Court Opinion

ID: 9699571
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:34:08.378114+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:55.493925
License: Public Domain

Justice RIVERA-SOTO,
dissenting.
Under the mantle of “reaffirm[ing] principles established in Lullo v. International Ass’n of Fire Fighters, 55 N.J. 409, 428, 262 A.2d 681 (1970), and Troy v. Rutgers, 168 N.J. 354, 375-76, 774 A.2d 476 (2001),” the majority “eonclude[s] that when provisions in an individual employment contract conflict with the terms in a [collective negotiations agreement (CNA) ], and diminish or interfere with rights provided by the CNA, the language in the individual contract must yield to the collective agreement.” Ante at 329, 972 A.2d at 392. The majority also asserts that, in doing so, it has taken an “approach [that] is consistent with the Legislature’s recent command that in interpreting the meaning of a grievance arbitration clause, ‘doubts should be resolved in favor of *335requiring arbitration.’ Ante at 323, 972 A.2d at 389 (quoting N.J.S.A 34:13A-5.3”). The majority therefore determines that, “on remand, [the employee whose individual employment contract was terminated pursuant to that contract] is entitled to a hearing before an arbitrator to address the grievance filed [under the CNA].” Ante at 323, 972 A.2d at 389.
Because the majority’s reasoning and conclusion are in error, I respectfully dissent.
I.
The majority aptly summarizes the facts relevant to this appeal. I underscore, however, the following.
On May 5, 2005, plaintiff Mt. Holly Township Board of Education (Board of Education) and defendant Juan Gonzalez entered into a written one-year contract, to run from July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006, whereby Gonzalez would serve as a custodian in plaintiffs schools. That contract specifically, clearly and unequivocally provided as follows:
It is hereby agreed by the parties hereto that this contract may at any time be terminated by either party giving to the other fourteen day[s’] notice in writing of intention to terminate the same, but that in the absence of any provision herein for a definite number of days’ notice, the contract shall run for the full term named above.
Tellingly, Gonzalez does not claim that the termination of his employment contract was in any wise proeedurally improper: the requisite notice of termination in the proper form was in fact provided to him.1
*336By virtue of his employment, Gonzalez also was a member of the Mt. Holly Township Education Association (Union). Section IX(B) of the then relevant CNA between the Board of Education and the Union provided that “[n]o employee shall be discharged, disciplined, reprimanded, reduced in rank or compensation, or deprived of any professional advantage or given an adverse evaluation of his/her professional services without just cause” and that “[a]ny such action asserted by the Board [of Education] or any agent or representative thereof, shall be subject to the grievance procedure herein set forth.” In addition to a general grievance procedure described in Section II, below, a specific “employee rights” procedure applicable to custodians, as set forth in Section IX(E)(3) of the CNA, provided in full as follows:
Any employee who does not receive a new contract!,] or whose services are terminated or suspended!,] or who is disciplined or reprimanded!,] or who is reduced in rank or compensation shall within five (5) working days request in writing directed to the Superintendent a statement of reasons for the above mentioned. Said statement of reasons shall be given to the employee within seven (7) working days after the receipt of the request. In addition, the employee shall be granted a hearing before the Board of Education [it] the employee requests the same. Said request for a hearing shall be in writing and made within five (5) working days of the receipt of the statement of reasons. The Board [of Education] shall hold its hearing at its regular board meeting unless the next regularly scheduled Board [of Education] meeting is less than ten (10) days from the date of the request for the hearing is received. In that event, the hearing shall be continued until the next following regularly scheduled Board [of Education] meeting. The employee must be present at the hearing- and shall have at his/her option the right to have a representative present. The Board of Education shall issue to the employee a written determination within seven (7) working days after the completion of the hearing. The above time limits set forth in this document may be altered by mutual consent of the parties. The Superintendent shall meet privately with all employees who will not be renewed or who are terminated, prior to official written notification.
This provision may be deemed, in large measure, superfluous. Pui’suant to N.J.S.A. 18A:27-4.1, an “employee whose employment contract is not renewed shall have the right to a written statement *337of reasons for nonrenewal pursuant to [N.J.S.A. 18A:27-3.2]2 and to an informal appearance before the board.” Section 4.1 explains that “[t]he purpose of the appearance shall be to permit the staff member to convince the members of the board to offer reemployment.” Ibid. It also requires that “[t]he chief school administrator shall notify the officer or employee of the nonrenewal[.]” Ibid.
