Carlson v. North Dearborn Heights Bd. of Educ.
| Decision Date | 16 April 1987 |
| Docket Number | 86199,Docket Nos. 82336 |
| Citation | 403 N.W.2d 598,157 Mich.App. 653 |
| Parties | , 38 Ed. Law Rep. 1276 Pola San CARLSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NORTH DEARBORN HEIGHTS BOARD OF EDUCATION and Association of Professional Teachers, Defendants-Appellees. Pola San CARLSON, Plaintiff-Appellant Cross-Appellee, v. NORTH DEARBORN HEIGHTS BOARD OF EDUCATION, North Dearborn School District, Crestwood School District and Crestwood Board of Education, Defendants-Appellees Cross-Appellants, and Association of Professional Teachers, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US |
Marcia J. Covert, Detroit, for plaintiff-appellant.
Keller, Thoma, Schwarze, Schwarze, DuBay & Katz, P.C., Detroit by Gary P. King and Robert A. Lusk, for defendants-appellees school boards and districts.
Hiller, Larky & Hoekenga, Southfield by Daniel J. Hoekenga and Lisa B. Archer, for Ass'n of Professional Teachers.
Before BEASLEY, P.J., and J.H. GILLIS and DODGE, * JJ.
Plaintiff filed suit on May 1, 1981, claiming, among other matters, sex discrimination. Defendant Association of Professional Teachers (APT) moved for accelerated judgment, claiming that the statutory period of limitation had run and that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. The trial court granted APT's motion, holding that plaintiff had failed to exhaust her contractual remedies prior to filing suit. Plaintiff appealed and this Court reversed, holding that exhaustion of remedies was not a prerequisite to a breach of duty of fair representation suit. Carlson v. North Dearborn Heights Bd. of Ed., unpublished opinion per curiam of the Court of Appeals, decided May 31, 1984 (Docket No. 67352). This Court further held that plaintiff's cause of action accrued when the total accumulated service units (TASU) provision in APT's contract with the school district was applied retroactively against plaintiff. Because there was a dispute as to when the TASU provision was first applied to plaintiff and because the statute of limitations issue was not decided below, this Court remanded this case to the trial court for determination of that issue.
On remand, plaintiff filed a motion for summary judgment pursuant to GCR 1963, 117.2(3), now MCR 2.116(C)(10), claiming that no genuine issue of material fact existed as to the date on which the TASU provision was retroactively applied to her. Plaintiff claimed the date was May 1, 1978. APT filed a motion for accelerated judgment, claiming that plaintiff's claim accrued on April 25, 1978, and, therefore, her suit was time barred. The trial court granted APT's motion, finding that plaintiff's claim accrued on April 25, 1978 and that plaintiff's complaint, filed on May 1, 1981, was time barred. Plaintiff now appeals this order as of right.
Thereafter, North Dearborn Heights School District was subsumed within the Crestwood School District. Plaintiff moved to amend her complaint to add the Crestwood School District and the Crestwood Board of Education as defendants. Plaintiff's motion was provisionally granted at oral argument; however, the trial court later dismissed both school boards, but not the school districts, as defendants.
Subsequently, the school districts moved for summary disposition on the basis that the statutory period of limitation had run. Curiously, the trial court denied the school districts' motion as it related to the statute of limitations. The trial court found that plaintiff's claim accrued on May 1, 1978, and that her suit, filed on May 1, 1981, was timely. This finding obviously conflicted with the trial court's earlier finding of when plaintiff's claim had accrued. Nevertheless, the trial court granted the school districts' motion for summary disposition for other reasons. Plaintiff appeals from the trial court's order granting the school districts' motion for summary disposition, and the school districts cross-appeal on the ground that the trial court erred in not granting their motion on the basis of the statute of limitations. We affirm in part, reverse in part and remand.
