Opinion ID: 900677
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Breach of Union Contract

Text: [¶ 7.] Three provisions in the employment agreement are relevant to this appeal: Articles 4, 8, and 12. ARTICLE 4. MANAGEMENT RIGHTS 4.01 Statement Nothing in this Agreement shall diminish any power, right or prerogative possessed by the Board or its administrative staff except where the District's power, right or prerogative is legally and specifically limited by this Agreement. 4.02 Specific Management Prerogatives The management rights of the District include but are not limited to the following: 4.02.01 To utilize personnel, methods, and means in the most appropriate and efficient manner possible. ARTICLE 8. OTHER CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT 8.02 Inclement Weather Procedures 8.02.02 Schools Closed-Offices Closed 8.02.02.01 Custodial and maintenance department employees are required to work. Those employees shall be paid for the day as if overtime. 8.02.02.02 All other employees shall not report to work and shall not be paid unless vacation is used, or time is made up. ARTICLE 12. REDUCTION 12.01 The District reserves the right to reduce the number of District employees, the number of hours worked by District employees and each employee's work schedule. [¶ 8.] Conventional principles of contract interpretation require agreements to be construed in their entirety giving contextual meaning to each term. When provisions conflict, however, and full weight cannot be given to each, the more specific clauses are deemed to reflect the parties' intentionsa specific provision controls a general one. State v. Greger, 1997 SD 14, ¶ 21, 559 N.W.2d 854, 864 (citing Bock v. Perkins, 139 U.S. 628, 634, 11 S.Ct. 677, 679, 35 L.Ed. 314, 316 (1891)). The District argues that the three articles, when read together, allow it the prerogative, when schools and offices are closed for inclement weather, either to require custodians to work or to require them not to work. As the weather was severe on January 10, the District asserts that conditions were extraordinary, a situation not anticipated in the contract's inclement weather procedure. Given this, the District believes it came up with a solution it felt fair and equitable to all concerned. The Union, on the other hand, argues that the contract explicitly requires custodians to work on bad weather days. In the Union's view, if Articles 4 and 12 override the specific language of the inclement weather provision, then the District can disregard specific language in the contract anytime, making the agreement on conditions of employment nearly worthless. [¶ 9.] In its findings, the trial court stated that Section 8.02 (Inclement Weather Procedures) fails to address situations in which the weather was as severe as it was on January 10, 1997. This finding sustained the District's position that the weather was above and beyond the definition of inclement weather. Section 8.02 defines the responsibilities for both sides when schools and offices are closed because of inclement weather. It contains no ambiguity allowing it to be understood in some other way. See Pam Oil, Inc. v. Travex Intern. Corp., 336 N.W.2d 672, 674 (S.D.1983). The provision plainly states that the custodians are required to work, and the District is required to pay them overtime. Nothing in the contract suggests that a workday for custodians can be canceled without pay if inclement weather is too inclement. [] [¶ 10.] Despite the clarity of Section 8.02, the District contends that Sections 4.01, 4.02.01, and 12.01 give it the privilege to use its personnel in the most efficient manner, allowing a reduction of employee hours. Articles 4 and 12 are general provisions. Neither one moderates Section 8.02, a specific provision governing working conditions in inclement weather. Section 4.01 states that management's power, right or prerogative remains undiminished unless it is specifically limited by [the] Agreement. Section 8.02 explicitly limits that prerogative. Article 12 contemplates a general reduction in workforce or hours, not makeshift adjustments based on weather. We conclude that the court erred in its reading of the contract. The specific provisions of Section 8.02.02 control. 2. Irresistible Superhuman Cause As Excuse of Performance [¶ 11.] The Union next appeals the trial court's finding that even if the District violated the contract, SDCL 20-6-2 excused the violation. This statute provides: Want of performance, or of an offer of performance, or any delay therein, is excused when it is prevented or delayed by an irresistible superhuman cause, or by the act of public enemies of this state, or of the United States, unless the parties have expressly agreed to the contrary. The term irresistible superhuman cause is not defined statutorily, but a definition is unnecessary here. Even if conditions on January 10 fit within this term, the contract declares an express agreement to the contrary. As the statute explains, failure to perform because of an irresistible superhuman cause is not excused when the parties have agreed otherwise. We defer to plain language. Truck Ins. Exchange v. Kubal, 1997 SD 37, ¶ 15, 561 N.W.2d 674, 677. Section 8.02.02 unequivocally provides that during inclement weather, custodial and maintenance workers are required to work. [¶ 12.] The term inclement weather covers anything from conditions merely inconvenient to circumstances threatening life and property. To read the term as covering only lesser forms of bad weather is to insert language the parties themselves left out. Perhaps a clause covering extraordinary weather conditions should have been in the contract, but it cannot be inserted after the fact. If an event is foreseeable, a party making an unqualified promise to perform upon the occurrence of the event is obligated to perform, even when performance becomes unfeasible because of that event. E. Allan Farnsworth, Contracts § 9.6, at 716 (2d ed 1990). Severe winter weather is more than foreseeable in eastern South Dakotait is inevitable. Section 8.02 fixes the obligations of the parties when that inevitability arrives. The District cannot use inclement weather to excuse its contractual duty.