Court Opinion

ID: 9671728
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:42:43.265185+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:11.723207
License: Public Domain

YETKA, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent and would affirm both the district court and the court of appeals. Both those courts found that Blank’s failure to grieve the seniority list did not preclude her from challenging that list because it did not follow the format required in the collective bargaining agreement itself. Thus, the list was not a complete binding document giving her notice of any possible grievance.
As the lower courts found, the difference between the contract and the list was sufficient to render the agreement incomplete and non-binding, thereby allowing Blank to challenge the list at the ULA hearing and at the district court level. The publication of a seniority list exactly as described in the Master Agreement was a condition precedent to Blank’s duty to register an objection within 20 working days or to begin grievance procedures. What the issue boils down to is this: Who should suffer the consequences of a seniority list that is either incomplete or incorrect — the school district that prepared it or the individual teacher affected? I believe that it should be the former. The school district argues that the bargaining agreement places the burden on the teacher to study the seniority list and to notify the district of any errors therein, but if Rachel Blank studied the seniority list, what would she find? All of the information contained therein is correct. It is what is omitted or improperly designated that causes the problem, namely, that she is licensed also in elementary education grades 1 through 6. As the trial court stated:
No grievance was required of the Petitioners in this case because the jobs actually performed by the Petitioners included the job functions of the positions to which Petitioners wished to bump. The seniority list in this case is not a complete and binding document because it did not contain all of the categories required under Article 15.05(A) of the Master Agreement. * * * If bumping is to be determined by inclusion on the seniority list, and the contractual intent was to allow persons to bump whenever they had licensure or had successfully taught (were qualified to teach) the subject, then both areas had to be included on the list. In view of this clear contractual intent, the school district may not disregard the *654contract by excluding categories from the seniority list and then penalizing Petitioners by forcing them to accept the results of the school district’s error.
The drafter of an agreement, in the event of ambiguity, should be held responsible for that ambiguity. See Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 206 (1982); ICC Leasing Corp. v. Midwestern Machinery Co., 257 N.W.2d 551, 555 (Minn.1977). This is even more important where the person against whom the agreement is to be enforced has his or her livelihood at stake. Therefore, Blank was not precluded from challenging her status at the ULA hearing and on appeal.
The court of appeals ruled that Blank was able to bump a less senior elementary education teacher because she had “successfully taught” elementary education within the meaning of the Master Agreement. Disagreeing with the school board’s contention that Blank successfully taught only those courses she is formally assigned to teach, the court held that, since Blank actually taught elementary education subjects to her visually impaired students, she is qualified to teach elementary education within the meaning of the agreement.
In reviewing a school board’s decision to place a teacher on ULA, this court uses an abuse of discretion standard:
Absent the determination that the school board acted arbitrarily, capriciously or unreasonably, “neither the district court on certiorari nor this court on appeal can interfere with the school board in its decision as to the existence of statutory grounds for discharge, provided the board acted in good faith and on a correct interpretation of the law.”
Laird v. Independent School District No. 317, 346 N.W.2d 153, 156 (Minn.1984) (quoting State ex rel. Ging v. Board of Education, 213 Minn. 550, 571, 7 N.W.2d 544, 556 (1942)). The court owes no deference to the trial court’s determination when reviewing school board employment decisions. Kroll v. Independent School District No. 593, 304 N.W.2d 338 (Minn.1981).
This court has not directly addressed the present issue, but in analogous cases, we have focused on job function in defining a position. In Krug v. Independent School District No. 16, 293 N.W.2d 26 (Minn.1980), the same school district attempted to differentiate between the position of public health nurse and school nurse in determining seniority for placement on ULA. The court adopted the position that job function should determine qualification:
We hold that there is no reasonable basis to create two positions — public health nurse and school nurse — when the regulation creates only one position— school nurse — within which public health nurse is a level. This decision is supported by analogy as well as by trial testimony. The English Department of a school district includes many teachers. Some have bachelor degrees, some have master degrees, some may even have doctoral degrees. All teach English, however. Although those with doctoral degrees would be able to contribute more expertise to their work than those on lower, degree levels, the basic duties of an English teacher do not change. The school district could not successfully claim that removal of all doctoral level English teachers by replacing them with other level teachers constitutes a discontinuance of one of the three positions of English teacher. Yet, that is exactly what the school district seeks to do in the case of the position of school nurse. Since the school district is not discontinuing the position of school nurse, Krug cannot be placed on leave under the rationale that her position will be discontinued.
Krug, 293 N.W.2d at 31-32. See also Berland v. Special School District No. 1, 314 N.W.2d 809, 811 (Minn.1981) (“the ‘position’ of a teacher cannot be defined too narrowly”). Thus, I would hold that it was arbitrary and capricious for the school district to find that Blank, a licensed elementary education teacher, was not “qualified” as having “successfully taught” elementary education classes when she had continuous*655ly taught such elementary subjects as arithmetic, spelling and reading to her visually handicapped students.