In re Breau

565 A.2d 1044, 132 N.H. 351, 1989 N.H. LEXIS 111
CourtSupreme Court of New Hampshire
DecidedNovember 13, 1989
DocketNo. 88-355
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 565 A.2d 1044 (In re Breau) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of New Hampshire primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Breau, 565 A.2d 1044, 132 N.H. 351, 1989 N.H. LEXIS 111 (N.H. 1989).

Opinion

Souter, J.

The certiorari petitioner seeks review of the revocation of his teaching credential by the State Board of Education for “lack of good moral character,” N.H. Admin. Rules, Ed 506.04. He claims that the board acted illegally and abused its discretion, both in relying upon findings of fact made by a Canadian administrative body, and in purporting to justify its decision independently on other evidence presented to it. We affirm the order insofar as the board rested its decision on the foreign findings.

Postponing for the moment questions about evidentiary sufficiency and the degree of recognition owed to factual determinations reached by foreign administrative bodies, we read the record supplied by the board of education as indicating the following facts. For over ten years prior to 1986, the petitioner, Wayne Breau, taught in the school district of Harvey Station, New Brunswick, Canada. In the 1984-85 school year his employment as a physical education teacher in Harvey High School was interrupted by a two-day suspension without pay for “correspondence ... of an unprofessional nature” addressed to a student. Breau denied writing the note in question but accepted the suspension. Four months later, as a consequence of “concerns . . . raised in the community and presented to the school board and the district superintendent,” Breau was issued guidelines for professional behavior, which included rules against being alone with students, or having physical contact or encouraging familiarity with them.

School officials subsequently received allegations that Breau was behaving inappropriately with female students, and on January 10, 1986, the district superintendent met with him personally to inform him of the nature of the allegations, and of “the fact that . . . the [353]*353matter appeared to require further investigation.” The same day, the superintendent sent a supervisor from his office to the high school to interview certain female students to ascertain whether they had any “first-hand information” about “improper or unprofessional conduct by a teacher or teachers.”

The school’s principal and parents of some of the girls questioned were present during the interviews, each of which began with the supervisor’s explanation that the superintendent had been told that the girl “might have information” on the subject. The supervisor stressed that his only interest was in hearing about any improper acts directly experienced or witnessed, to the exclusion of “gossip or second hand information.” The supervisor later stated that no one attempted to pressure any student or to influence her response by making reference to any particular teacher. When a student made a statement on the subject of the inquiry, the principal took notes, which the student signed at the end of the interview.

The five students interviewed that day variously charged that Breau had been seen placing his hands inappropriately on a female student in his office, and that more than once he had met with girls behind his closed office door with the shades drawn. He was said to have made remarks to female students, specifically quoted in the notes, referring to the attractiveness of various portions of their bodies and expressing his desire to see and touch them. After receiving these reports, the superintendent ordered further investigation.

On January 18, 1986, the supervisor and the school’s vice-principal again interviewed the students seen the previous week, together with a sixth girl. As the interviewers later described it, they followed the same procedure employed before. The students supplemented the earlier allegations with further accounts that Breau had touched girls’ breasts and buttocks, had played “footsies” with a student in a classroom, had given one of them a necklace, had called another at her home, and had invited students to join him for vacations or ski trips.

On January 20, 1986, the supervisor, principal, and vice-principal held similar interviews, save for the absence of parents, with two more girls. One said Breau had asked her what another girl was like in bed, while the other quoted Breau as having expressed a desire to observe her body. Each described Breau’s arrangements for a ski trip, which, one of them stated, would give Breau the opportunity to drink alcohol with students in a hotel.

[354]*354On January 30, 1986, the superintendent reported the results of the interviews to the Harvey Station Board of School Trustees, which voted to suspend Breau with pay for fourteen days and give him a chance to resign as an alternative to being fired as of February 18. On February 3, 1986, the superintendent wrote to Breau on behalf of the trustees advising him of his dismissal, premised on these findings:

“[Q]ur investigation has satisfied us that you have been guilty of improper conduct towards students. Specifically, we are satisfied that on a number of occasions you have made inappropriate or sexually suggestive statements to a number of female students. You have also had inappropriate contact with female students, by touching or pinching female students in the breast, rib and bottom areas. You have attempted to invite a number of female students to accompany you on a ski weekend with other students, to involve a motel stay and drinking.
You have also been reported to have given personal gifts to students, and to have asked students to go to bed with you. You have been seen in your physical education office touching and embracing female students. You have engaged in playing ‘footsies’ with female students in the classroom. You have called female students at home to pursue your personal goals. You have taken female students into your gym office for extended periods, with the curtains closed for no apparent reasons. You have exchanged personal ‘notes’ with female students which clearly evidence improper intentions on your part.”

Breau contested his dismissal by filing a grievance under the terms of- a collective agreement between the government of New Brunswick and the New Brunswick Teachers’ Federation. A union representative went with Breau to the grievance hearing held by the trustees, at which Breau spoke on his own behalf. When the trustees affirmed their earlier dismissal, Breau was given a package of “documentation required in preparation of a grievance procedure.” This package has been described without contradiction as containing copies of the written notes of the students’ statements, but with their names deleted. Evidence in the record indicates that the union chose not to support Breau in any further challenge to the trustees’ action, and Breau litigated the matter no further.

[355]*355The New Brunswick Department of Education was apprised of the circumstances of Breau’s dismissal, and in July, 1986, the superintendent wrote to the New Brunswick Minister of Education recommending that Breau’s license to teach be suspended or cancelled. The minister wrote to Breau, giving him an opportunity to submit any written documentation prior to the minister’s decision, and advising of appeal rights in the event the decision was unfavorable to Breau. Breau replied, adverting to the weakness of what he called the “circumstantial” evidence against him, denying the appropriateness of further action in view of his plans to find work outside the province, and asking to be spared any further trouble.

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Bluebook (online)
565 A.2d 1044, 132 N.H. 351, 1989 N.H. LEXIS 111, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-breau-nh-1989.