Before discussing the issues presented, we discuss the facts underlying this case. Plaintiff was hired by North Dearborn Heights School District in 1968. During her employment, plaintiff took two maternity leaves. The first was from March until June, 1972; the second, from January, 1975, until June, 1977. Plaintiff concedes that she extended her second leave for purposes of child care. In doing so, plaintiff relied on the collective bargaining agreement, then in effect, which allowed a woman to take up to three years of maternity leave and to continue to accrue seniority during that time.
On September 13, 1977, APT and North Dearborn Heights School District entered into a new collective bargaining agreement to be effective from September 1, 1977, through August 30, 1980. Under this new agreement, seniority was determined by the total number of service units which were accumulated. Service units were determined by giving a teacher six units for each of the 180 school days taught. Hence, a teacher could accrue 1,080 service units per year. Teachers who were absent because of personal illness, personal business, religious holidays, jury duty, sabbaticals, military service, or teachers who were receiving workers' compensation would receive the full number of service units. Teachers on other types of leave, including maternity leave, received only a limited number of service units or no service units. Those on maternity or paternity leave could receive only 120 service units.
Shortly before the contract was ratified, plaintiff realized that if the TASU provision was applied retroactively her seniority would be reduced. At this point, it should be noted that the collective bargaining agreement does not explicitly provide that the TASU provision is to be applied retroactively. Nonetheless, William Naubert, then the president of APT, believed that it was understood that the TASU provision was to be applied retroactively. This interpretation was contradicted by George Leonard, who was North Dearborn School District's superintendent until he resigned in 1977. He stated: Moreover, plaintiff alleges that APT representatives urged her to ratify the collective bargaining agreement told her that and, if the TASU provision were applied retroactively, negotiations could be reopened.
After the collective bargaining agreement was ratified, plaintiff and other similarly-situated women (North Dearborn School District's Superintendent Leonard stated that no man had taken paternity leave from 1968 until 1977) filed a grievance letter with Superintendent Leonard as well as the Michigan Civil Rights Commission. Leonard responded to plaintiff's letter by stating that plaintiff's remedy was to go to APT and have them try to reopen negotiations. Later, APT unsuccessfully tried to reopen the negotiations.
On April 25, 1978, plaintiff was pink-slipped in what is apparently standard operating procedure for financially strapped school districts. At that time, plaintiff received the following letter:
However, plaintiff was called back to work in August, 1978, and she taught until June 15, 1979, when she was laid off pursuant to a seniority list which had applied the TASU provision retroactively. Plaintiff alleges that she was similarly laid off on the basis of a post-TASU list until 1985.
On May 1, 1978, plaintiff received a revised seniority list which, in her mind, clearly indicated the TASU provision was applied retroactively. That seniority list, designated "Seniority List As of May 1, 1978," applied the TASU provision retroactively. Following the typist's initials on this list appeared the notation "4/25/78." Earl Gabriel, who became North Dearborn School District's superintendent after Leonard, submitted an affidavit, claiming that plaintiff's April 25 layoff was based on the May 1 list.
As noted above, plaintiff filed suit on May 1, 1981. Plaintiff's complaint, which has been amended three times, alleges sex discrimination, breach of APT's duty of fair representation, and failure to provide due process. By stipulation, only two counts remain in plaintiff's complaint as to the school districts: (1) violation of the Civil Rights Act, M.C.L. Sec. 37.2101 et seq.; M.S.A. Sec. 3.548(101) et seq., and (2) violation of plaintiff's due process rights. Plaintiff also challenges the trial court's dismissal of the school boards as defendants as to those counts. Finally, plaintiff's claim of appeal as to APT concerns only the issue of whether plaintiff's claim against APT was barred by the statute of limitations.
We first address the issues of whether the trial court erred in granting APT's motion for accelerated judgment, or, in the alternative, whether the trial court erred when it denied the school districts' motion for summary disposition on statute of limitations grounds. As noted above, the trial court found that plaintiff's claim accrued on April 25, 1978, for the purpose of APT's motion, but that it accrued on May 1, 1978, for purposes of the school districts' motion.
We agree with the statement contained in our previous opinion in this case t...
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