incompetency on your part as a professional employee for the following reasons:
On February 13, 1979, you received an unsatisfactory rating.
On April 20, 1979, the next consecutive rating, you received an unsatisfactory rating ais a professional employee.
On June 15, 1979, you received a third consecutive unsatisfactory rating.

Section 1123 of the Public School Code of 1949, 24 P.S. §11-1123 provides in part the following with respect to the discharge of professional school employees on account of incompetency:

Bating System
In determining whether a professional employe shall be dismissed for incompetency . .. the pro[232]*232fessional employe . . . shall be rated by an approved rating system which shall give dne consideration to personality, preparation, .technique, and pupil reaction, in accordance with standards and regulations for such scoring as defined by rating cards to be prepared by the Department [of Education] ...

Applicable regulatory provisions are found at 22 Pa. Code §351.21. These regulations specify the contents of an approved “Temporary Professional Employ e/Pr of essional Employe Eating Form” designated Form DEBE-333. Detailed instructions and requirements for the use of the form are also codified and will be discussed at a later point in this opinion. Most notably at this juncture, paragraph four of the regulatory provisions denominated “Detailed Appraisal for Unsatisfactory Eating” provides that “[•t]wo consecutive unsatisfactory ¡ratings of a professional employe are necessary to support a dismissal on the grounds [sic] of incompetency.”

During the course of the twenty-three evidentiary hearings previously described, the contents of the three 1979 ratings described in the school district’s June 22, 1979, letter were explored, corroborated, and refuted in exhaustive detail. Although the existence of a fourth unsatisfactory rating of the appellant’s teaching performance made during the 1977-1978 school year is intimated at a number of points in the testimony of her principal, Mr. Trefsgar, no attempt was made before the Board t;o prove the circumstances surrounding or the contents of this rating. In its brief presented to this Court, the school district expressly disavows any reliance on the 1977-1978 rating:

At the end of 1977-1978 school year, Ms. Hamburg received an unsatisfactory rating, which was accompanied by the required anecdotal records. Ms. Hamburg’s rating for the [233]

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Related

Belasco v. Board of Public Education
486 A.2d 538 (Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, 1985)
Hamburg v. North Penn School District
484 A.2d 867 (Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, 1984)
Reneski v. Commonwealth, Department of Public Welfare
479 A.2d 652 (Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, 1984)

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Bluebook (online)
458 A.2d 288, 73 Pa. Commw. 225, 1983 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 1472, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hamburg-v-commonwealth-pacommwct-1983.