In respect of custodians, however, this contractual provision has independent importance. Unlike untenured teachers, who have a statutory right to receive either a written contract of employment, N.J.S.A 18A:27-10, or a notice of nonrenewal, N.J.S.A. 18A:27-3.2, “[e]very public school janitor of a school district shall, unless he is appointed for a fixed term, hold his office, position or employment under tenure during good behavior and efficiency and shall not be dismissed or suspended or reduced in compensation.” N.J.S.A. 18A:17-3. That said, N.J.S.A. 18A:17-41 specifically provides that “[t]he board of education of each district shall make such rules and regulations, not inconsistent with this title, as may be necessary for the employment, discharge, management and control of the public school janitor, janitor engineers, custodians or janitorial employees of the district.”
As permitted by N.J.S.A. 18A:17-3, Gonzalez and the Board of Education agreed, in writing, that Gonzalez would be employed as a custodian for a period of one year and, more to the point, that his employment could be terminated—by either side—on fourteen days’ notice. That termination by notice provision gives rise to this dispute.
II.
Against this backdrop, the majority concludes that “Gonzalez’s individual employment contract conflicts with and diminishes his *338rights under the CNA and must yield to the collective agreement[ and that h]e is therefore entitled to an arbitration hearing.” Ante at 329-30, 972 A.2d at 392-93. There is, in the end, no real and true conflict between Gonzalez’s individual employment contract and the CNA For that reason and for the reasons so cogently set forth by both the trial court and the Appellate Division, I disagree.
The fatal flaw in the majority’s reasoning is its uncritical acceptance of the ersatz proposition that the termination of Gonzalez’s contract somehow conflicts with and therefore is subject to the general grievance procedure under the CNA That assumption is wrong.
Section XV(A)(1) of the CNA defines a “grievance” as “an allegation that there has been a breach, misrepresentation or improper application of the terms of this Agreement, or a claimed violation, misinterpretation, or misapplication of rules or regulations, existing policies, or administrative decisions that affect the terms and conditions of employment.” Yet, neither Gonzalez nor the Union ever alleged that anything in the termination of Gonzalez’s written contract of employment constituted either “a breach, misrepresentation or improper application of the terms of this Agreement[.]” Nor did either Gonzalez or the Union ever claim that the termination of Gonzalez’s employment with the Board of Educations constituted a “claimed violation, misinterpretation, or misapplication of rules or regulations, existing policies, or administrative decisions that affect the terms and conditions of employment.” In short, Gonzalez’s claims patently do not satisfy the CNA’s definition of a “grievance” and, for that reason, the general grievance procedure under the CNA is not triggered. The necessary corollary to that conclusion also is compelled: when fairly read and interpreted in the context presented to us, Gonzalez’s individual employment contract and the CNA can and do coexist, side by side, without conflict. In those circumstances, it is our unwavering obligation to enforce the bargain as struck between the parties. That bargain was that Gonzalez’s employment could be terminated by the Board of Education on fourteen days’ notice.
*339Focusing on Pascack Valley Regional High School Board of Education v. Pascack Valley Regional Support Staff Association, 192 N.J. 489, 933 A.2d 589 (2007), the Appellate Division explained that it “also involved a custodian who was terminated by the employer board of education in accordance with his individual employment contract, which was identical to the individual contract involved in this appeal except that it provided for fifteen, rather than fourteen, days notice of termination” (citing Pascack Valley, supra, 192 N.J. at 492-93, 933 A.2d 589). It noted that “[t]he employment relationship of the custodian involved in Pascack Valley, as in this case, was governed by a collectively negotiated agreement between the custodian’s union and the employer board of education” (citing id. at 491-92, 933 A.2d 589), and that the Pascack Valley “agreement contained a provision prohibiting the discharge of any employee ‘without just cause’ and subjecting any such employment action to the grievance procedures of the contract” (citing ibid.). The panel underscored that “[t]he grievance provision of the collectively negotiated agreement involved in Pascack Valley was almost identical to the one involved in this appeal except that it contained an additional sentence, which we consider to be dispositive of this appeal.” That additional sentence provided that “[a]ny dismissal or suspension shall be considered a disciplinary action and shall at the option of the custodian ... be subject to the Grievance Procedure.” Pascack Valley, supra, 192 N.J. at 492, 933 A.2d 589.
