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Court of Appeal:
Man Who Impregnated His Ex-Pupil, 18, in 2006 Properly Stripped of Teaching License
Acting Justice Pens Opinion Agreeing With Commission That Decade-Plus Delay in Taking Action Doesn’t Matter; Rejects Relevance of Student Having Attended Different School When Relationship Took Place and Being Adult
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing properly revoked the teaching license of a man because, 10 years earlier, he had an affair with a former student, causing her pregnancy, the Court of Appeal for this district has held, rejecting the trial court’s view that the penalty was excessive inasmuch as the student was 18 at the time of the relationship and was then enrolled at another school, and in light of the long delay in taking the action.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Timothy P. Dillon, sitting on assignment to Div. Seven, wrote the unpublished opinion, which was filed Tuesday. It reverses a judgment by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant granting a petition for a writ of administrative mandamus that was sought by math teacher Juan M. Jaimes.
Chalfant on May 17, 2018, ordered the commission to “impose some lesser penalty that lies within its discretion.”
The facts were that Jenny Leon was a student in Jaimes’s geometry class at Valley High School in Orange County’s Santa Ana School District during the 2005-2006 school year; she turned 18 on Jan. 31, 2006; the school year ended in June 2006; Jaimes encountered Leon in July 2006 at a swap meet; he was separated from his wife at the time; James and Leon began dating and, after two months, the relationship became intimate.
She became pregnant; Jaimes reconciled with his wife in 2007; Leon’s child was born in June 2007; Leon obtained an order for child support.
On July 22, 2009, an anonymous “concerned citizen” sent the Santa Ana School District a letter bearing the heading, “HS TEACHER CHASING HS GIRL STUDENTS,” telling of Jaimes’s earlier relations with Leon. Confronted with that, Jaimes resigned his position with the district.
The district related information about Jaimes to the state commission, which filed an accusation against the teacher on Feb. 3, 2015.
In November 2014, Jaimes and his wife were divorced; in March 2015 Jaimes and Leon were married.
A hearing before an administrative law judge took place in November 2016. Jaimes testified that he thought his relationship with Leon was privileged because “she was an independent adult,” age 18, who was “living on her own basically.”
The administrative law judge in December 2016 recommended that the accusation be dismissed because the allegations were stale.
Spurning that advice, the commission, in a June 23, 2017 decision, revoked Jaimes’s teaching credentials (which had been granted in the single subject of math), saying that clear and convincing evidence “overwhelmingly established” that Jaimes “engaged in immoral and unprofessional conduct,” “committed acts involving moral turpitude,” and “demonstrated evident unfitness to teach.”
Chalfant’s Order
In ordering that a writ of mandate issue, Chalfant said:
“First and foremost, Leon was 18 years old at the time the relationship began and was a consenting adult. Jaimes committed no crime; he is guilty only of unethical and unprofessional conduct.”
He pointed out:
“The student was an adult and at another high school. [Jaimes’s] ethical misconduct was aggravated by the fact that he impregnated her and left her to birth and raise her child. This misconduct may have warranted credential revocation had the Commission acted anytime near the events in 2006-07. Due to [the Santa Ana District’s] failure, the Commission did not act for another eight years. In the interim, [Jaimes] had worked in high schools both in Georgia and California without incident and married Leon. These facts count.”
He concluded that the penalty was an abuse of discretion.
Dillon’s Opinion
In his opinion reversing that determination, Dillon recited that while married, Jaimes in 2006 “began a romantic relationship with Leon, a student who had just taken Jaimes’s math class,” and “proceeded to have unprotected sex with her,” getting her pregnant, then separating from her and creating the need for her to obtain a child support order.
“Although the credential revocation penalty is harsh, these facts do not present the exceptional case in which reasonable minds cannot differ,” Dillon wrote. “The Commission’s decision to revoke Jaimes’s teaching credential was within its discretion.”
He went on to say:
“It was…proper for the Commission to conclude that ‘the passage of time [was] of little import’ because ‘the nature of the conduct is such that the lengthy time that has passed does not negate the deep connection between the misconduct and [Jaimes’s] role as a teacher.’ The Commission found that Jaimes’s ‘misconduct is ongoing’ because those who learn of Jaimes’s sexual relationship with Leon ‘will continue to be negatively impacted.’ In the Commission’s view, the fact that Jaimes has taught in the intervening years without incident did not diminish the ethical boundary between a student and a teacher that Jaimes crossed with Leon. As a mitigating factor, the Commission took in account that Jaimes later married Leon.”
(The commission noted, however, that he did so about five weeks after he received the commission’s accusation which, it said, “appears to indicate that the marriage was entered into to aid [his] case.”)
Leon’s Adulthood
The pro tem justice also declared that the commission “properly concluded” that Jaimes failed to appreciate the seriousness of his misconduct, thus pointing to the prospect of a repetition of it, by insisting that there was nothing wrong in having dated Leon because she was an adult. Dillon said that Jaimes “never acknowledged ‘the likely adverse impact’ of his sexual relationship with Leon on the educational community.”
The commission had found that Jaimes’s “abuse of his trusted position as a teacher fosters a lack of trust in him as a teacher such conduct adversely impacts fellow teachers, students, and the educational community as a whole.”
Dillon accused Chalfant of having “impermissibly reweighed the evidence” and in so doing, “erred in finding an abuse of discretion.”
The case is Jaimes v. California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, B291851.
Lawrence B. Trygstad and Richard J. Schwab of the Los Angeles Miracle Mile law firm of Trygstad, Schwab & Trygstad represented Jaimes. Deputy Attorney General Theodore S. Drcar acted for the commission.
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