RAY ELBERT PARKER, APPELLANT,
v.
BOARD OF EDUCATION OF PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, MARYLAND, APPELLEE

4th Cir. | 1965-06-28
No. 9932
348 F.2d 464 United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (1965) Caution
Cited by 18 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.


Holding

The court held that the teacher's contract was validly terminated according to its terms, and thus the complaint failed to state a claim.


Facts & Procedural History

A teacher sued the Board of Education for wrongful termination after his contract was terminated. The contract stipulated that either party could term…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM:

PER CURIAM:

His employment as a teacher under a contract with the Board of Education of Prince George’s County, Maryland was arbitrarily and illegally terminated, Ray Elbert Parker charged in his complaint, praying the District Court to order his reinstatement and award him damages. From an adverse summary judgment he appeals. We affirm upon the third defense pleaded in the Board’s answer, viz., the failure of the complaint to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. F.R.Civ.P. 12(b) (6).

We need not pass on the merits of the Fifth, Fourteenth and First Amendment deprivations and abridgement asserted by the appellant, consisting of the Board’s termination of his employment (1.) without a hearing and (2.) because of his instruction from a book which he said had been proscribed by the Board in violation of freedom of speech. Our decision rests entirely on the contract. By its terms Parker was only employed provisionally and wholly without academic tenure, express or implied. The agreement was that his engagement was simply probationary and “that either of the parties to this contract may terminate it at the end of the first or second school year by giving thirty days’ notice in writing to the other during the month of June or July”. Concededly, the termination complied with this stipulation. We join the District Judge in upholding the Board’s action on this ground. Parker v. Board of Education, 237 F.Supp. 222 (D.C.Md.1965).

Summary judgment, we think . too, was appropriate because the premises underlying the decision were without genuine controversy; they appeared in the contract and other supporting papers with the motion. These included the school statutes of Maryland and by-laws of the State Board of Education as well as “certain letters and other documents” submitted by agreement. All of this evidence was proper for consideration on the motion. F.R.Civ.P. 56,12(c).

Affirmed.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

Previewing 3 of 9 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw