19 A.2d 598 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1940
Argued October 14, 1940.
Plaintiff brought an action in assumpsit in the Municipal Court of Philadelphia County to recover from the School District of Philadelphia the sum of $7 alleged to be owing by defendant to her under a written contract entered into between them on March 8, 1938, pursuant to the Teachers' Tenure Act of April 6, 1937, P.L. 213, which amended the School Code of May 18, 1911, P.L. 309, and its supplements, 24 P. S. § 1121, 1126, 1128a, 1161, 1201, 1202. See, also, Teachers' Tenure Act Cases,
Under Rule 61 of this court the Women Teachers' Organization, a body composed of teachers with interests similar to those of appellant, has filed a brief.
Appellant, since September, 1924, has been employed by defendant as a junior high school teacher. By the Teachers' Tenure Act of 1937, she became entitled to receive a written contract from defendant, and the same was entered into on March 8, 1938, in the form required by that act, and therein her annual salary was fixed at $2,800. The Act of June 20, 1939, P.L. 479, amending section 532 of the School Code of May 18, 1911, P.L. 309, 24 P. S. § 571, authorized school boards of first-class districts "in order to bring the expenditures of the district within the annual estimate of available revenue *324 . . . . . ., to make such general adjustments and reductions in salaries fixed by law, including salaries of the professional employes, as in the judgment of the board may be proper and necessary . . . . . .," but limited reductions in salaries by the following provision: "In making any general adjustment and reduction in salaries, the decreases shall be within the limits of one per cent (1%) to five per cent (5%) of the several compensations fixed by law for such positions as may be affected, and, for purposes of this act, the board may classify employes, and the decreases shall be confined to employes who prior thereto were receiving compensation of twenty-five hundred dollars ($2500) or more per annum."
Section 532 of the School Code, as amended by section 1 of the Act of June 20, 1939, P.L. 479, 24 P. S. § 571, also contains a provision for the disposition of any surplus of income accumulated at the end of a year because of such reductions, as follows: ". . . . . . and, in any instance where the power to make a general decrease in salaries below the minimums fixed by law has been exercised, if at the end of the year for which the power was exercised there is a surplus of revenue, such surplus shall be used to make up to the employes whose salaries have been affected by the general reduction as much of the loss of salary as an equitable division of the surplus on a pro rata basis among all such employes will permit."
As reference is hereafter made to the title of the Act of June 20, 1939, P.L. 479, 24 P. S. § 571 et seq., the same is printed in the margin.1 *325
On December 12, 1939, the board of education of defendant school district passed a resolution reducing the salaries of all employees in excess of $2,500, which were not subject to reduction during 1939, by 5 per cent, effective on January 1, 1940. Appellant's annual salary of $2,800 was thereby reduced by 5 per cent, or $140 per annum, and accordingly defendant deducted the proportionate part thereof, to wit, $7, from the first semi-monthly salary payment made to appellant in 1940, appellant's salary being paid in twenty semi-monthly installments. This action in assumpsit was instituted to recover that sum, and the pleadings raised the question of the constitutionality of the Act of June 20, 1939, P.L. 479, 24 P. S. § 571 et seq. Appellant here, as in the court below, contends that this act is unconstitutional on the grounds that it (1) impaired the obligation of her contract, thus offending the Constitutions of both the Commonwealth (article 1, § 17, PS Const. art. 1, § 17) and the United States (article 1, § 10, cl. 1); (2) deprived her of her property without due process of law, against the injunction of both article 1, § 9, of the Constitution of the Commonwealth, PS Const. art. 1, § 9, and of the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States; (3) offended article 9, *326 § 1, of the Constitution of the Commonwealth, PS Const. art. 9, § 1, requiring uniformity of taxation; (4) was a delegation of power to levy taxes forbidden by article 3, § 20, of the Constitution of the Commonwealth, PS Const. art. 3, § 20; (5) by its title gave no notice of its effect upon article 12, § 1210, of the School Code of May 18, 1911, P.L. 309, as amended, 24 P. S. § 1164 et seq., fixing minimum salaries of teachers in public schools, and so violated article 3, § 3, of the Constitution of the Commonwealth, PS Const. art. 3, § 3; (6) was discriminatory and unreasonable.
