LaSorsa by LaSorsa v. UNUM Life Ins. Co. of America

• Decision Date: 04 December 1991
• Docket Number: No. 91-1696,91-1696
• Parties: 72 Ed. Law Rep. 756 Susan B. LaSORSA, by her Guardian, Frank LaSORSA, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. UNUM LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF AMERICA, Defendant, Appellee. . Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 140

955 F.2d 140

72 Ed. Law Rep. 756

Susan B. LaSORSA, by her Guardian, Frank LaSORSA, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. UNUM LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF AMERICA, Defendant, Appellee.

No. 91-1696.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard Dec. 4, 1991.

Decided Jan. 31, 1992.

Susannah Colt with whom Paul McEachern and Shaines & McEachern, P.A., Portsmouth, N.H., were on brief, for plaintiff, appellant.

Michael L. Parker, Portland, Me., for defendant, appellee.

Before CAMPBELL, Circuit Judge, BOWNES, Senior Circuit Judge, and CYR, Circuit Judge.

BOWNES, Senior Circuit Judge.

On August 23, 1989, Susan B. LaSorsa ("LaSorsa") signed a contract of employment with the Portsmouth School District in New Hampshire to work as a first grade teacher for the 1989-90 school year. On September 28, 1989, LaSorsa suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and has since remained in a coma. A claim was submitted on LaSorsa's behalf for benefits under the Portsmouth School District's group long term disability insurance plan. The insurer, the UNUM Life Insurance Company of America ("UNUM"), rejected LaSorsa's claim on the ground that she failed to satisfy a one-month waiting period necessary for her to become eligible for long term disability benefits.

After UNUM's rejection of her claim, LaSorsa sought a declaration that she was entitled to coverage in Superior Court in New Hampshire. Her action for a declaratory judgment was removed to the District Court for the District of New Hampshire on diversity grounds. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of defendant UNUM. This appeal by LaSorsa ensued. We now reverse the judgment of the district court.

I. BACKGROUND

A. LaSorsa's Employment with the Portsmouth School Department

The following facts are based on the affidavits and deposition testimony submitted by the parties in their summary judgment motions. The parties agree that the material facts of this case are undisputed.

As part of an effort to replace teachers who had resigned or retired from their positions with the Portsmouth School Department, the Portsmouth Board of Education on August 22, 1989, extended Susan LaSorsa an offer of employment for the 1989-90 school year. LaSorsa was named to a position as a first grade teacher and her salary was set at $18,430. The following day, August 23, 1989, the Portsmouth School Department wrote LaSorsa congratulating her on her election by the School Board "to the position of first grade teacher at Brackett School for the 1989-90 school year." The letter enclosed two copies of an employment contract and directed her to return the contracts after signing them. The letter also notified LaSorsa of a "New Teacher Orientation" to be conducted at 9 a.m. on August 31, 1989. The letter also told her "[i]n the meantime [to] enjoy what is left of the summer."

LaSorsa signed both copies of this employment contract on August 23, 1989. Entitled "Teachers' Contract," the contract between LaSorsa and the Portsmouth Board of Education specified that the Board agreed to "employ the teacher [LaSorsa] for 183 school days for the next school year, as per the Board of Education school calendar, at the annual salary." (Emphasis added). Among other things, the "Teachers' Contract" specified that teachers could "be scheduled for 26 equal pay periods." Teachers were also given the alternative of receiving their salary in twenty-one (21) pay periods. The contract further specified that it was "based on the 1988-89 Teachers' Agreement."

The "1988-89 Teachers' Agreement" mentioned in LaSorsa's contract referred to a collective bargaining agreement between the Portsmouth Board of Education and the Association of Portsmouth Teachers. Although this collective bargaining agreement was scheduled to expire in June 1989, a continuation clause in the agreement provided that the existing agreement would remain in force during the negotiation of a superseding agreement. Consequently, at the time LaSorsa signed her contract in August 1989, both the Portsmouth School Board and its Teachers Association regarded themselves as bound by the Teachers' Agreement.

In a section titled "Responsibilities of Professional Employees," the Teachers' Agreement provided the following definition of the teacher "Work Year":

The teacher work year shall be no more than 183 days, except that teachers initially entering the Portsmouth School System will be expected to appear one additional day prior to the opening of school.

