Court Opinion

ID: 9774465
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:21:33.599805+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:08.731168
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
PER CURIAM:
The motion for rehearing presents no matter not already argued, taken up and answered in the opinion. In the brief, as well as on rehearing, the School District insinuates the argument that to construe the Tentative Agreement, as we do, to mean that the date of termination [and hence, of rehire under the agreement] was April 25, 1977, infringes the legislative authority of that public body, and so comes under the interdiction of City of Springfield v. Clouse, 356 Mo. 1239, 206 S.W.2d 539 (banc 1947). That follows [we assume the argument means] because then Phipps, who was fired along with the other some one-hundred-or-so nonteachers for work absence, and was then rehired under the compulsion of the circuit court order we later invalidated, and was in that interim demoted for work performance, would be restored to his original work status — a result which nullifies the School Board decision to reduce Phipps.
Our opinion responds to that contention, and in the usual course, the reassertion on motion for rehearing would constitute rear-gument and merit only disregard. Rule 84.17. In the interim since opinion and the motion for rehearing, however, our Supreme Court in Sumpter v. City of Moberly, 645 S.W.2d 359 (Mo. banc 1982) explicated Clouse further. The opinion was, not available to either party. In the interest of fairness, we reconsider the contention of the School District in the perspective of *107Sumpter. We conclude, as before, that neither Clouse nor [now] Sumpter impinges on our decision.
Clouse holds, and Sumpter follows, that the Missouri Constitution prevents the legislature or other public body from the consummation of a collective bargaining contract to fix terms and conditions of the public employment. To do so violates the principle of the separation of powers and constitutes an unlawful delegation of the legislative authority. That interdiction applies as well to an administrative body. Sumpter, at p. 362; § 105.520. Neither Clouse nor Sumpter affects our opinion, for these reasons:
The quid pro quo for the Tentative Agreement [as its very terms declare] was the dismissal of the multicount § 1983 class action in the federal court to recover damages against the School Board for the en masse discharge of the nonteacher personnel, and not to set conditions of public employment by collective bargaining. It was to relieve that possibility of judgment which prompted the School District to probe for a settlement with the plaintiffs [coincidentally public employees] and to restore them to employment. The School Board does not disavow the Tentative Agreement, even now. It simply does not agree that the construction we give to its terms [a construction we discern from the intention the School Board itself meant and practiced for the date of termination terminology] should allow the incidental effect of restoration of employee Phipps to a position he lost in the interim by demotion. The School Board has insisted — and our opinion holds— however, that the singular position of Phipps was never a subject of contract discussion. The preoccupation was with the class who were the plaintiffs in the federal action — and coincidentally nonteacher public employees. The argument of the School Board reduces to an anomaly: not only was the consideration for the Tentative Agreement the dismissal of the federal court action, but the correlative effect was to restore the employees to the status and conditions of work set unilaterally by the public body before the teacher strike, before the work absence in sympathy — and involved no collectively bargained modification of that unqualified legislative exercise. In fact, as our opinion notes — and as our quashal of the circuit court order shows [School District of Kansas City v. Clymer, 554 S.W.2d 483 (Mo.App.1977) ], the legislative authority of the public body for autonomous acceptance, rejection, or modification of wage and work conditions has been confirmed throughout. Our opinion continues that vindication.
We assume, for argument, that the Tentative Agreement somehow constitutes a collectively bargained contract to fix terms and conditions of public employment and conclude nevertheless that neither Clouse nor Sumpter impairs our opinion. In that case, the Tentative Agreement — the contract, as such — does not bind the public body, but the formal action of the public body does. Moreover, that formal action continues to govern until superseded by another formal action. Sumpter states the principle [pp. 362-363]:
Clearly, the decision in Clouse says that an administrative body cannot decide to and then enter into a collective bargaining agreement. Such action would violate applicable constitutional restrictions regarding separation of powers. It seems clear, therefore, that the General Assembly was saying in § 105.520 only that when a proposal is submitted to a public body [whether it be an administrative, legislative or other governing body], it has a duty to consider and act on such proposal. It may reject, modify or adopt. If it decides to adopt the proposal, it does so by ordinance, resolution or other appropriate form, depending on the nature of the public body. The result will be an administrative rule, an ordinance, a resolution, or something else which governs wages and working conditions, but it will not be a binding collective bargaining contract, [emphasis added]
Then, to give emphasis to this essential rationale, the majority adds in footnote 4:
*108Judge Seiler’s dissent suggests that by this language the Court in holding that the ordinance adopted by the City Council has no binding effect. This is not what we hold. The ordinance, just as any city ordinance, governs and is binding until changed by appropriate action. We hold only that this ordinance did not result in a collective bargaining contract which could be changed only with union approval. [emphasis added]
The formal resolution of the School Board adopted the Tentative Agreement, so that the effect of that consensus [if not as a valid contract] was that of an “appropriate action” [Sumpter, supra] which lawfully governed the conditions of wage and work expressed in the Tentative Agreement. It was, if not an enforceable contract because a collective bargain as to the work and employment subject, then a legitimate exercise of legislative authority which continues in effect and binds “until changed by appropriate action.” [Sumpter, footnote 4] The resolution of the School Board remains in effect. That public body does not repudiate the content of the resolution, even now. It does not ask to avoid the restoration of the nonteacher employee class to the prestrike status — terms and conditions of employment set by that public body autonomously. It does not ask for reinstatement of the federal court litigation. It does not claim that the innumerable nonteacher employees restored to employment under the Tentative Agreement [or, under the formal resolution] infringed a legislative sovereignty. It complains only that construction of a contract term which restores all members of the class to the prestrike status — as the resolution [or contract] expresses — but incidentally favors Phipps, infringes a legislative prerogative. Our opinion holds that the Tentative Agreement was an exercise of the power to settle litigation and that the benefit Phipps derived was an incident of that settlement. We conclude nevertheless for the reasons we give, that were the Tentative Agreement a contract collectively bargained, the express terms of the resolution which encompassed those terms was a legislative sanction of the restoration of employment — Phipps included — a sanction still in effect and so beyond any cavil.
The motion for rehearing is denied.