Opinion ID: 1280588
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Administrative Law Judge's Determination of Factual Issues

Text: In syllabus point one of Morgan v. Pizzino, 163 W.Va. 454, 256 S.E.2d 592 (1979), this Court asserted that [s]chool personnel regulations and laws are to be strictly construed in favor of the employee. The statute at issue in the present case is very explicit and has been previously examined by this Court. As referenced above, West Virginia Code § 18A-4-5b commands that uniformity apply to all salaries, rates of pay, benefits, increments or compensation for all persons regularly employed and performing like assignments and duties within the county[.] A correlative statute, West Virginia Code § 18-29-2 (1992) (Repl.Vol. 1999), prohibits discrimination and favoritism with respect to any employee of a board of education and permits recovery for any discriminatory or otherwise aggrieved application of unwritten policies or practices of the board and any specifically identified incident of harassment or favoritism. W.Va. Code § 18-29-2(a). [5] To establish a prima facie case of discrimination or favoritism under West Virginia Code §§ 18-29-2(m) and ( o ), a grievant must establish the following: (a) that he is similarly situated, in a pertinent way, to one or more other employees; (b) that the other employee(s) have been given advantage or treated with preference in a significant manner not similarly afforded him; and (c) that the difference in treatment has caused a substantial inequity to him, and that there is no known or apparent justification for this difference. Flint v. Board of Educ. of County of Harrison, 207 W.Va. 251, 256, 531 S.E.2d 76, 81 (1999). This Court thoroughly evaluated these statutes and their applicability to 240-day/261-day contract disparities in Flint and explained as follows: Although the BOE acknowledges that plaintiffs Flint and Anderson are similarly situated to Mr. Dawson and Mr. Richards, it claims that it is not required to afford these plaintiffs the same contract terms because W.Va.Code § 18A-4-8 only entitles service personnel to an employment term of 200 days. The BOE argues that because the statute empowers, but does not require, the BOE to contract with all or part of these personnel for a longer term, it does not require uniformity in the length of service employees' contracts. We disagree. Id. at 257, 531 S.E.2d at 82. As this Court has consistently held, [c]ounty boards of education have substantial discretion in matters relating to the hiring, assignment, transfer, and promotion of school personnel. Nevertheless, this discretion must be exercised reasonably, in the best interests of the schools, and in a manner which is not arbitrary and capricious. Syl. Pt. 3, Dillon v. Board of Educ. of County of Wyoming, 177 W.Va. 145, 351 S.E.2d 58 (1986). Under the circumstances of Flint, we found that such discretion must be exercised in a manner which conformed with the statutory requirements of uniformity. We explained that while it is clear that the BOE had the authority in the early 1980s to replace vacant 261-day positions with 240-day contracts, it could not disregard the uniformity requirement of W.Va.Code § 18A-4-5b. 207 W.Va. at 257, 531 S.E.2d at 82. The Court consequently held that the 240-day contract employees were entitled to compensation under 261-day contracts. Id. In comparing various job responsibilities in Weimer-Godwin v. Board of Educ. of Upshur County, 179 W.Va. 423, 369 S.E.2d 726 (1988), this Court examined the extent to which jobs duties must resemble one another in order to necessitate identical benefits or treatment under the uniformity statute. Id. at 427, 369 S.E.2d at 730. This Court reasoned that once a county board of education pays additional compensation to certain teachers, it must pay the same amount of additional compensation to other teachers performing `like assignments and duties[.]' Id. Duties of the compared personnel do not have to be identical. This is not the test. Id. The Court found that substantial similarity was sufficient to invoke the statutory protections of uniformity. Id. at 428, 369 S.E.2d at 731. Justice McGraw's dissent in Flint also emphasized the importance of adopting a liberal measure of comparison to determine whether employees are similarly situated for purposes of § 18A-4-5b, noting that the Flint decision could permit the uniformity statute to become a nullity if school boards attempt to evade this uniformity policy by expanding the number of employees subject to multiclassification. 207 W.Va. at 258, 531 S.E.2d at 83. The Appellants in the case sub judice presented extensive evidence concerning the identical duties, and the administrative law judge's conclusion that the similarity of duties justified application of the uniformity statute was not clearly wrong. Based upon this Court's review of the evidence presented, we find that the lower court erred in reversing the administrative law judge's factual findings regarding the sufficiency of the Appellant's proof that they performed duties substantially similar or essentially identical to the duties performed by the 261-day employees. We agree with that component of the administrative law judge's conclusion, holding specifically that where county board of education employees perform substantially similar work under 261-day and 240-day contracts, and vacation days provided to 261-day employees reduce their annual number of work days to level at or near the 240-day employees, principles of uniformity demand that the similarly situated employees receive similar benefits. We therefore reinstate the administrative law judge's conclusion that the Appellants should receive 261-day contracts to satisfy the requirement of uniformity.