392 Mass. 858 | Mass. | 1984
This appeal challenges a determination of a District Court judge that the town of Mattapoisett (town) was required to reimburse the Division of Employment Security (DES) for unemployment benefits paid to a tenured teacher terminated under G. L. c. 71, § 42, for conduct unbecoming a teacher. In its answer, the town claimed that DES was obliged to give issue-preclusive effect to the discharge proceeding and
We summarize the somewhat tortuous procedural background of this case. The teacher, Marjorie Springgate, was discharged on June 21, 1978, following an evidentiary hearing which, the school committee found, substantiated charges that on various occasions from May 15, 1977, through March 24, 1978, she disrupted classes of other teachers, pushed a student, made false statements to administrative officials, behaved in an argumentative and overbearing manner, and, after being warned that further unprofessional conduct would be grounds for termination, made additional false statements and pushed another teacher. The teacher appealed the school committee’s decision to the Superior Court. G. L. c. 71, § 43A. During the pendency of that appeal, the teacher applied for and received unemployment benefits from DES in a decision which the town has appealed and which, the town advises us, is currently pending in a District Court awaiting resolution of the instant case.
After a trial de nova, a Superior Court judge found that none of the charges against the teacher was substantiated by credible evidence, and that the school committee had failed to establish the teacher’s dismissal for “inefficiency, incapacity, conduct unbecoming a teacher . . . insubordination or other good cause.” G. L. c. 71, § 42, as amended through St. 1972,
One week after the Appeals Court upheld the discharge, DES filed a complaint under G.L.c. 151A, § 15, in a District Court to recover from the town amounts paid to the teacher during the period from her discharge until February, 1979, which appears to be the month in which she was reinstated by the Superior Court.
We note our disapproval of the sequence in which these intertwined cases are being litigated. The general rule is that a judgment may be collaterally attacked only “if other means of obtaining relief from the judgment are unavailable to the applicant or the convenient administration of justice would be served by determining the question of relief in the course of the subsequent action.” Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 80 (1982). See Vóse v. Morton, 4 Cush. 27, 31 (1849). Issues pertaining to the validity of DES decisions awarding benefits to the teacher are appropriately resolved on the pending direct appeals from those decisions, not by means of collateral attack in the instant litigation. General Laws c. 151A, § 15 (b),
The record before us is completely bereft of information regarding the substance of the DES decisions. Given this deficiency and the procedural posture of the cases, we think the issue is not properly before us. Nonetheless, to resolve any existing uncertainty, we shall consider whether the adjudication that the teacher’s discharge was authorized under G. L. c. 71, § 42, precluded DES from determining that the teacher’s discharge is not “attributable solely to deliberate misconduct in wilful disregard of the [town’s] interest.” See Wellesley College v. Attorney Gen., 313 Mass. 722, 731 (1943). We answer that question in the negative. We leave open questions concerning the extent, if any, to which specific factual findings in a G. L. c. 71, § 42, adjudication are entitled to preclusive effect in any subsequent G. L. c. 151A proceeding.
Issue preclusion operates to prevent a party from relitigating an adjudicated issue essential to a valid and final prior judgment binding on that party.
In addition, the town’s allegation of error founders on the basic requirement for issue preclusion: commonness of issues.
The Appeals Court’s decision on which the town mistakenly relies illustrates the difference in the standards under the two statutes. The Appeals Court determined that “the evidence . . . substantiated a sufficient number of the series of relatively minor incidents to justify the school committee’s determination of incapacity or conduct unbecoming a teacher” (emphasis supplied). Springgate v. School Comm, of Mattapoisett, supra at 316. The court characterized the teacher’s behavior as an “inability or unwillingness ... to eschew displays of rudeness
Order dismissing report affirmed.
Pursuant to G. L. c. 151A, § 14A, the town has elected to pay into the unemployment compensation fund amounts equal to benefits paid by DES under G. L. c. 151A to employees discharged by the town. Such amounts are paid as an alternative to annual contributions to a general unemployment benefits fund at a rate established by G. L. c. 151 A, § 14.
The complaint originally sought recovery of $4,805.13 but was subsequently amended to reduce DBS’s request for relief to the amount of $2,586.11, a sum including accrued interest. No reimbursement is sought in this G. L. c. 151A, § 15, action for payments to the teacher by DBS in the period following the Appeals Court’s decision upholding the discharge.
Although DES is technically, at least on appeal, considered a party to the benefits proceedings, see G. L. c. 151A, § 42, the town, correctly, does not seek to invoke issue preclusion against DES (which was not a party
In addition, because the school committee is a party with an interest adverse to the teacher’s in the DES benefits proceedings, see G. L. c. 151 A, § 39, its findings in the discharge proceeding should not have preclusive effect against the teacher before DES. See Marion County School Bd. v. Clark, 378 So. 2d 831 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1979).
To the extent the town relies on “findings” by the Appeals Court, such reliance is misplaced. Appellate courts are not fact finders. “The duty of weighing evidence and of finding facts ... in an action at law is not an appropriate function of [an appellate] court . . . .” Tardiff, petitioner, 328 Mass. 265, 267 (1952), quoting Atlantic Maritime Co. v. Gloucester, 228 Mass. 519, 522 (1917). In a § 42 discharge proceeding appealed to the Superior Court, fact-finding is vested in the Superior Court. Compare benefits proceedings before DES, in which fact-finding is committed to the agency. Manias v. Director of the Div. of Employment Sec., 388 Mass. 201, 205 (1983). On this appeal, we need not and do not involve ourselves as to what facts remain adjudicated after the Appeals Court’s decision. That decision set aside the trial judge’s findings and assessment of credibility as “plainly wrong.” See Springgate v. School Comm, of Mattapoisett, 11 Mass. App. Ct. 304, 310 (1981).
Because of the need for prompt adjudication of eligibility for unemployment benefits, only in exceptional cases would a judicial determination whether a teacher was appropriately discharged under G. L. c. 71, § 42, precede DES adjudication under G. L. c. 151A, § 24.
We do not reach DBS’s argument that even if principles of issue preclusion were otherwise applicable, the provision in G. L. c. 151A, § 25 (e) (2), that a discharge must be “shown to the satisfaction of the [DES] director to be attributable solely to deliberate misconduct in wilful disregard” of the employer’s interest is indicative of a legislative intent to vest initial fact-finding in benefits cases with DES, and that DBS is therefore not obliged to give preclusive effect to adjudications by other tribunals. See Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 83(4)(b) (1982).