Struthers City Schools Bd. of Educ. v. Struthers Educ. Ass'n, 82-746

• Citation: 6 Ohio St.3d 308,6 OBR 368,453 N.E.2d 613
• Decision Date: 31 August 1983
• Docket Number: No. 82-746,82-746
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Ohio
• Parties: , 117 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2868, 13 Ed. Law Rep. 461, 6 O.B.R. 368 STRUTHERS CITY SCHOOLS BOARD OF EDUCATION, Appellee, v. STRUTHERS EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, Appellant.

Page 308

6 Ohio St.3d 308

453 N.E.2d 613, 117 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2868, 13 Ed. Law Rep. 461,

6 O.B.R. 368

STRUTHERS CITY SCHOOLS BOARD OF EDUCATION, Appellee, v. STRUTHERS EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, Appellant.

No. 82-746.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Aug. 31, 1983.

Syllabus by the Court

Contractually created procedural requirements relating to the nonrenewal of teachers' limited employment contracts, contained in collective bargaining agreements and arrived at through open negotiation, are enforceable so long as the procedures do not directly conflict with R.C. 3319.11 (Dayton Teachers Assn. v. Dayton Bd. of Edn., 41 Ohio St.2d 127, 323 N.E.2d 714 , approved and followed.)

Theodore D'Alesio, a member of defendant-appellant, Struthers Education Association (hereinafter "association"), was employed for nineteen years by plaintiff-appellee, Struthers City Schools Board of Education (hereinafter "board"), as a nontenured health education teacher. On April 29, 1980, in compliance with R.C. 3319.11, D'Alesio received written notice from the board that his limited contract would not be renewed for the 1980-1981 school year. He was not, however, given the written anticipatory notice of his termination or a post-termination conference with the superintendent, as were required under the collective bargaining agreement in existence between the association and the board.

On May 16, 1980, again pursuant to the procedures outlined in the collective bargaining agreement, D'Alesio requested a hearing concerning the renewal of his teaching contract. The board denied his request.

D'Alesio thereafter filed a grievance, protesting the board's failure to comply with several provisions in the collective bargaining agreement relating to fair practice and dismissal standards. Specifically, the charges related to the board's failure to provide D'Alesio with written anticipatory notice, post-termination conference, or written reasons upon which the board's decision not to renew was based, and its refusal to grant D'Alesio a hearing at which time the teacher would be afforded the opportunity to refute those charges and cross-examine witnesses.

In accordance with the contract, the dispute was submitted to arbitration and, after a full hearing, the arbitrator concluded that the board had failed to adhere to the fair dismissal provisions of the collective bargaining agreement. The arbitrator ordered the board to reinstate D'Alesio with back pay relying on the following provision contained in the collective bargaining agreement:

"If any certified staff member for whom a grievance is sustained shall have been unjustly discharged, he shall be reinstated with full reimbursement of all professional compensation lost. * * * "

The board then filed a motion in the Court of Common Pleas of Mahoning County to vacate the arbitration award. The trial court eventually found in favor of the board ¹ and the association appealed.

The court of appeals affirmed the trial court's vacation of the arbitration award, holding that the fair dismissal policy contained in the collective bargaining agreement was unenforceable and the arbitrator exceeded his authority in reinstating D'Alesio with back pay.

The cause is now before this court pursuant to the allowance of a motion to certify the record.

Henderson, Covington, Stein, Donchess & Messenger and James L. Messenger, Youngstown, for appellee.

Green, Schiavoni, Murphy, Haines & Sgambati Co., L.P.A., Eugene Green, Dennis Haines, Barry Laine and Ira J. Mirkin, Youngstown, for appellant.

Means, Bichimer, Burkholder & Baker Co., L.P.A., and Robert T. Baker, Columbus, urging affirmance for amicus curiae, Ohio School Boards Association.

CLIFFORD F. BROWN, Justice.

R.C. 3319.11 sets forth certain procedures which must be followed by a board of education when termination of a nontenured teacher's employment is contemplated. It provides in pertinent part:

"Any teacher employed under a limited contract, and not eligible to be considered for a continuing contract, is, at the expiration of such limited contract, deemed re-employed under the provisions of this section at the same salary plus any increment provided by the salary schedule unless the employing board, acting on the superintendent's recommendation as to whether or not the teacher should be re-employed, gives such teacher written notice of its intention not to re-employ him on or before the thirtieth day of April. * * * "

In the present case we are called upon to decide whether certain negotiated procedural guarantees which go beyond those enunciated in R.C. 3319.11 are enforceable.

In Dayton Teachers Assn. v. Dayton Bd. of Edn. (1975), 41 Ohio St.2d 127, 323 N.E.2d 714 , this court recognized the basic authority of a board of education "to negotiate and to enter into a collective bargaining agreement with its employees, so long as such agreement does not conflict with or purport to abrogate the duties and responsibilities imposed upon the board of education by law." Paragraph one of the syllabus. (Emphasis added.)

The question therefore becomes whether the fair dismissal policies contained in the instant collective bargaining agreement "conflict with or purport to abrogate" the school board's statutory authority to nonrenew limited teaching contracts under R.C. 3319.11. In deciding this question in the negative, we have looked not only to the specific contractual provisions at issue, but also to the underlying nature of R.C. 3319.11 as well as the realities of collective bargaining.

The mere fact that R.C. 3319.11 creates a statutory precondition to the nonrenewal of a nontenured teacher's contract by requiring delivery of written notice on or before April 30 of the board's intention not to re-employ, does not preclude a board of education from guaranteeing that teacher additional procedural safeguards when termination is contemplated. Instead, R.C. 3319.11 should be viewed as a teacher's protection statute designed to provide minimum procedural safeguards. Thus, contractually created procedural requirements relating to nonrenewal, contained in collective bargaining agreements and arrived at through open negotiation, are enforceable so long as the procedures do not directly conflict with R.C. 3319.11. ² See Ebert v. Bd. of Mental Retardation (1980), 63 Ohio St.2d 31, 406 N.E.2d 1098 ; Jefferson Area Teachers Assn. v. Lockwood (1982), 69 Ohio St.2d 671, 433 N.E.2d 604 .

The contractual provisions at issue did not directly conflict with R.C. 3319.11. Compliance with the fair dismissal procedure set forth in the collective bargaining agreement neither deprived the board of its statutory authority to nonrenew without assigning a cause nor changed the procedure for terminating a limited employment contract. Regardless of the strength or validity of the reasons which may have been given for the proposed decision, the board's right to nonrenew remained unimpaired. Nothing under the contract precluded the board from deciding to nonrenew D'Alesio's contract once it provided written reasons for its decision or acquiesced in the teacher's request for a hearing.

Appellee argues that inasmuch as the school board has the exclusive authority to hire and fire teachers, the arbitrator usurped this authority by awarding reinstatement and back pay. Such a contention, however, mischaracterizes the role which was played by the arbitrator in resolving the present dispute between the board and the association.

It was not the arbitrator who controlled the status of D'Alesio's employment. The arbitrator was merely enforcing a specific clause of the contract by which the board had agreed to abide. The arbitrator's decision did not divest the board of its power to control employment relationships with its teachers; it simply remedied the board's breach of contract. The fact remains that throughout the history of this case, the ultimate decision to hire or fire remained with the board; the arbitrator merely sought to require the board to do what it had agreed to do in the first place under the contract. ³

Neither the explicit language of the statute nor our holding in Dayton Teachers Assn., supra, requires us to conclude that the procedures set forth in R.C. 3319.11 cannot be supplemented by negotiation. The parties here, presumably acting in good faith, formally agreed to the fair dismissal policy at issue. In the absence of any direct conflict with the law, this court is reluctant to render unenforceable those terms of a contract which were arrived at through open negotiation at a bargaining table. Finding no conflict in the present case, the board of education is bound to honor its contract.

The judgment of the court of appeals is reversed.

Judgment reversed.

WILLIAM B. BROWN, SWEENEY and JAMES P. CELEBREZZE, JJ., concur.

FRANK D. CELEBREZZE, C.J., dissents.

LOCHER and HOLMES, JJ., dissent separately.

HOLMES, Justice, dissenting.

The opinion of the majority here does a great disservice to the administration of our school systems throughout Ohio. In so doing, it misconstrues the applicable statutory law regarding the authority of school boards, and is contrary to prior decisional law of this court in this specific regard.

In arriving at its conclusion, the majority overlooks, or at least applies little significance to, three important factors which should control the court's determination. First, the teacher who is involved in this appeal, and others similarly affected by the collective bargaining provisions here construed, was hired pursuant to a limited, rather than a continuing contract. Under the Ohio statutory scheme for the employment of teachers, as set forth in R.C. 3319.08, there are two types of...