Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca11-15-11707/USCOURTS-ca11-15-11707-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Nancy Cochran
Appellant
Wendell Faulkner
Appellant
Bobby Snipes
Appellant
Unified Government of Athens-Clarke County, Georgia
Appellee
David A. Wood
Appellant

Document Text:

[PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 15-11707

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 3:14-cv-00043-CDL

DAVID A. WOOD,

NANCY COCHRAN,

BOBBY SNIPES,

WENDELL FAULKNER,

on behalf of themselves and all

persons similarly situated,

Plaintiffs – Appellants,

versus

UNIFIED GOVERNMENT OF ATHENS-CLARKE COUNTY, GEORGIA,

Defendant – Appellee.

_______________________

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Middle District of Georgia

_______________________

(April 7, 2016)

Before TJOFLAT and ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judges, and GOLDBERG,* Judge.

 * The Honorable Richard W. Goldberg, of the United States Court of International Trade, sitting 

by designation.

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GOLDBERG, Judge:

In this putative class action, David A. Wood, Nancy Cochran, Bobby Snipes, 

and Wendell Faulkner (“the Appellants”) allege that the Unified Government of 

Athens-Clarke County, Georgia (“the ACC”) breached contractual obligations to 

provide health benefits to eligible retirees.1

 Shortly after this suit began, the ACC 

moved for partial judgment on the pleadings, arguing that the statute of limitations 

bars the Appellants’ claims. The district court granted the ACC’s motion. After a 

careful review of the record and the district court’s decision, and with the 

assistance of oral argument, we reverse. 

BACKGROUND2

The Appellants are retirees of the ACC. David A. Wood served as an 

electrician from 1976 until he retired in 2011. Nancy Cochran started as a 

magistrate court clerk in 1982 and later served as an administrative assistant in the 

fire department before retiring in 2009. Bobby Snipes first worked as a traffic 

 1 The Appellants included a claim for impairment of contract under the United States 

Constitution. U.S. Const. art. I, § 10, cl. 1. On that basis, the district court exercised subject 

matter jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (2012). The Appellants also included state-law 

claims for breach of contract and contract impairment under the Georgia Constitution. The 

district court had supplemental jurisdiction over these claims pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367. This

court has jurisdiction over the interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b).

2 When considering a motion for judgment on the pleadings, the court “must accept all 

facts in the complaint as true and ‘view them in the light most favorable to the nonmoving 

party.’” Moore v. Liberty Nat’l Life Ins. Co., 267 F.3d 1209, 1213 (11th Cir. 2001) (citation 

omitted).

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engineer when hired in 1973, but he was the deputy manager when he retired in 

2012. Wendell Faulkner was a firefighter from 1977 until 2004, when he retired as 

the fire chief of the ACC. All are aged 65 or older.

The ACC “promised each employee it hired before July 1, 2002, that in 

return for a certain minimum number of years of employee services (usually 10 

years),” the ACC “would provide cost-free health coverage for life at the same 

level that the employee received on her last day of employment.” In other words, 

the ACC promised to indemnify retirees for healthcare costs at the same level that 

it indemnified them for healthcare costs on their last day of employment. Each

Appellant worked the requisite number of years and is eligible for indemnification. 

Thus, the Appellants upheld their end of the deal. 

But the Appellants allege that when the time came for the ACC to honor its 

end, the ACC refused. Each Appellant insists that, on the day of his or her 

retirement, the ACC covered all health insurance premiums. Yet ordinances 

adopted in 2002 and 2013 now require the Appellants to elect Medicare at the age 

of 65 and pay their own Medicare premiums. Through these ordinances, the ACC 

also provides monthly contributions to the Appellants to purchase supplemental 

insurance as an add-on to Medicare. That said, the supplement insurance 

contribution is not enough for the Appellants to purchase supplemental insurance 

that, when combined with their Medicare, provides a level of health-cost 

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indemnification equal to the level provided on each Appellant’s last day of 

employment. Consequently, the Appellants maintain that the ACC breached, and 

continues to breach, its promise to provide the Appellants with healthcare benefits 

for life at the same level that each Appellant received on his or her last day of 

employment. As a result of these breaches, the Appellants allegedly suffer damage 

in two ways: First, they must pay out-of-pocket for their Medicare premiums and, 

second, they must incur additional healthcare costs “resulting from [the ACC’s] 

refusal to have supplemental coverage providing the same level of indemnification 

[the Appellants] received on the last day of their employment.”

