Court Opinion

ID: 9692800
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:06:05.059861+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:37.020818
License: Public Domain

YETKA, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. While it is true that the contract in this case conflicts with Minn.Stat. § 125.17, subd. 11 (1984), the legislature specifically granted the Duluth School District power to negotiate a contract which “may include a method, system or scheme other than that provided by Minnesota Statutes, Section 125.17, Subdivision 11, or any act amendatory thereof.” Act of March 25, 1974, ch. 237, § 1, 1974 Minn. Laws 367. The language of the statute could not be clearer. It allows the school district and its employees to negotiate, as they did, a seniority and recall provision without regard to subdivision 11 of chapter 125.17.
This intent is clearly seen in the legislative history of chapter 237. An amendment ensuring the seniority rights of administrators was proposed in 1978. It provided that:
Any written agreement authorized by Section 1 of this act shall not alter or abridge the rights of other certificated employees governed by Minnesota Statute, 1977 Supplement, Section 125.17, subdivision 11, if they become subject to such agreement.
S.F. # 1781 § 85 (1978). Senator Borden moved to strike the proposed amendment as an unwarranted legislative interference in the collective bargaining procedures authorized by chapter 237. Testimony of Senator Borden, Minnesota Senate, Finance Committee, March 6, 1978. The motion carried, striking the amendment.
In any event, at oral argument, the attorney for the school district admitted that the Board of Education and the Duluth Federation of Teachers negotiated a separate contract and that that contract did in fact affect the seniority rights of not only teachers, but principals as well when and if the principals wanted to return to teaching and that the special legislation applying to the City of Duluth, Chapter 237, was sought and passed to sanction such a contract. Yet, the Board of Education now takes the position that the act is not broad enough to affect seniority rights of the administrators. The reason given is that the Board of Education never expected that economic conditions would reach the point where it would affect the necessity of discharging school administrators and principals. They now argue that the statute they presumably helped prepare and supported for passage is not broad enough to cover administrators or affect their seniority. I find it outrageous that the school board would knowingly participate in drafting and lobbying for a statute that they admit was intended to affect the very purposes accomplished by the collective bargaining agreement and yet say that the statute was not drafted effectively enough to accomplish the purpose so that they can now slip out of the scope of the statute.
Interpreting the statute to allow negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement which divests administrators of seniority rights raises the issue of whether the administrators had a property right in their seniority status which was deprived without due process of law. Whether one has a property right depends on whether a person is entitled to it for the period of time in question. Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 576-77, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2708-09, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972). Seniority rights under *839collective bargaining agreements still in effect are property rights. See, e.g., Nord v. Griffin, 86 F.2d 481, 483 (7th Cir.1936), cert. denied, 300 U.S. 673, 57 S.Ct. 612, 81 L.Ed. 879 (1937). Seniority rights are, however, generally the creation of the collective bargaining agreement and only survive for the life of that agreement. Cooper v. General Motors Corp., 651 F.2d 249, 250-51 (5th Cir.1981).
The seniority rights in this case were, in the first instance, a legislative grant. See Cournoyer v. American Television & Radio Co., 249 Minn. 577, 581, 83 N.W.2d 409, 412 (1957). The legislature, however, granted an exemption from the seniority statute. While seniority rights given by statute cannot normally be contracted away, here the seniority rights were contracted away under specific legislative authorization. As in the private sector situation, where seniority rights only survive the life of a collective bargaining agreement, this statutory grant of seniority rights only survives the statute granting them. Since the legislature granted an exemption from section 125.17, subdivision 11 to Duluth, the administrators had no property right to seniority. Thus, there could be no deprivation without due process.
Since the collective bargaining agreement was negotiated in accordance with chapter 237,1 would reverse the trial court.