## Facts

- A seven-member school board created a three-member budget subcommittee to develop budget recommendations for the board.
- At a regular board meeting, the board announced a forthcoming subcommittee meeting; notice was posted and sent to a local newspaper.
- At the subcommittee meeting, the three subcommittee members attended, and a fourth board trustee (not a subcommittee member) also attended, sat in the audience, and asked questions.
- The subcommittee discussed the upcoming budget year and agreed to recommend, among other items, a lower salary for an open principal position.
- The full board later adopted the subcommittee’s budget recommendations at a subsequent board meeting.
- The newspaper sued, alleging the subcommittee meeting was effectively a full-board meeting because a quorum was present and that the meeting exceeded the noticed “budget” scope by addressing personnel matters.
- The trial court granted summary judgment to the newspaper, found violations of open-meeting/public-participation requirements, and awarded attorney’s fees.
- The school district appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the subcommittee gathering became a board “meeting” subject to open-meeting requirements because a fourth trustee attended and participated, creating a quorum.
2. Whether discussion and recommendation about the principal’s salary exceeded the meeting notice’s budget scope by effectively making personnel decisions without adequate notice and public participation.
3. Whether summary judgment was proper given disputes about what occurred and how to characterize the trustee’s role and the subcommittee’s actions.

## Decision

- The supreme court reversed the grant of summary judgment and the attorney’s fee award and remanded.
- The court held summary judgment was improper because genuine issues of material fact existed regarding:
  - whether the fourth trustee functioned as part of a board quorum or merely as an audience member; and
  - whether the subcommittee’s actions were limited to budget recommendations or amounted to personnel decision-making beyond the noticed agenda.
- The court did not decide whether an open-meeting or public-participation violation occurred on the merits.

## Legal Principles

- Summary judgment is unavailable when material facts are genuinely disputed and those facts determine whether legal requirements apply.
- Whether a quorum-based “meeting” occurred depends not only on the number of members present but also on their conduct and the nature of the body’s deliberations.
- Compliance with open-meeting and public-participation requirements may turn on whether the matters discussed reasonably fit within the scope of the public notice; distinguishing budget deliberations from personnel decision-making can be fact-dependent.

## Conclusion

The court required further fact-finding because disputed evidence about the fourth trustee’s participation and the subcommittee’s budget-versus-personnel actions prevented a definitive open-meeting ruling as a matter of law at the summary-judgment stage.


Boulder Monitor v. Jefferson High Sch. Dist. No. 1, 316 P.3d 848 (Mont. 2014)