We shall consider the reasons assigned by appellant to establish the unconstitutionality of the Act of June 20, 1939, P.L. 479, 24 P. S. § 571 et seq., in the above order.
We recognize that the constitutional prohibition against impairment of contracts applies to the state or its subdivisions as obligor (McBride v. Allegheny County Retirement Board et al.,
Our courts have frequently had occasion to define the obligation of a contract as protected against subsequent legislation by the provisions of both the Federal and State Constitutions. In Beaver County Building Loan Ass'n v. Winowichet ux.,
It is pertinent to point out this conception of the obligation of contracts, because the contract between appellant and defendant was not left in an entirely implied relation to the laws in force at the time and place of making, "as if expressly incorporated in its terms"; at least one of those laws, the School Code of 1911, was by express reference incorporated as follows: "This contract is subject to the provisions of the act approved the eighteenth day of May one thousand nine hundred and eleven (Pamphlet Laws three hundred nine) entitled `An Act to establish a public school system in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania together with the provisions by which it shall be administered and prescribing penalties for the violation thereof providing revenue to establish and maintain the same and the method of collecting such revenue and repealing all laws general special or local or any parts thereof that are or may be inconsistent therewith' and the amendments thereto." *328
The meaning of such an incorporation was considered in theTeachers' Tenure Act Cases, supra, which interpreted the same form of teacher's contract as here involved. In those cases the boards of several school districts challenged the constitutionality of the Teachers' Tenure Act of 1937 on the ground that it impaired the obligation of their previous contracts with their professional employees by restricting the grounds of termination of those contracts. Our Supreme Court held that the obligation of the contract by reference to the School Code of 1911 "and the amendments thereto" was rendered not an absolute but a qualified obligation. In an opinion by Mr. Chief Justice KEPHART, the Supreme Court said (
The subjection of the obligation of this form of contract to legislation subsequent to its execution was also pointed out inBragg v. Swarthmore School District et al.,
On behalf of appellant it is argued that by the words "and the amendments thereto," in the form of contract as first prescribed by section 1205 of the School Code of 1911, as amended by section 1 of the Act of May 7, 1929, P.L. 1576, No. 480, 24 P. S. § 1126, were meant only amendments previous to the date of the contract. This contention would seem to be conclusively disposed of by theTeachers' Tenure Act Cases, supra. It was there indicated that the qualification of the obligation of a teacher's contract by subsequent legislation did not even depend on express reference to the school law and changes therein. The court said (
In Ehret v. Kulpmont Borough School District,
In Smith v. Philadelphia School District et al., supra, it was held that without violating the provisions of the Teachers' Tenure Act of 1937, the school district might make a general reduction of salaries of its employees to the statutory minimum set by the amendments of July 10, 1919, P.L. 910, April 28, 1921, P.L. 328, and March 12, 1929, P.L. 18, to section 1210 of the School Code of 1911, 24 P. S. § 1164 et seq., although immediately previous to the Teachers' Tenure Act of 1937 it had been operating under a schedule of salaries in excess of that minimum. In the present case the question is whether the same authority which fixed that minimum cannot later reduce it without impairing the obligation of a contract embodying that minimum. In other words, has the statutory minimum been rendered irreducible by the circumstance of its having been embodied in appellant's contract? For the proposition that it has, reference is made by appellant to State of Indiana ex rel. Anderson v. Brand,
It is true, as counsel for defendant here observes, that the Indiana Teachers' Tenure Law does not appear to have included any reference to the effect of amendments upon the contracts ordained by the statute, which may be a sufficient distinction of fact to remove the present controversy from the force of that holding. But it must further be noted that the Act of 1933 was there struck down not merely because it interfered with the fulfillment of a contract previously in being, but because, limited as it was to townships, it did so for no discoverable public purpose. The opinion of the court, written by Mr. Justice ROBERTS, said in part (
"It is significant that the Act of 1933 left the system of permanent teachers and indefinite contracts untouched as respects school corporations in cities and towns of the state. It is not contended, nor can it be thought, that the legislature of 1933 determined that it was against public policy for school districts in cities and towns to terminate the employment of teachers of five or more years' experience for political or personal *332 reasons and to permit cancellation, for the same reasons, in townships.
