## Facts

- Dorothy Anderson, a licensed township-school teacher, taught continuously under successive contracts beginning in 1924 through at least the 1932–1933 school year.
- Her 1931–1932 and 1932–1933 contracts expressly incorporated Indiana’s Teachers’ Tenure Law of 1927.
- The 1927 Tenure Act provided that a teacher who served at least five successive years and entered another contract became a “permanent teacher,” whose employment continued under an “indefinite contract” unless replaced by a new contract or cancelled under statutory procedures.
- Under the Act, cancellation of a permanent teacher’s contract required notice and hearing and was limited to specified causes; dismissal for political or personal reasons was barred.
- In 1933, the township trustee (Brand) initiated cancellation proceedings against Anderson; after a hearing, he maintained the cancellation decision, and the county superintendent affirmed.
- Anderson continued teaching through the 1933–1934 year, but Brand threatened to end her employment at that year’s close.
- A 1933 Indiana statute amended the tenure scheme to exclude township teachers; the Indiana Supreme Court treated this as a repeal of tenure protections for township teachers.
- Anderson sought mandamus to compel continued employment, claiming the repeal, as applied to her, impaired contractual tenure rights.

## Issues

1. Whether the Supreme Court had jurisdiction where the state court decision addressed a federal Contract Clause claim rather than resting solely on an adequate and independent state ground.
2. Whether the 1927 Tenure Act, once accepted and satisfied by the teacher, created a contract protected by U.S. Const. art. I, § 10.
3. Whether the 1933 statute excluding township teachers substantially impaired that contract without sufficient justification.

## Decision

- The Court held it had jurisdiction because the state court actually decided the federal Contract Clause issue; jurisdiction does not turn on whether the state court could have relied on other grounds.
- The Court held the 1927 Tenure Act, as applied to a teacher meeting its conditions and contracting under it, created enforceable contractual rights to continued employment subject only to statutory cancellation procedures.
- The Court held the 1933 exclusion of township teachers, as applied to Anderson, impaired the obligation of that contract in violation of the Contract Clause.
- The judgment was reversed and the case remanded.

## Legal Principles

- A legislative enactment may create a contract protected by the Contract Clause when individuals accept and act upon its terms.
- In Contract Clause cases, the existence and effect of the asserted contract, and whether later legislation impaired it, are federal questions for independent judicial determination.
- Tenure provisions that convert employment into an indefinite relationship terminable only for specified causes after notice and hearing may constitute substantial contractual terms, not merely policy.
- A statute that removes previously conferred tenure protections for those who already qualified can substantially impair contractual obligations; such impairment requires adequate justification consistent with the state’s reserved powers.

## Conclusion

The Court ruled that Indiana’s tenure statute created contractual tenure rights for qualifying township teachers and that Indiana could not retroactively withdraw those protections through later legislation without violating the Contract Clause.


Indiana ex rel. Anderson v. Brand, 303 U.S. 95 (1938)