We do not address the merits of the Appellants’ claims on appeal. Instead, 

we review de novo the decision of the district court to grant partial judgment on the 

pleadings. Mergens v. Dreyfoos, 166 F.3d 1114, 1116 (11th Cir. 1999). The court

concluded that (1) the Appellants’ contract claims accrued in 2002 with the 

enactment of the ordinance, (2) the contract is entire and, therefore, (3) the 

applicable statute of limitations bars the Appellants’ contract claims.3

 On appeal, 

the Appellants argue that the contract is divisible, rendering actionable any 

breaches occurring within the statute of limitations. We agree. 

 3 According to the parties, the statute of limitations is six years on claims for breach of 

contract and contract impairment under the Georgia Constitution. The limitations period is two 

years on claims for contract impairment under the United States Constitution.

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DISCUSSION

The question on appeal is simple—is the contract between the ACC and the 

Appellants entire or divisible? If the contract is entire, “only one action may be 

maintained for a breach,” and the statute of limitations runs from the breach. Ga. 

Code Ann. § 13-6-14 (2015). To illustrate, if the ACC breached the contract in 

2002 as the district court held, the statute of limitations began running in 2002. 

Because the Appellants initiated this action in 2014, well beyond the limitations 

period, the statute of limitations would bar their claims for the 2002 breach. On 

the other hand, if the contract is divisible, the statute of limitations “runs separately 

as to each” breach, allowing the Appellants to proceed with any breaches occurring 

within the limitations period. Teachers Ret. Sys. of Ga. v. Plymel, 676 S.E.2d 234, 

240 (Ga. Ct. App. 2009); see Ga. Code Ann. § 13-6-14 (“[I]f it is severable or if 

the breaches occur at successive periods . . . an action will lie for each breach.”). 

Accordingly, if the contract is divisible, it is irrelevant when the ACC first 

breached the contract. It matters only that the successive breaches forming the 

basis of the claims happened within the limitations period. 

In Georgia, a contract is entire if “the whole quantity, service, or thing, all as 

a whole, is of the essence of the contract, and if it appear[s] that the contract was to 

take the whole or none.” Piedmont Life Ins. Co. v. Bell, 119 S.E.2d 63, 72 (Ga. Ct. 

App. 1961). Put differently, an entire contract involves “a single sum certain.” 

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Baker v. Brannen/Goddard Co., 559 S.E.2d 450, 453 (Ga. 2002). In contrast, a 

contract is divisible “if the quantity, service, or thing is to be accepted by 

successive performances.” Piedmont, 119 S.E.2d at 72. In Baker, the Georgia

Supreme Court held that a contract is divisible when it is “for an indefinite total 

amount which [is] payable in installments over [an] uncertain period.” 559 S.E.2d 

at 454. The court also reasoned that a contract is divisible when the plaintiff does 

“not have an immediate claim for the entirety of all future unearned monthly 

installments payable under the contract” as would, for example, a party to an entire 

contract who may accelerate the remainder of the obligation. Id. 

Based on the above criteria alone, the contract between the ACC and the 

Appellants is divisible. Although the ACC made a single promise to provide 

retirement healthcare benefits, the ACC can perform this promise only by 

successive performances in the form of premium payments or other cost 

indemnification or both. And the obligation to provide healthcare benefits 

continues throughout the uncertain span of each retiree’s life. Further, the 

unpredictable fluctuations in each retiree’s healthcare costs make even more

uncertain the ultimate amount that the ACC will owe each month. Thus, as with 

divisible contracts, the contract here requires “successive” payments of healthcare

premiums and indemnification, Piedmont, 119 S.E.2d at 72, “for an indefinite total 

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amount” over the “uncertain period” of each Appellant’s life, Baker, 559 S.E.2d at 

454. 

