# Dodd v. Meno

> Texas Supreme Court · March 9, 1994 · 870 S.W.2d 4

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9640680

## Case

- **Full name:** Doris DODD, Petitioner, v. Lionel R. MENO, the State Commissioner of Education, in His Official Capacity, and Successor to William N. Kirby, and Wink-Loving Independent School District, Respondent
- **Court:** Texas Supreme Court
- **Decided:** March 9, 1994
- **Citations:** 870 S.W.2d 4; 1994 WL 6718
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Gonzalez
- **Judges:** Phillips, Spector, Gonzalez, Hecht, Cornyn, Enoch, Hightower, Doggett, Gammage
- **Cited by:** 124 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/9640680

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- recognizing that an administrative agency’s construction of a statute that it is charged with enforcing is entitled to “serious consideration,” so long as the construction is reasonable and does not contradict the statute’s plain language
- holding that construction of statute by agency charged with its enforcement entitled to serious consideration, so long as construction is reasonable and does not contradict plain language of statute
- recognizing that TCNA should be construed broadly as remedial statute but deferring to “Commissioner’s reasonable determination in an area where he possesses considerable authority and expertise”

## Opinion text

GONZALEZ, Justice,
concurring.
Ms. Dodd, a long-time school nurse with the Wink-Loving Independent School District, with no teaching duties or teaching certificate, filed suit against the District because her employment contract was not renewed and the District did not give her any reasons for its decision. Whether this is good or bad policy is not the issue. The real issue is whether the legislature has given school nurses the same procedural rights regarding notice of reasons for non-renewal of employment contracts that the legislature has given teachers. I agree with the majority of this Court and with Chief Justice Carroll and Justices Jones and Kidd of the Austin Court of Appeals that the legislature did not, intentionally or unintentionally, give school nurses those rights. It would be sound public policy for the legislature to grant school nurses the rights included in the Term Contract Nonrenewal Act — however, this is pot our decision to make. We should not re-write statutes under the guise of interpreting them, as the dissent would have us do. I thus join in the opinion and concur in the judgment of the Court.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9640680. Public record. Not legal advice.