Wilson v. Tarim (Ex parte Wash. Cnty. Students First)

318 So.3d 503

EX PARTE WASHINGTON COUNTY STUDENTS FIRST et al.

(In re: Krista Wilson et al.

v.Soner Tarim et al.)

2190529

Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama.

June 5, 2020

Opinion Issued on Denial of Rehearing August 14, 2020

M. Jansen Voss, Michael A. Vercher, and David L. Faulkner, Jr., of Christian & Small LLP, Birmingham, for petitioners.

Theron Stokes, Clint Daughtrey, and Victoria D. Relf of Alabama Education Association, Montgomery; Thomas M. Loper of Loper Law LLC, Mobile; and M. Vance McCrary of The Gardner Firm, P.C., Mobile, for respondents.

HANSON, Judge.

Certain named defendants in a civil action brought in the Washington Circuit Court, including Washington County Students First ("WCSF"), a nonprofit corporation, and several persons alleged to be directors of WCSF ("the directors"),¹ have petitioned for a writ of mandamus directing that court to vacate its order denying a motion to dismiss that action and to enter an order dismissing the action.² For the reasons stated herein, we grant the petition and issue the writ.

The petition and the exhibits appended thereto reveal the following pertinent facts. WCSF was incorporated in March 2018 for the purpose of seeking regulatory approval of the establishment of a public charter school in Washington County, to be called "Woodland Preparatory School" ("the planned school"). WCSF thereafter submitted an application to the Alabama Public Charter School Commission ("the Commission"), a governmental agency established by the legislature pursuant to Act No. 2015-3, Ala. Acts 2015, known as the "Alabama School Choice and Student Opportunity Act" ("the Act") and codified at Ala. Code 1975, § 16-6F-1 et seq. ; according to the Act, the Commission is "an independent state entity" having a mission "to authorize high quality public charter schools" ( Ala. Code 1975, § 16-6F-6(c)(1) and (c)(2) ). The Commission approved the application submitted by WCSF in May 2018, permitting the planned school to open in August 2019; however, in June 2019, the Commission granted a request to delay the opening date of the planned school until August 2020.³ As of the date of this decision, there is considerable doubt that the planned school will open, and the Commission has given notice of its intent to initiate charter-revocation proceedings as to the planned school.

In August 2019, the Washington County Education Association ("WCEA"), along with its president⁴ and two other employees⁵ of that county's board of education (hereinafter referred to collectively as "the plaintiffs"), initiated the action from which this petition arises, naming as defendants WCSF, the directors, and two other persons: Soner Tarim, an individual who is alleged to have a financial interest in the planned school, and Unity School Services, LLC ("the LLC"), a Texas-based limited-liability company that is represented by Tarim.⁶ In their complaint, the plaintiffs alleged that the defendants’ fraudulent misrepresentations regarding Tarim's current and future roles at, and community support for, the planned school induced the Commission to approve the charter-school application submitted by WCSF; that the planned school is "not authorized in compliance with ... charter-school law"; and that the defendants have violated Ala. Code 1975, § 16-6F-5(a)(1), which states that "[a] public charter school shall be open to any student residing in the state,"⁷ by advertising the planned school in Mississippi media outlets. In response to the complaint, the petitioners filed a motion to dismiss in which they asserted, among other things, that the plaintiffs had not exhausted remedies afforded to them under the Alabama Administrative Procedure Act ("the AAPA"), Ala. Code 1975, § 41-22-1 et seq., and, thus, could not seek judicial review of the Commission's approval decision in a collateral action; that the plaintiffs lacked standing; and that the plaintiffs had failed to join the Commission or the Alabama State Department of Education, whom the petitioners labeled as indispensable parties, as defendants. After a hearing, the circuit court entered an order on February 12, 2020, denying the motion to dismiss. The petitioners sought mandamus review of that order in a timely manner by filing their petition on March 25, 2020; see Rule 21(a)(3), Ala. R. App. P.⁸

Correctly noting that the writ of mandamus will issue to review the denial of a motion to dismiss that raises questions of failure to exhaust administrative remedies, see Ex parte Alabama Department of Mental Health, 207 So. 3d 743, 750 (Ala. Civ. App. 2016), the petitioners reiterate their contention that the plaintiffs have not exhausted administrative remedies available to them under the AAPA as to the Commission's decision to approve WCSF's application, citing this court's opinion in Ex parte Alabama Public Charter School Commission, 256 So. 3d 98 (Ala. Civ. App. 2018). In that case, this court, in considering the timeliness of a local school board's efforts to secure judicial review of an order of the Commission reversing that school board's denial of a charter-school application, concluded that, although the Act did not expressly provide for judicial review of Commission orders, any gap left by the Act in that regard was filled by the AAPA:

"[T]he [AAPA] sets forth ‘a minimum procedural code for the operation of all state agencies when they take action affecting the rights and duties of the public,’ Ala. Code 1975, § 41–22–2(a). Under the AAPA, administrative proceedings pertinent to ‘the grant, denial, revocation, suspension, or renewal of’ a ‘license’ –– which term encompasses ‘any agency franchise, permit, certificate, approval, registration, charter, or similar form of permission required by law,’ Ala. Code 1975, § 41–22–3(4) –– are governed by the provisions of the AAPA governing ‘contested cases.’ See Ala. Code 1975, § 41–22–19(a). Persons who are ‘aggrieved by a final decision in a contested case’ are entitled to judicial review under the auspices of the AAPA. Ala. Code 1975, § 41–22–20(a)."

Ex parte Alabama Pub. Charter Sch. Comm'n, 256 So. 3d at 100 ; see also id. at 102 (holding that "[t]he circuit court ... correctly determined that the AAPA applied to" the civil action brought in that court by the local school board challenging the Commission's order).

The plaintiffs, in their response to the mandamus petition, seek to parry the thrust of the petitioners’ arguments regarding the applicability of the AAPA to the contentions in the underlying action, claiming that the underlying action does not seek to impugn the correctness of the Commission's decision but, instead, posits that the defendants "committed fraud during the charter application process." The plaintiffs fail to recognize, however, that such a contention amounts to a collateral attack on the Commission's decision to approve the charter-school application submitted by WCSF stemming from allegations of intrinsically fraudulent conduct⁹ on the part of WCSF or other parties who sought, or stood to benefit from, that approval. This court spoke to the impropriety of such attacks in Bishop State Community College v. Williams, 4 So. 3d 1152 (Ala. Civ. App. 2008) :

" ‘ "The rule which forbids the reopening of a matter once judicially determined by competent authority applies as well to the judicial and quasi-judicial acts of public, executive, or administrative officers and boards acting within their jurisdiction as to the judgments of courts having general judicial powers." ’

" Limbaugh v. Board of Managers, City of Birmingham Ret. & Relief Sys., 628 So. 2d 623, 624 (Ala. Civ. App. 1993) (quoting Mahaffey v. Board of Managers, 515 So. 2d 1261, 1262 (Ala. Civ. App. 1987) ). SeealsoEx parte Buffalo Rock Co., 941 So. 2d 273, 278 (Ala. 2006).

" ‘Judicial records import absolute verity and are not subject to contradiction in collateral proceedings by extraneous evidence.

" ‘The same general rule pertains to a judgment rendered by an administrative tribunal invested with judicial power.’

" Alabama Elec. Coop., Inc. v. Alabama Power Co., 251 Ala. 190, 197, 36 So. 2d 523, 529–30 (1948) (citations omitted).

" ‘[W]hen the law has vested a special board, commission or tribunal with authority to hear and determine matters arising in the course of its duties, its decisions on those matters are conclusive, and like the judgments of courts, cannot be collaterally attacked in another proceeding.’ City of Lubbock v. Corbin, 942 S.W.2d 14, 22 (Tex. App. 1996). The decision of an administrative agency acting in a quasi-judicial capacity is not subject to collateral attack if the agency had jurisdiction over the parties and the subject matter. In re Applications T–851 and T–852, 268 Neb. 620, 686 N.W.2d 360 (2004) ; Bryant v. Arkansas Pub. Serv. Comm'n, 54 Ark. App. 157, 924 S.W.2d 472 (1996)."

4 So. 3d at 1158–59.

As the petitioners correctly note, the AAPA provides for timely intervention by persons in contested cases pending before administrative agencies when a person "has an individual interest in the outcome of the case as distinguished from a public interest and the representation of the interest of the [person] is inadequate." Ala. Code 1975, § 41-22-14. In response to the petitioners’ contention that the plaintiffs should have sought intervention before the Commission while it was considering the charter-school application of WCSF in order to present their fraud claims, the plaintiffs assert that the fraudulent conduct that they have alleged in the underlying action was neither known to them nor capable of being known at the time the Commission considered and acted upon the application. However, even assuming the correctness of the plaintiffs’ position, the plaintiffs nonetheless had, under the Act and the AAPA, an administrative remedy by way of initiating a new contested case before the Commission seeking the revocation of the approval of WCSF's application. See Ala. Code 1975, § 41-22-19(a) (stating that the AAPA's ...