The Appellate Division correctly observed that, “[i]n concluding that the custodian involved in Pascack Valley was entitled to pursue a grievance, including arbitration of his termination for disciplinary reasons, the Court characterized the underscored sentence as ‘expansive in its scope’ ” (citing id. at 499, 933 A.2d 589). It further explained that, in Pascack Valley, “[this] Court observed that this provision specified that any dismissal of a custodian would be considered to be a disciplinary action subject to a just cause analysis, and it gave the custodian the option to pursue a grievance and arbitration of any dismissal” (citing ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted)). It quoted at length the *340following passage from Pascack Valley, supra, 192 N.J. at 499, 933 A.2d 589:
Under these circumstances, the use of the individual contract’s termination clause was not a termination for reason other than one that falls, by agreement, within the terms of the CNA. Rather, it was an effort to use the individual contract to bypass the protections that the Board agreed in the CNA would apply to discipline of all employees. As such, it was the disciplinary measure of dismissal that the CNA specifically gave the custodian the right to grieve through the arbitration mechanism.
The panel’s analysis aptly paralleled that of this Court in Pascack Valley: the CNA between the Board of Education and the Union “did not contain the additional provision the Court found to be critical in Pascack Valley—that ‘[a]ny dismissal or suspension shall be considered a disciplinary action and shall at the option of the custodian ... be subject to the Grievance Procedure.’ ” (citing id. at 492, 933 A.2d 589). Rightly focusing on “the absence of this provision or any comparable provision that confers upon an employee subject to an individual employment contract the right to grieve a termination in accordance with the terms of that contract,” the Appellate Division “concluded that the Board was entitled to terminate Gonzalez on fourteen days notice without showing just cause or having its termination decision subject to the grievance procedures of the collective negotiating agreement.”
That conclusion is unassailable. It also compels the rejection of the majority’s reasoning that indiscriminately would sweep in all terms of individual contracts within the limited embrace of a CNA. The proper scope of analysis remains as we described in Pascack Valley: breathing relevant meaning into the words to which the parties have agreed, without exceeding the agreed-upon parameters of those agreements. Because individual employment contracts are commonplace and, in some instances, required in the public education sphere, it is incumbent on the parties to a CNA to make absolutely clear any desire to have the more general provisions of the CNA overrule an individual contract’s specific provisions. That result readily could have been achieved with the inclusion of the additional contractual language found dispositive *341in Pascack Valley but utterly absent here.3 Also, that result easily could have been achieved by expanding the definition of “grievance” to include the termination of an employee’s individual contract, which, again, was not done here. Because neither effort was undertaken here, I would enforce the parties’ agreement as written, and not as embellished and enhanced by the majority.
III.
It is important to recognize—as the Appellate Division correctly did—that barring Gonzalez from recourse to the grievance procedure under the CNA does not leave him without a remedy. The panel properly recognized that “the ‘employee rights’ article of the collectively negotiated agreement established a procedure under which any employee whose contract was terminated or not renewed could obtain a statement of reasons for the employment action by the Superintendent of Schools and a hearing before the Board of Education.” It observed that “this procedure applies both to terminations and to nonrenewals of employment contracts, *342which are expressly excluded from the definition of ‘grievance’ under the [CNA.]” It therefore concluded that “an employee could invoke the rights provided thereunder even if the Board’s employment action is not subject to the grievance procedures of the [CNA].” And, as noted earlier in this opinion, those rights exist independently of the CNA; they are mandated by state law, namely, the interplay between N.J.S.A. 18A:27-4.1 and N.J.S.A. 18A:27-3.2.
