Court Opinion

ID: 9791955
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:20:57.910073+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:39.697136
License: Public Domain

Justice QUINN
specially concurring:
I specially concur in the judgment. The issue raised in this case is one of contractual interpretation, and I agree with the majority that the reference in the contract to the school district’s “official policies” cannot reasonably be construed as a manifestation of a contractual intent to incorporate into the contract of nontenured teachers the reduction-in-force policy with respect to rehiring on a seniority basis. A contrary holding, in my view, would result in bestowing on the plaintiff-teachers, who were hired on an annual basis, the practical equivalent of a tenured right of seniority with respect to rehiring. In the absence of contractual language manifesting an intent to incorporate such a provision into the annual contracts, or alternatively in the absence of an adequate basis to imply such a provision under either the implied contract or promissory estoppel theories developed in Continental Air Lines, Inc. v. Keenan, 731 P.2d 708 (Colo.1987), there is no legal or factual basis to engraft the reduction-in-force policy onto the contracts under consideration. The majority, in my view, adequately points out the reasons why neither the implied contract nor the promissory estoppel theories of Keenan apply here.
I view this case as substantively distinct from the Department of Health v. Donahue, 690 P.2d 243 (Colo.1984). In that case we addressed whether Donahue, who was a state probationary employee, had the right to a predisciplinary hearing, pursuant to Personnel Rule 7-3-1, 4 C.C.R. 801-1 at 80 (1977), before being discharged for unsatisfactory job performance prior to the expiration of her one-year probationary period of employment, even though Donahue as a probationary employee could have been discharged for'unsatisfactory job performance at any time during the probationary period. In holding that Donahue had a right to a predisciplinary hearing, we relied on the plain terms of Personnel Rule 7-3-1, which stated:
When information received by the appointing authority indicates the possible need to administer disciplinary action, he shall meet with the employee involved, present the information that has come to his attention, and give the employee an opportunity to admit or present information regarding mitigating circumstances.
Because Personnel Rule 7-3-1 was not limited to certified employees only, we declined to read such a limitation into the rule and accorded the rule independent due process significance with respect to the procedural rights of both probationary and certified employees.
In contrast to the facts in Donahue, we are not dealing here with a claim that the reduction-in-force policy creates a constitutionally vested property interest in the plaintiff-teachers or, for that matter, that the policy has any legal significance independently of the terms of the annual contracts. Rather, we deal in this case with a contractual claim based on annual contracts that make no reference whatever to the seniority rehiring provisions of the reduction-in-force policy of the school district. Indeed, the plaintiff-teachers do not attribute any legal significance to the reduction-in-force policy independently of the annual contracts, nor do they rely upon or even cite Donahue in their brief. Because *384their claim sounds in contract, not due process of law, and because the majority correctly answers their contentions, I concur in the judgment.