"Our decisions recognize that every contract is made subject to the implied condition that its fulfillment may be frustrated by a proper exercise of the police power but we have repeatedly said that, in order to have this effect, the exercise of the power must be for an end which is in fact public and the means adopted must be reasonably adapted to that end, and the Supreme Court of Indiana has taken the same view in respect of legislation impairing the obligation of the contract of a state instrumentality.
"The causes of cancellation provided in the Act of 1927 and the retention of the system of indefinite contracts in all municipalities except townships by the Act of 1933 are persuasive that the repeal of the earlier act by the later was not an exercise of the police power for the attainment of ends to which its exercise may properly be directed."
The necessary converse of that reasoning seems to be that for a justifiable public purpose applying to all school districts the repeal of the tenure provided by the Act of 1927 might have been effectively accomplished.
Such a justifiable public purpose is apparent on the face and in the very terms of the Act of 1939 here in question. Granted, as appellant urges, that the purpose of the Teachers' Tenure Act of 1937 was, in part at least, to provide for the security of teachers in their employment, or, in the language of our Supreme Court, in Teachers' Tenure Act Cases, supra,
The contention is advanced on behalf of appellant that the decision of our Supreme Court in Teachers' Tenure Act Cases, supra, turned upon the necessity there felt of declaring that the legislature in passing the Teachers' Tenure Act of 1937 did not and could not surrender the power of future legislatures to fulfill the legislative function of providing for public school education created by article 10, § 1, of our Constitution, PS Const. art. 10, § 1, whereas, it is said, the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Brand case pointed out the error of declaring any such general reservation of legislative power over the subject of teachers' tenure. It is also asserted that, were not these decisions of the United States Supreme Court and of our own Supreme Court rendered on the very same day, the reasoning of the former would quite probably have changed the reasoning, if not the conclusion, adopted inTeachers' Tenure Act Cases, supra.
It is unquestionable that the attack made upon the Teachers' Tenure Act of 1937 was in part on the ground "that it abridges the right of future legislatures to enact appropriate laws in the exercise of the governmental function as prescribed by Article X, section 1": Teachers' Tenure Act Cases, supra,
Thus far appellant's argument in support of her contractual theory naturally involves article 1, § 10, of the Federal Constitution; article 1, § 17, of the Constitution of Pennsylvania; the amendatory Act of April 28, 1921, P.L. 328, as amended, 24 P. S. § 1165; and the Teachers' Tenure Act of 1937. We find no inconsistencies or contradiction in these provisions unless one or more of them is taken at more than its maximum *336 value. Under the Acts of 1921 and 1937, reciprocal rights and duties set forth in written contracts have been undertaken by school districts and individuals throughout the Commonwealth, which are to be performed in the indefinite and uncertain future. But neither the contract clause of the Constitution of the United States (art. 1, § 10, cl. 1) nor that of the Constitution of this Commonwealth (art. 1, § 17) has rendered those undertakings immune to change at the hands of a legislature endowed with its constitutional mandate to maintain an efficient system of public schools. If that were the effect of the contract clause of either Constitution upon the legal relation directed by the Teachers' Tenure Act of 1937, we are of the opinion that it would not be the challenged Act of 1939 which would contravene the contract clause, but the Teachers' Tenure Act of 1937 which would have contravened the public education clause of our Constitution, and hence have been fatally defective. But it was held otherwise inTeachers' Tenure Act Cases, supra.