The “employee rights” provision reflected in the CNA and state law is not an empty promise; they entail a statutorily designed system of procedures and appeals that greatly overshadows the limited appeal rights available from an arbitration award. Under that system, decisions by a board of education are reviewable in the first instance by the State Commissioner of Education. See N.J.S.A. 18A:6-9 (providing that “[t]he commissioner shall have jurisdiction to hear and determine, without cost to the parties, all controversies and disputes arising under the school laws, excepting those governing higher education, or under the rules of the state board or of the commissioner”). In turn, decisions of the State Commissioner of Education are reviewed as of right by the Appellate Division. See N.J.S.A 18A:6-9.1(a) (explaining that “[notwithstanding the provisions of any law or regulation to the contrary, on and after the effective date [July 7, 2008] of this act determinations made by the Commissioner of Education in all controversies and disputes arising under the school laws shall be considered to be final agency action under the ‘Administrative Procedure Act,’ P.L.1968, c. 410 (C.52:14B-1 et seq.), and appeal of that action shall be directly to the Appellate Division of the Superior Court”).4 Yet, neither Gonzalez nor the Union ever invoked those “employee rights.”
*343In light of the “employee rights” contractual and statutory decision review and appeals procedures attendant to the Board of Education’s determination to terminate Gonzalez’s employment, one is at a loss to fathom the majority’s approach. The proper course would be that the as-of-right termination of a custodian’s contract of employment be reviewed first by the relevant board of education, then by the State Commissioner of Education, and then by the Appellate Division.
TV.
The appeal by Gonzalez and the Union fails in every meaningful respect: the termination of Gonzalez’s employment contract was procedurally and substantively proper; there is no conflict between Gonzalez’s individual employment contract and the CNA, much less one to justify nullifying portions of the individual contract; that termination does not fall within the definition of a “grievance” necessary as a condition precedent to trigger the grievance procedure under the CNA; Gonzalez never invoked the “employee rights” available to him under the CNA and as a matter of state law; and Gonzalez never sought to vindicate his rights via the appeals procedure provided to him. For each of those reasons, I respectfully dissent.
For reversal and remandment—Chief Justice RABNER and Justices LONG, ALBIN and WALLACE—4.
For affirmance—Justices LaVECCHIA, RIVERA-SOTO and HOENS—3.

 Also, no quarrel is asserted explicitly in this record over the basis of Gonzalez’s employment termination: the fact that Gonzalez struck another custodian. Although the majority asserts that “[t]he basis for the Union's grievance is that Gonzalez was discharged without a showing of just cause, as required by Article IX(b) of the CNA[,]” ante at 329-30, 972 A.2d at 392-93, neither the grievance nor the later arbitration demand filed by the Union on Gonzalez’s behalf is reproduced anywhere in this record. Therefore, one cannot tell with certainty whether Gonzalez objected to the basis for his termination, or *336the sanction imposed as a result thereof, or the manner in which either was reached, or any combination thereof.

 N.J.S.A. 18A:27-3.2 provides that "[a]ny teaching staff member receiving notice that a teaching contract for the succeeding school year will not be offered may, within 15 days thereafter, request in writing a statement of the reasons for such nonemployment which shall be given to the teaching staff member in writing within 30 days after the receipt of such request.”

 Significantly, in Pascack Valley we noted "the particular circumstances of this matter, where the parties have agreed that the nontenured school employees may only be disciplined for just cause and have defined any dismissal as a disciplinary action subject to the grievance procedures at the employees' option," supra, 192 NJ. at 491, 933 A.2d 589 (emphasis supplied). In that distinct context, we pointedly observed that the
CNA provisions [in Pascack Valley J demonstrate that the parties agreed that, notwithstanding the terms of the individual contracts and the employer's unfettered right to terminate [an employee] on fifteen days' notice, where plaintiff did so only as a surrogate for a disciplinary proceeding, the act of termination became an act of discipline that the parties had specifically negotiated and agreed would be grievable at the custodian's option.
[Id. at 499, 933 A.2d 589.]
The facts in this case stand in stark contrast to Pascack Valley. This record is utterly barren of any proofs that the parties ever negotiated, bargained for, or even discussed that the CNA would supersede and supplant the terms of any individual employment contracts or that the termination of an individual employment contract pursuant to its terms automatically would be subject to the CNA's grievance procedures. Yet, that is the necessary result reached by the majority.

 Prior to July 7, 2008, appeals from the decisions of the State Commissioner of Education were to the then-State Board of Education. See former N.J.S.A. 18A:6-27, repealed by L. 2008, c. 36, § 7 (eff. July 7, 2008).