Board of Education v. Spurlin (Colorado, 1960)

Board of Education of the State of Colorado v. E. T. Spurlin, Controller of the State of Colorado, 141 Colo. 508, 349 P.2d 357 (1960), is a Colorado constitutional-law decision.^[1][2] It is one of a handful of published appellate cases found in this research that name a Spurlin in an official public role. The others include a 1908 Texas quo warranto case against J. L. Spurlin and the other officers of the newly incorporated town of Hamilton, 1997 Kentucky workers' compensation appeals in which Robert E. Spurlin, as director of the state's Special Fund, was the appellant, and Florida public-records appeals of 1988 and 1989 involving Jere Spurlin as chief of police of Fort Myers. See Spurlin in American case law.^[3][4][5]

Parties

The State Board of Education and several of its officials filed a suit for a declaratory judgment. They named the State Controller and the State Civil Service Commission as defendants and asked whether the officials were exempt from civil service.^[1] The opinion says the suit was first brought against James A. Noonan, "the then Controller of the State of Colorado." By the time the case was decided, the caption named E. T. Spurlin as Controller.^[1] No other sources on E. T. Spurlin's career were found for this article. A search of CourtListener's full-text opinion database for "E. T. Spurlin" returned only this case.^[6]

Issue

Colorado's 1918 civil-service amendment (Article XII, Section 13) exempted "officers and teachers in educational institutions not reformatory or charitable in character."^[1] The trial court had held that the State Department of Education was not an "educational institution." It therefore ruled unconstitutional a statute (C.R.S. 1953, 123-1-3(2)) that classified the department's officers as exempt.^[1]

Holding

Justice Doyle's majority opinion held that the plaintiffs were "officers and teachers" within the exemption, even though much of their work was administrative. It also held that "educational institutions" was not limited to places with classrooms and curricula but included the Department of Education.^[1] The statute was therefore valid, and the Civil Service Commission's attempt to classify the plaintiffs was "invalid and void." The judgment was reversed and the case remanded.^[1] Justice Frantz dissented, joined by Justices Knauss and Hall. He argued that public schools are not "educational institutions" of the state, and that the 1948 amendment creating the elected State Board of Education exempted only the commissioner of education.^[1]