Court Opinion

ID: 9645388
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:23:23.520231+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:12:45.047886
License: Public Domain

VERNIERO, J.,
concurring.
I join in the Court’s thoughtful and comprehensive opinion. I write separately to emphasize that although the Court discusses the contours of Woolley v. Hoffmann-La Roche, Inc., 99 N.J. 284, 491 A.2d 1257, modified on other grounds, 101 N.J. 10, 499 A.2d 515 (1985), it does so only in the course of concluding that the doctrine of Woolley does not apply. Indeed, this Court has never directly extended the requirements of Woolley to public employers, and recently declined an invitation to so do. See Golden v. County of Union, 163 N.J. 420, 431, 749 A.2d 842 (2000) (concluding that public employee’s reliance on Woolley was misplaced in view of statutory language establishing employee’s at-will employment status). See also Walsh v. State, 147 N.J. 595, 689 A.2d 131 (1997) (affirming determination that implied-eontract doctrine should not apply to public employee’s action in view of at-will relationship created by statute).
Moreover, in a case involving a county adjuster whose appointment was governed by statute, we did not imply a fixed term of employment or impose one on the public employer. DiPaolo v. Passaic County Bd. of Chosen Freeholders, 322 N.J.Super. 487, 493, 731 A.2d 519 (App.Div.1999) (holding that “the public employment relationship derives from applicable statutory schemes and not from an independent contract between public employer and employee”), aff'd o.b., 162 N.J. 572, 745 A.2d 540 (2000).
*386Nor do I consider that the Court’s reliance on Shebar v. Sanyo Business Systems Corp., 111 N.J. 276, 544 A.2d 377 (1988), suggests that implied contracts may now be routinely recognized between public employers and employees. Shebar is cited merely as an example of a case in which the Court, applying traditional principles of contract formation, concluded that material issues of fact precluded summary judgment. Such is the ease here.
Granting them all favorable inferences due under Brill v. Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America, 142 N.J. 520, 666 A.2d 146 (1995), plaintiffs are entitled to have a jury determine whether the parties had formed individual calendar-year contracts. In making that determination, jurors should rely not on Woolley or its doctrine of implied contracts, but on the more traditional tenets of contract law used in this setting. I also consider the Court’s holding to be limited by the idiosyncratic facts of this case. In my view, then, the Court’s holding would not extend to any case resembling Golden, DiPaolo, or Walsh, in which the employment relationship derives from a clear statutory scheme.
For those reasons, I join in the Court’s disposition and consider it to be the correct one.
Justices COLEMAN and LaVECCHIA join in this opinion.
For reversal and remandment — Chief Justice PORITZ and Justices STEIN, COLEMAN, LONG, VERNIERO, LaVECCHIA and ZAZZALI — 7.
Opposed — None.