The 183-day requirement for all Portsmouth teachers comprised 180 days in which students would be present in the classroom and an additional three teacher workdays during which students would be absent. The Teachers' Agreement further specified that "any [teacher] required by the School Department to work beyond his/her contracted days will be paid on a per diem rate...."

Although the Teachers' Agreement thus explicitly limited the number of days in the teacher work year, it also specified certain additional "Teacher Responsibilities":

Both parties understand that teachers' responsibilities regarding class preparation, correction, and grading, as well as student, parent, or school meetings, or workshop or committee involvement, along with required development responsibilities, may well add, in actual working hours, as much as 60 additional work-days to the stated teaching year of 180 student days.

(Emphasis added).

The Portsmouth School Department's 1989-90 School Calendar established Tuesday, September 5, 1989, as the first of the three teacher workdays specified by the Teachers' Agreement. The first day of classes for Portsmouth students was set for the following day, Wednesday, September 6, 1990. In addition, new teachers such as LaSorsa were required to attend the orientation scheduled for Thursday, August 31, 1989.

An affidavit by one of LaSorsa's fellow elementary teachers at Brackett School, Anita Rice, states that LaSorsa began preparing to teach her classes on Wednesday, August 23, 1989, the day LaSorsa signed her employment contract with the Board of Education. Rice averred that in preparation for her classes she (Rice) spent "every single day, with the exception of Saturdays and Sundays and Labor Day" at school--in other words, all weekdays between August 23 and the first teacher workday, Tuesday, September 5, 1989. Rice stated that on the days she worked at Brackett School, she arrived at 8:30 every morning and left at around 4:00 every afternoon. She further stated that she saw LaSorsa "working in her classroom on [August] 23rd, 24th, 25th, 28th, 29th, and 30th." According to Rice, LaSorsa "was always there when I arrived and, with the exception of one day, was there when I left."

In deposition testimony, the Portsmouth School Department Superintendent, Timothy Monahan, stated that under the terms of her employment contract and the Teachers' Agreement LaSorsa was obliged only to work the 183 days established by the school calendar, plus the new teacher orientation day specified in the Teachers' Agreement and LaSorsa's letter of hire. Monahan acknowledged that returning teachers were not required to work before the first school day specified on the school calendar. That year, the first such scheduled school day was the September 5 teacher workday.

Monahan also expressed the opinion that the 183 days required under LaSorsa's contract and the Teachers' Agreement were merely "minimum numbers." According to Monahan, LaSorsa had been hired relatively "late" in the school year by the school board. Monahan stated that "all [such] employees, especially those employed so late in the year, are told by me that I expect them to do whatever it takes to open up school with those children...." He testified that it was his practice to give the following "pep talk" to new employees like LaSorsa who had been hired "late":

I would tell them that they are under tremendous handicap, because teachers are in and out all summer, whether they be new or veteran teachers, and certainly the week prior to school probably 80 percent of the teachers are in a goodly portion of that week. So, therefore, anyone hired at that time, I would tell them that they have to go some to catch up to everybody else; that the first day of--first workday that they are paid for teachers, is not meant to do lesson plans. It is not meant to do planning of what you're going to do. It is meant--as I've talked about before--to get your class list, your textbooks, to review. It is for whatever you have to review on the day before. And I say to every new teacher that the buildings are for the most part open all summer and urge them to make use of that in order to be ready. I expect them to be ready.

Monahan stated that he had given LaSorsa this "pep talk."

On September 1, 1989, the Portsmouth School Department issued a check to LaSorsa in the amount of $543.84. According to W. Peter Torrey, the business administrator for the Portsmouth School Department, that amount represented either 1/21 or 1/26 of LaSorsa's annual salary, as provided under the Teachers' Contract. Torrey said that September 1, 1989, represented "the date that all teachers ... received their first paycheck...." Torrey said that it was the practice of the Portsmouth School Department not to pay teachers during the summer months, even though the Department's contracts ran on a fiscal year from July 1st to June 30th of the following year. Instead, the School Department issued its first paycheck to all returning professional staff on September 1st in order "to coincide with the return to school and then go back on the regular biweekly pay schedule...." In this respect, the payment of teachers appears to have differed from that of the "year-round" staff, who were paid on a continuing biweekly basis.

Torrey stated that once their biweekly paychecks resumed in September, teachers had two options for receiving their annual salary...