Phelps v. Board of Education of West New York et al.,
Appellant also contends that the Act of 1939 amounts to a deprivation of property without due process of law in violation of both the fourteenth amendment of *337 the Constitution of the United States, and of article 1, section 9, of the Constitution of the Commonwealth, PS Const. art. 1, § 9. It is argued that this result flows from the sentences of the Act of June 20, 1939, P.L. 479, 24 P. S. § 571, which forbid reductions in salaries except when "all other economies in the expenses of conducting the school system in the district, as the board may deem proper, have been provided for," and which order distribution of a surplus of revenue accumulated by the authorized decreases in salaries with the proviso that "The decision of the board, as to the existence or non-existence of a surplus in any given year, shall be final." It is to be noted that section 532 of the School Code of 1911, as amended by section 1 of the Act of June 20, 1939, P.L. 479, 24 P. S. § 571, was at the same session of the legislature also amended by section 1 of the Act of June 24, 1939, P.L. 774, 24 P. S. § 571, which provides in part: "The board of school directors shall, at least fifteen days prior to the time final action is taken on any budget, publish, by advertisement at least once in two newspapers of general circulation printed in the municipality in which such school district is located, notice that such proposed budget has been prepared and is open to public inspection at the office of the board of school directors; and such advertisement shall include a notice of public hearing on the proposed budget, scheduled for at least ten days before final action is taken upon any budget." These provisions would seem to afford a full hearing of any objections to the structure of the budget, as well to the employee whose salary, among others, is being reduced as to any other resident of the district. It is not apparent why such an employee should have any more right to a hearing on the adoption of a budget reducing his salary than a taxpayer upon the rate of tax the budget will require him to pay in order that that same salary shall be met. The provision for a *338 public hearing on the budget gives the employee every right of the taxpayer.
In Susman v. Board of Public Education of City of Pittsburgh,
228 F. 217, the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Pennsylvania held that the right given a property owner by the law as to assessment of property valuation to appeal from the assessment, and to defend against a scire facias issued on a tax lien, extended to school taxes and supplied a sufficient guarantee of due process to satisfy the requirements of the Constitution of the United States, and from this decision the United States Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal (
The constitutionality of the Act of June 20, 1939, P.L. 479, 24 P. S. § 571, is next attacked by appellant on the ground that the reduction of salary it empowers the school district to make is a tax which violates article 9, § 1, of the Constitution of the Commonwealth, PS Const. art. 9, § 1, requiring taxation to be uniform upon the same class of subjects. The definitions which our Supreme Court has given the word "tax" do not lend their *339
support to this contention. In Young Men's Christian Associationof Germantown v. Philadelphia,
The same reasoning is an answer to the appellant's next contention that the authority conferred upon the school district by the Act of 1939 is offensive to article 3, § 20, of the Constitution of the Commonwealth, PS Const. art. 3, § 20, forbidding legislative delegation of the taxing power to any special commission, private corporation, or association, within the first of which categories the non-elective school board of defendant district was, in Wilson v. Philadelphia School Districtet al., supra, held to fall. If the loss which appellant was by this legislation required to suffer did not constitute a tax, the authority to inflict it was not a delegation of the taxing power. A further answer is to be *340
found in the limitation imposed upon the deductions authorized by the act, i.e., one to five per cent of salaries in the class affected. In Minsinger v. Rau,
Another objection which appellant raises to the Act of 1939 is that it is in direct conflict with section 1210 of the School Code of 1911, as amended, 24 P. S. § 1164 et seq., which establishes schedules of minimum salaries. This is true. As a matter of construction, the act is open to no other interpretation; its effect was to alter the amount of compensation to which, under section 1210, appellant otherwise would be entitled. This alone is no objection to it; the same effect resulted from the Act of April 25, 1933, P.L. 69, 24 P. S. § 1187 et seq., which authorized a temporary suspension of that schedule, *341
and which we upheld in Bishop v. Bacon et al.,
Neither title nor body of the Act of 1939 mentions section 1210 of the Code or the minimum salary schedules thereby established. It is argued that, therefore, the act embraces two subjects of which its title gives no notice. In Leinbach's Estate,
Finally, the act here involved is charged with being arbitrary, discriminatory, and unreasonable. That recipients of salaries in excess of $2,500 per year, teachers of long service, should suffer reductions under this amendment of the School Code, while those receiving less than that figure, juniors in years of service, suffer none, seems no more unreasonable than that the Code should provide a maximum salary not to be exceeded in *342
any length of service but attained in comparatively few years by younger employees. Again, authorities are cited from the field of taxation as to the impropriety of classification by difference in quantity of property (American Stores Co. v. Boardman, Secretaryof Revenue,
We are all of the opinion that the Act of June 20, 1939, P.L. 479, 24 P. S. § 571 et seq., cannot be held to be unconstitutional for any of the reasons advanced by appellant, and that the burden which rested on her to show that it was in violation of our Federal or State Constitution has not been met.
Assignments of error are overruled.
Judgment is affirmed.
