By Stephen Smoot
The West Virginia State Supreme Court of Appeals has in both the football and now volleyball cases relied on established precedent to return to status quo antebellum – the condition that existed before the conflict.
During the sectional tournament, a circuit court ruling in Tyler County ordered the WVSSAC to include Tyler Consolidated into the Class A postseason. The WVSSAC, to comply with that order, placed Tyler Consolidated as the lowest seed in the Class A playoffs.
Throughout the season, Tyler Consolidated excelled as a Class AA school. Since Class AA schools have a larger student population from which to draw, they have a natural advantage.
The Hardy County Board of Education sued on behalf of East Hardy High School, the top seed in the Class A state playoffs. Judge Carter Williams issued a ruling that directly contradicted that of the previous ruling. During the hearing, he stated repeatedly that his ruling would not matter and that the West Virginia State Supreme Court of Appeals would have to ultimately resolve the issue.
Williams as Hardy County Circuit Court judge, but holding the hearing in Hampshire County, ordered the removal of Tyler Consolidated from the Class A tournament. This directly contradicted the Tyler County ruling ordering the WVSSAC to place Tyler Consolidated in the Class A tournament.
The argument against the WVSSAC’s handling of the Tyler County ruling is that it creates an intolerable competitive disadvantage for the highest seeded team, East Hardy, to play against an opponent with Tyler Consolidated’s demonstrated ability in a higher class of competition.
In its appeal to the West Virginia State Supreme Court, the WVSSAC took specific issue with Williams’ ruling, saying it “ignored and failed to properly balance the equities.”
The final ruling from the State Supreme Court came down on Thursday last week. It addressed both rulings concerning volleyball. One came from Judge Richard Wilson on Tyler County and the other from Williams.
The court statement said that it was “acting without undue delay to resolve the issues in an expedited manner and based on the time-sensitive issues involved,” so they did not hear oral arguments.
One of the key points in the final opinion lay in the statement “we have repeatedly held that the manner in which the WVSSAC applies its rules is not subject to judicial review.”
This meant that the West Virginia State Supreme Court had already established precedent through case law that the WVSSAC enjoys latitude in how it governs sports and other activities under its purview. In the British and American systems of justice, case law is often used to guide future decisions unless circumstances change drastically. Nothing in the current cases rose to the level of requiring a change in the established case law, so the court followed the precedent set.
It then went beyond stating that the circuit court should have never intervened in an internal WVSSAC matter by also denying the substance of the Tyler County ruling, that the temporarily separate classifications in boys and girls sports for that fall violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and that it created a condition of gender inequity.
It then pointed out that the board of review, whose actions were used as a basis for the lawsuit, had made decisions based on sport considerations to give the WVSSAC a chance to revisit the inconsistencies in its policies. It found no foundation for an argument that anyone acted prejudicial to girls’ sports.
The ruling stated that while Williams’ order was a direct response to the Tyler County ruling, “the Circuit Court of Hardy County lacked the authority to interfere with the internal affairs of the WVSSAC and overreached as a matter of law by directing the WVSSAC to exclude Tyler Consolidated from the Class A tournament.”
The tournament will now get underway on Dec. 2 and conclude the next day on the campus of West Virginia State University in Institute, a suburban town near Charleston. In games of regional interest, fourth seed Pendleton County will battle Magnolia at 8:30 a.m. and first seeded East Hardy will take on eighth seeded St. Marys directly after.
Tyler Consolidated will not participate in the Class A tournament because the effect of the West Virginia State Supreme Court ruling was to support the original WVSSAC decisions on classification.
