# Rebecca Byrd v. Clarksville-Montgomery County School System

> Court of Appeals of Tennessee · June 28, 2024

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10453401

## Case

- **Court:** Court of Appeals of Tennessee
- **Decided:** June 28, 2024
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Opinion
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10453401

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- explaining that “courts should give effect to the substance of a pleading”

## Opinion text

06/28/2024
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF TENNESSEE
AT NASHVILLE
June 4, 2024 Session

REBECCA BYRD v. CLARKSVILLE-MONTGOMERY COUNTY
SCHOOL SYSTEM

Appeal from the Chancery Court for Montgomery County
No. MC-CH-CV-AA-22-4 Ben Dean, Chancellor
___________________________________

No. M2023-01210-COA-R3-CV
___________________________________

A tenured teacher sought judicial review of her reprimand and one-day suspension. The
chancery court modified the discipline imposed by the director of schools. Because we
conclude that the teacher did not timely petition for judicial review, we vacate the judgment
with instructions to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Chancery Court Vacated
and Case Remanded

W. NEAL MCBRAYER, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which FRANK G. CLEMENT,
P.J., M.S., and ANDY D. BENNETT, J., joined.

Mark Nolan, Clarksville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Clarksville-Montgomery County
School System.

Rebecca Lynne Byrd, Clarksville, Tennessee, pro se appellee.

OPINION

I.

The Clarksville-Montgomery County School System began investigating the
actions of tenured teacher Rebecca Byrd after employees in its technology department
expressed concerns that she may have violated the Family Educational Rights and Privacy
Act (“FERPA”). See 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(b). Those concerns stemmed from a website
Mrs. Byrd hoped to create as a better method for communicating with students and parents.
To create the website, she enlisted the aid of her husband, a trained computer programmer,
which potentially gave him access to student information protected by FERPA. Because
of this, the school system issued a written reprimand and suspended Ms. Byrd for one day
without pay for “neglect of duty.”1 See Tenn. Code Ann. § 49-5-501(8) (2023) (defining
“neglect of duty”).

Mrs. Byrd requested a conference with the Director of Schools. See id.
§ 49-5-512(d) (2023) (outlining the procedure for appealing a disciplinary suspension of
three days or less that is not made in anticipation of dismissal). At the conference,
Mrs. Byrd, who was represented by legal counsel, provided rebuttal information and denied
certain of the allegations made against her. In her written decision following the
conference, the Director of Schools conceded that Mrs. Byrd’s intent in disclosing student
information might not have been malicious and expressed appreciation for Mrs. Byrd’s
commitment to her students. Even so, the director upheld the original punishment.

On May 4, 2022, the Montgomery County Chancery Court Clerk and Master
received a letter from Mrs. Byrd. Attached to the letter were the letter of reprimand and
suspension, the letter from the director upholding the punishment, and an email from the
Tennessee State Board of Education. In her letter, Mrs. Byrd explained that she had
received the director’s final decision on April 6, 2022. And she acknowledged that, to
appeal that decision, she “must file within 30 days to the Montgomery Chancery Court
under TCA § 49-5-513, [. . .] which is May 04, 2022.” Mrs. Byrd wrote, “[u]nfortunately,
I was unable to secure coun[se]l within that time frame (was left hanging with no response
for two weeks by a law firm after meeting in person).” She went on to “officially request[]
an emergency extension to allow the union representative to help . . . best represent [her]
side of the story, which has been completely ignored by [the school system] thus far.”
Because preparation of an appropriate appeal would “require at least 2 [m]onths,” she
“request[ed] that the deadline for submitting the appeal be extended by 61 days, to July 06,
2022.” Mrs. Byrd closed by asking the court to “[p]lease let us know if [it] can
accommodate this request.”

The clerk’s office treated Mrs. Byrd’s letter and attachments as a petition for a writ
of certiorari, set a hearing date nearly two months out, and provided a summons. See id.
§§ 49-5-512(d)(5), -513 (2023) (specifying that a tenured teacher who is suspended may
appeal a director’s decision by petition for a writ of certiorari). Thereafter, the parties filed
a series of motions. First, the school system moved to dismiss for insufficiency of process
based on Mrs. Byrd’s failure to include a copy of a petition when she served the summons.

1
The school system also reported the suspension to the State Board of Education Office of Educator
Licensure. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 49-5-417(c)(2) (2023) (requiring a report to the state board of “licensed
educators . . . who have been suspended” following allegations of certain conduct). The school system later
clarified that it was “requesting no action towards [Mrs. Byrd’s] teaching license.”

2
See TENN. R. CIV. P. 12.02(5). The chancery court denied the motion and issued a writ of
certiorari.

Mrs. Byrd moved for summary judgment. She argued that the school system failed
to prove the charges because the information she provided to her husband was not protected
by FERPA. The school system responded to the motion for summary judgment, but it also
filed a second motion to dismiss. Among other grounds, the motion asserted that the
chancery court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because Mrs. Byrd “never filed a Petition
for writ of certiorari (or any other type of Complaint) commencing an action . . . within the
applicable 30-day limitation period.” See TENN. R. CIV. P. 12.02(1).

The chancery court denied both motions. On the question of subject matter
jurisdiction and the lack of a timely petition, the chancery court reasoned that it “ha[d]
already ruled that Mrs. Byrd’s May 4th letter complied with the pleading requirements
under the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure and the Tennessee Constitution when it
issued the Writ of Certiorari[] and . . . construed Mrs. Byrd’s letter as a Petition for Writ
of Certiorari.”