Moreover, the Appellants have no “immediate claim for the entirety” of the 

contract, as they would if the contract were entire. The contract lasts for the life of 

each Appellant and includes inherently unpredictable costs. Therefore, it is 

impossible to know now the aggregated amount of a lifetime of health-cost 

indemnification and healthcare premiums. For that reason, the Appellants can 

pursue neither a “single sum certain” nor the “whole quantity, service, or thing,” as 

could a party to an entire contract.

Even if these broad criteria alone provide an insufficient basis for resolving 

this case, the Georgia Court of Appeals has addressed the divisibility of retirementbenefits contracts. In City of Lafayette v. Bates, 507 S.E.2d 252 (Ga. Ct. App. 

1998), the court viewed a benefits contract as entire. By contrast, in Plymel, 676 

S.E.2d 234, the court viewed a different benefits contract as divisible. The contract 

between the Appellants and the ACC is more like the divisible contract in Plymel

than the entire contract in Bates.

In Bates, the city promised to pay retirees “for accumulated unused sick 

leave (up to 90 days) at their regular rate of pay at [the] time of retirement.” 507 

S.E.2d at 253. The city eventually abolished this policy. Later, the plaintiff retired 

and sued to recover the value of the unused sick days that he had accumulated by 

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the time of his retirement. In sharp contrast to the Appellants here, the retiree in 

Bates sought full performance of the entire contract by payment of a “single sum”

of a definite amount covering a definite period. Unsurprisingly, the court viewed 

this as an entire contract. Id. 

In Plymel, a class of retired public employees sued the defendant for 

providing monthly pension benefits below the contractual level. 676 S.E.2d at 

237. The court noted that, under the contract, the defendant “had a duty to pay 

benefits in successive installments over the uncertain period of the [class]

members’ lives.” Id. at 241. The court held that the contract “‘is not entire, 

because the contractual consideration at issue is not a single sum certain which 

remained unpaid after a definite due date,’ but instead ‘was for an indefinite total 

amount which was payable in installments over the uncertain period’ of the 

member’s life.” Id. at 240 (quoting Baker, 559 S.E.2d at 454). To further support 

its finding of divisibility, the court stated that the members “did not have an 

immediate claim for the entirety of all future unearned monthly retirement benefits 

payable under the contract,” as the amount of this benefit would vary depending on 

each member’s lifespan. Id. (citation omitted).

The divisible contract in Plymel parallels the contract here. Both contracts 

involve successive payments of an uncertain amount for an indefinite period of 

time. And neither contract allows a plaintiff to recover the entirety of the 

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breaching party’s obligation. In short, both contracts are divisible.4 Accordingly, 

the statute of limitations “runs separately as to each payment [of healthcare 

premiums and cost indemnification] when it becomes due.” Id. at 240. To that 

end, the Appellants may pursue contract claims for each alleged breach occurring 

within the limitations period.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the district court’s partial judgment on 

the pleadings and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

REVERSED AND REMANDED FOR FURTHER PROCEEDINGS.

 4 Admittedly, the contract in Plymel involved regularly timed payments of a fixed value. 

In contrast, the contract here involves intermittent indemnification or payment of unpredictably 

varying costs. But this quality need not differentiate divisible contracts from entire contracts. 

Georgia courts have found contracts divisible where the defendant owed intermittent payments 

of varying values. See, e.g., Carswell v. Oconee Reg’l Med. Ctr., Inc., 605 S.E.2d 879, 880–81 

(Ga. Ct. App. 2004) (holding divisible a contract requiring a doctor to pay a percentage of his 

fluctuating profits to plaintiff–hospital). In fact, a varying payment obligation further 

substantiates a finding of divisibility here. It amplifies the extent to which the ACC’s 

performance ultimately involves “indefinite total amount[s].” Baker, 559 S.E.2d at 454.

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