Court Opinion

ID: 9558079
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:02:35.696239+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:08:17.179712
License: Public Domain

RABINO WITZ, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I disagree with the court’s holding that the “various communications between Griffin and representatives of the school district constitute the required notice.” Thus, I would reverse the superior court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the Galena City School District.
AS 14.20.140(b) requires the “employer” to provide written notice to a teacher of nonretention on or before the last day of the school term. In my view, none of the rationales advanced by the court in support of its affirmance of the superior court are persuasive.
*833Although the school'principal’s evaluation letter expressed her understanding that Griffin had been hired for one year only, she was not his “employer.” There is no indication in the record that the principal was authorized to make nonretention decisions or that she had been given the authority by the Galena City School District to communicate to Griffin its decision not to retain him.
The “Notification of Termination” form that Griffin filled out reads in part: “This is to certify that as of 5/25/79, I will/did terminate my employment with the Galena City ... School District.” In my view this form was intended to permit a teacher to convey notice of termination to the Alaska Teachers’ Retirement System; it can not be reasonably read as conveying any sort of notice from the school district to a teacher. It strikes me that this fact, along with the superintendent’s assurance that the form did not constitute notice of termination, precludes reliance on the document as a basis for sustaining the superior court’s grant of summary judgment.
I also disagree with the court’s reliance on the May 18, 1978 notice of position vacancies, which described the job for which Griffin had applied as a one year position. The employment contract which Griffin signed on June 21, 1978, is an integrated agreement. AS 14.20.140(b) is considered part of that agreement.
[Applicable laws in existence at the time of the formulation of the contract and which the parties are presumed to know are incorporated into the contract and become a part of it as though they had been expressly set out in the contract.
Skagway City School Board v. Davis, 543 P.2d 218, 222 (Alaska 1975) (footnote omitted).1 Thus, I would conclude that the contract the parties executed on June 21 required the school district to give timely notice to Griffin of its intention not to retain him. Since the school district failed to do so, I would reverse the superior court’s entry of summary judgment in the school district’s favor.

. Thus, me notice provisions of AS 14.20.140(b) supersede any “antecedent understandings” which are inconsistent with it. Kupka v. Morey, 541 P.2d 740, 747 n.9 (Alaska 1975). See also Johnson v. Curran, 633 P.2d 994 (Alaska 1981).