Opinion ID: 1385370
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the initial proceeding

Text: Piacitelli commenced his initial action on April 17, 1979, charging that a failure to renew his employment contract was, in effect, a dismissal for cause and as such violated his due process rights as set forth in the SUSC Personnel Policies and Procedures. Piacitelli asked for declaratory relief, reinstatement, costs and attorney's fees, and such other and further relief as the court deems proper. In the district court, Piacitelli relied on the College's Personnel Policies and Procedures Manual (hereinafter Personnel Manual), Section II-14 of which sets forth formal procedures to be followed in the dismissal of a classified employee who has completed a six-month probationary period. Several passages in the Personnel Manual seem to suggest that all employees are either probationary (terminable at will) or permanent (terminable only after compliance with specified procedures). Consequently, Piacitelli argued, by not renewing a permanent employee's contract the College was attempting to circumvent its own procedures and accomplish indirectly what its Personnel Manual prevented it from accomplishing directly. The College conceded that Piacitelli was a classified employee and that he was not probationary. However, it contended that Piacitelli was employed on a year-to-year basis; that his contract expired by its own terms in June, 1979; and that he was not dismissed at all, but simply not rehired. Therefore, the College concluded, its formal termination procedures did not apply. Those procedures would have applied, according to the College, only if Piacitelli had been dismissed before the expiration of the annual contract period. The College further argued that to equate nonrenewal with dismissal would, in effect, grant tenure status to all nonprobationary classified staff employees, an anomolous result in light of the fact that this status is not conferred on all of the faculty. [1] In January, 1980, the district court ruled that the College's Personnel Manual governed the terms of Piacitelli's employment contract with the College, that Piacitelli had acquired permanent employment status under that contract, and that the College's failure to renew Piacitelli's annual employment contract without complying with due process of law requirements pursuant to [the Personnel Manual] ... constituted plaintiff's termination and thus a breach of contract. The district court thereupon ordered the College to grant Piacitelli administrative due process procedure pursuant to the [Personnel Manual]. This was a final order, which, unless reversed on appeal, is res judicata and binding upon these parties. Bradshaw v. Kershaw, Utah, 627 P.2d 528 (1981); Federated Department Stores, Inc. v. Moitie, ___ U.S. ___, 101 S.Ct. 2424, 69 L.Ed.2d 103 (1981). The order was not appealed. Consequently, for purposes of this case, we must treat Piacitelli as an employee with permanent employment status whose employment contract entitled him to the formal procedures specified in the Personnel Manual before he could be dismissed or terminated, even at the conclusion of the annual contract period. [2]