Ultimately, after a hearing, the court determined that the school system’s discipline
was disproportionate and ordered substitute discipline. It found “that the record
demonstrate[d] that Mrs. Byrd, in an effort to innovate and improve her communication
with students and parents, committed, at the worst, a minor technical violation of FERPA.”
And “given Mrs. Byrd’s noble intentions and the lack of actual harm, the ambiguity of the
[school system’s] FERPA policy, as well as there being no evidence of any prior discipline
of Mrs. Byrd, that the discipline or ‘punishment’ of one day suspended without pay[]
simply d[id] not ‘fit the crime.’” So the court concluded that, “rather than a one-day
suspension without pay, Mrs. Byrd should be issued a written letter of reprimand.” It also
ordered that “Mrs. Byrd should be required to complete some additional FERPA training
and instruction in such an amount and nature as deemed appropriate by the Director of
Schools, although not to exceed 4 hours.”

II.

On appeal, the school system raises issues with the denial of its motions to dismiss
and the chancery court’s review and modification of the discipline. First, the school system
asserts that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because of Ms. Byrd’s failure to
initiate the action within the time frame required by the Tennessee Teacher Tenure Act.
Second, it asserts the case should have been dismissed based upon insufficient service of
process. Finally, it asserts the court erred in the admission of certain evidence and by
applying the wrong standard of review at the final hearing.

3
We conclude the first issue is dispositive. Subject matter jurisdiction is “the power
of a court to adjudicate cases of the general class to which the proceedings in question
belong.” Est. of Brown, 402 S.W.3d 193, 198 (Tenn. 2013). Tennessee courts derive this
power over a particular class of cases from either the State constitution or a legislative act.
Word v. Metro Air Servs., Inc., 377 S.W.3d 671, 674 (Tenn. 2012); Meighan v. U.S. Sprint
Commc’ns Co., 924 S.W.2d 632, 639 (Tenn. 1996). “The lack of subject matter
jurisdiction is so fundamental that it requires dismissal whenever it is raised and
demonstrated.” Dishmon v. Shelby State Cmty. Coll., 15 S.W.3d 477, 480 (Tenn. Ct. App.
1999). If a court does not have subject matter jurisdiction over a case, any orders or
judgments that it enters in that matter are void. See Brown v. Brown, 281 S.W.2d 492, 497
(Tenn. 1955). Whether a court lacks subject matter jurisdiction presents a question of law,
which we review de novo. Chapman v. DaVita, Inc., 380 S.W.3d 710, 712-13 (Tenn.
2012). If we determine that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction, we “must
vacate the judgment and dismiss the case without reaching the merits of the appeal.” First
Am. Trust Co. v. Franklin-Murray Dev. Co., 59 S.W.3d 135, 141 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2001).

By enacting the Teacher Tenure Act, the Tennessee legislature constructed a
procedural framework for teacher discipline. See Lemon v. Williamson Cnty. Schs., 618
S.W.3d 1, 15-16 (Tenn. 2021). A tenured teacher “who is . . . suspended by action of the
director” may obtain judicial review by filing a petition for writ of certiorari within thirty
days of the director’s decision. Tenn. Code Ann. § 49-5-513(a)-(b). The petition must be
filed in “the chancery court of the county where the teacher is employed” and name a
defendant. Id. And it must include a statement of “the issues involved in the cause, the
substance of the order of the board, or the respects in which the petitioner claims the order
of the board is erroneous” along with a request for the court’s review. Id.

After reviewing Mrs. Byrd’s unsworn letter and its attachments, we conclude that it
failed to satisfy the requirements of a petition under Tennessee Code Annotated
§ 49-5-513. The letter requested an extension of the statutory time limit, not judicial
review. See Brundage v. Cumberland Cnty., 357 S.W.3d 361, 371 (Tenn. 2011)
(explaining that “courts should give effect to the substance of a pleading”). In the letter,
Mrs. Byrd all but acknowledged that it was not “an appropriate appeal” and that she
“[would not] have an appeal ready to file” by the statutory deadline. So she “officially
request[ed] an emergency extension” and asked for a new deadline. She closed her letter
by asking the court if it could accommodate her requested extension. And she signed the
letter following the statement: “This Request to Extend a Proposal Deadline Date is
executed and agreed to by.”

4
In the context of the Teacher Tenure Act, the required petition for a writ of certiorari
is comparable to a notice of appeal. Cf. Schering-Plough Healthcare Prods., Inc. v. State
Bd. of Equalization, 999 S.W.2d 773, 776 (Tenn. 1999) (comparing a petition for judicial
review of a final decision of an administrative agency in a contested case to a notice of
appeal). And the thirty-day time limitation for filing the petition is jurisdictional. Cf. id.
at 777. Because Mrs. Byrd did not file a petition complying with Tennessee Code
Annotated § 49-5-513(b) within thirty days of receipt of notice of the disciplinary decision,
the chancery court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the case.

III.

Because it lacked subject matter jurisdiction, we vacate the judgment of the
chancery court. The case is remanded with instructions to dismiss the appeal.

s/ W. Neal McBrayer
W. NEAL MCBRAYER, JUDGE

5

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10453401. Public record. Not legal advice.