# Travis v. Teter

> Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · April 1, 1952 · 370 Pa. 326

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9757454

## Case

- **Full name:** Travis, Appellant, v. Teter
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
- **Decided:** April 1, 1952
- **Citations:** 370 Pa. 326; 87 A.2d 177; 1952 Pa. LEXIS 347
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Musmanno
- **Judges:** Drew, Stern, Stearne, Bell, Chidsey, Musmanno
- **Cited by:** 97 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/9757454

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- reversing mandamus court’s relief because “the county superintendent’s rating of [teacher] as unsatisfactory was within his power and discretion, and was amply and legally justified” but further criticizing the mandamus court where its intrusion “would create scholastic and fi…

## Opinion text

*338 Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Musmanno:
It is not clear how the appellant in this case could receive satisfactory ratings for three terms and then at the fourth term be given an unsatisfactory rating which covered all four terms. The rating for the fourth term could not possibly retroact to the previous three terms. If the teacher’s work was unsatisfactory for the fourth term and that of itself disqualified her for the permanent position, the decision of the county superintendent would be understandable and acceptable, but it does not comport with logic to say that the fourth term unsatisfactory rating rendered the previous three satisfactory terms unsatisfactory. ■
A baseball batter may strike out in the last inning, but this does not wipe out the runs he knocked in during the previous innings.
It would appear to me that Dorothy S. Travis, the school teacher in this - case, was lulled into a sense of false security -by the first three approval ratings. She could not have been competent and satisfactory for eighteen months and then become so incompetent as to vitiate even what went before. In accordance with all standards of fairness, a duty devolved upon the school authorities to instruct the teacher on her failings in the first, second and third terms, if any there were, and that duty was not met by waiting until the end of her provisional incumbency when opportunity to correct deficiencies no longer existed.
I would reverse the judgment n.o.v. and affirm the order of the lower court issuing mandamus to the county superintendent to rerate the plaintiff for the last four months of her two year contract.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9757454. Public record. Not legal advice.