Court Opinion

ID: 9800509
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 08:21:20.697976+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:43:56.643650
License: Public Domain

*622CROTHERS, Justice,
dissenting.
[¶ 27] I agree the holding in Dickinson Educ. Ass’n v. Dickinson Pub. Sch. Dist., 499 N.W.2d 120 (N.D.1993) (‘‘Dickinson II ”) is dispositive of this appeal. Majority opinion at ¶ 14. I respectfully disagree that the facts as found by the district court, when applied to that law, establish the required “clear legal right to performance of the particular act sought to be compelled by the writ.” Id. at ¶ 10 (citations omitted). I would hold that the district court abused its discretion by misapplying the law, and would reverse and vacate the writ.
[¶ 28] The record shows the District and the Association held ten collective bargaining meetings between December 11, 2012 and May 22, 2013. Starting at the February 13, 2013 meeting, the parties began negotiating a two-year contract, just as they had done successfully during every other year for the last ten years. In 2012 and 2013, only a two-year contract was negotiated at every meeting up to the final meeting on May 22. Then, on the brink of declaration of an impasse, the Association first introduced the notion of a one-year contract. Until that change in position, the sticking point was whether an additional professional development day would be required in year two of the contract. The two-year contract duration had never been a point of contention.
[¶ 29] The district court made findings about the history of these parties negotiating two-year contacts: “The terms and conditions of the prior negotiated agreement carry over to the next year unless the conditions are modified, changed or deleted. The [Association] and the District have negotiated and agreed to a two-year negotiated agreement for the last ten years.” The district court also found “the parties entered into a negotiation process under N.D.C.C. Ch. 15.1-16 and had meetings between December 11, 2012 and May 22, 2013, with the declaration of impasse as the District determined that continued negotiations were nonproductive. Both the [Association] and the District agreed they were at impasse at the May 22, 2013 meeting.”
[¶ 30] Regarding contract term negotiations, the district court found that “[during the negotiation process, the parties discussed various issues. During the negotiation process, the [Association] and the District were attempting to negotiate a two-year agreement which would cover the 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years. There was no agreement between the [Association] and the District on the establishment of a two-year negotiated agreement.”
[¶ 31] The holding in Dickinson II is that school boards cannot “unilaterally issue last-offer contracts containing provisions that, while not applicable to the school year that is the subject of negotiation, are applicable to a future year not yet under negotiation.” 499 N.W.2d at 126. That holding does not prohibit an agreement for two years. Rather, the holding recognizes the disparate bargaining power between the parties and prohibits a school board from imposing contract terms that have not been the subject of negotiation. See Id. at 125-26 (holding the Association’s assertion is correct that “if the District is going to ... unilaterally issue contracts on its ‘last offer’ that last offer is limited to contractual provisions for the school year which is the subject of negotiations and no others”).
[¶ 32] “[T]o ‘negotiate’ simply means to present proposals and offer counterpropo-sals, to discuss proposals, to carry on a dialogue, to exchange ideas, all for the purpose of persuading or being persuaded by logic and reasoning.” Edgeley Educ. Ass’n v. Edgeley Pub. Sch. Dist. No. 3, 256 N.W.2d 348, 352 (N.D.1977). Here, the parties had a ten-year history of negotiating two-year contracts. For this contract, *623the parties negotiated a two-year contract up until the brink of declaring an impasse. Under the law and these facts, I believe the district court erred in reaching two of its conclusions of law:
“The attempt to negotiate a two-year negotiated agreement during the negotiation process and throughout the Education Fact Finding Commission process, does not, under the facts of this case, allow the District to unilaterally issue contract offers for two school years.
“The last offer of the District contained provisions for the 2013-14 school year and the 2014-15 school year. Based upon the limitations placed upon school districts in making unilateral offers as established by the North Dakota Supreme Court in [Dickinson II], the unilateral offer of a two-year negotiated agreement violates [Dickinson II] and is not lawful in North Dakota.”
[¶ 33] Instead, North Dakota law does authorize the District to unilaterally issue contracts for two school years when that was the contract duration negotiated by the parties from December 11, 2012 to near the end of the last negotiations meeting on May 22, 2013. Holding otherwise dilutes protections afforded to both negotiating parties that last-offer contracts are limited to issues negotiated by the parties. See Dickinson II, 499 N.W.2d at 125-26.
[1134] DANIEL J. CROTHERS