School Committee of City of Providence v. Board of Regents for Ed.

• Decision Date: 22 August 1973
• Docket Number: No. 1894-M,1894-M
• Citation: 112 R.I. 288,308 A.2d 788
• Parties: The SCHOOL COMMITTEE OF the CITY OF PROVIDENCE v. BOARD OF REGENTS FOR EDUCATION. P.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 788

308 A.2d 788

112 R.I. 288

The SCHOOL COMMITTEE OF the CITY OF PROVIDENCE v. BOARD OF REGENTS FOR EDUCATION.

No. 1894-M.P.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

Aug. 22, 1973.

Reargument Denied Oct. 16, 1973.

Vincent J. Piccirilli, Providence, for petitioner.

Abedon, Michaelson, Stanzler & Biener, Julius C. Michaelson, Richard A. Skolnik, Providence, for Providence School Administrators.

OPINION

JOSLIN, Justice.

The Providence School Committee (the 'committee') petitioned this court for a writ of certiorari to review the action of the Board of Regents for Education (the 'board') in affirming a decision in which the Commissioner of Education (the 'commissioner') sustained the appeals of 75 ¹ school administrators or supervisory personnel (the 'administrators') of the Providence School Department (the 'department') each of whom claimed that the committee had unlawfully breached its employment contract by illegally undercompensating him for the school year which began in September, 1971. We issued the writ, Providence School Comm. v. Board of Regents, R.I., 295 A.2d 435 (1972), and directed the parties to brief and argue, inter alia, whether a school committee is an 'aggrieved person' within the contemplation of the provision regulating judicial review of contested cases arising under the Administrative Procedures Act (G.L.1956 (1969 Reenactment) § 42-35-15). ²

The case has its origins in a 1959 school committee resolution, No. 150, which established various categories of administrative and supervisory personnel within the department partment and set their salaries at stated ratios of the school teachers' maximum basic salary. ³

While resolution No. 150 is unclear on whether the teachers' salary schedule to which the stated ratio should be applied was that in effect in 1959 when the resolution was adopted or that in effect during each succeeding year, it is not disputed that at least until 1971 the practice consistently followed was to measure the compensation payable to administrative and supervisory personnel by that currently being paid to teachers. In that year, however, the committee enacted three pertinent resolutions. The first, No. 662, was adopted on April 15, 1971 and purported to freeze all salaries except those which had been established by existing contracts; the next, No. 68, was adopted on Ocotber 28, 1971 and it superceded resolution No. 662, repealed resolution No. 150, froze salaries of all department personnel for the fiscal year 1971-72 at their 1970-71 level, and specifically exempted from the freeze salaries set by collective bargaining agreements for department employees who were members of certified bargaining units. The third and final resolution, No. 55, was adopted on November 18, 1971 and it ratified a collective bargaining agreement with the teachers' union increasing the teachers' maximum basic salary and other benefits for the 1971-72 school year.

Following the adoption of those resolutions the committee faced the problem of whether the administrators' salaries had been frozen at its 1970-71 level, or whether, as in the past, they should be keyed to the teachers' increased salary scale for 1971-72. The committee elected to treat the salaries as having been frozen at the 1970-71 level and the administrators appealed to the commissioner. He ruled in their favor finding, in substance, that the salary freeze decreed in resolution Nos. 68 and 662 did not apply to them because they were employed under enforceable service contracts which entitled them to have their compensation for the school year 1971-72 measured by what was being paid teachers for that year. The committee thereupon appealed to the board, which affirmed the commissioner's decision. This certiorari proceeding followed.

We consider initially whether the administrators were employed under enforceable service contracts. That question lies at the root of our problem inasmuch as what was due the administrators for their services, if contractually established, was specifically excluded from the committee's action freezing salaries at the 1970-71 level.

The answer to that question hinges on the terms of the several hirings. ⁴ They were in each instance oral and stated the services to be performed as well as the rate of compensation, but failed, at least as far as we have been advised, to specify the period of time during which they should be in force and effect. That omission is critical because of our settled rule that a promise to render personal services to another for an indefinite term is terminable at any time at the will of either party and therefore creates no executory obligations. Lamoureux v. Burrillville Racing Ass'n, 91 R.I. 94, 161 A.2d 213 (1960). We have so concluded even where the agreement of service provided that the employee would receive a fixed sum for a stated period of service. Booth v. National India Rubber Co., 19 R.I. 696, 36 A. 714 (1897). ⁵

The rule as stated, however, is not as rigid as at first it might seem, for the presumption that a hiring unaccompanied by an expression of time is at will can be rebutted by evidence that the parties intended that it would be a fixed period. Such an intention can be gleaned from the course of prior dealings between the parties or from any other surrounding facts or circumstances which might shed any light on the question. Minor v. Narragansett Machine Co., 71 R.I. 108, 115-117, 42 A.2d 711, 714-715 (1945); Hatch v. Sallinger, 47 R.I. 395, 397-399, 133 A. 621, 622-623 (1926); see generally 1 Williston, Contracts § 39 at 117 (3rd ed. 1957). ⁶

Unfortunately in this case we are unable to determine what was contemplated in regard to the term of employment of each of the 75 administrators. Our inability is attributable to several causes. One is the board's failure-and the commissioner's also-to indicate upon what particular evidence, what surrounding circumstances, or what course of dealings it could have predicated a finding that the parties contemplated that the term of employment would be fixed. That determination was, as we have already indicated, a precedent to an ultimate holding that each of the administrators had a valid and enforceable service contract with the committee.

This infirmity in the board's decision would not in and of itself necessarily preclude an adequate and proper review were this a case where the record contained no evidentiary conflicts or were it one where the record disclosed a common evidentiary denominator as to what the parties to each of the 75 hirings intended with respect to the duration of his employment. But this is not such a case for the record here contains a testimonial conflict on the question of the term of the hiring ⁷ and in addition-at least insofar as we are advised by the board, the commissioner and the parties-is silent concerning the pertinent circumstances attendant upon the hiring of those administrators who, although parties, did not testify concerning the terms of their employment. ⁸

In these circumstances and for the reasons elaborated upon at length in Hooper v. Goldstein, 104 R.I. 32, 241 A.2d 809 (1968), a proper review in this case is at this point in time impossible, and a remand to the board is required in order to afford it an additional opportunity to furnish an ample decisional demonstration of the factual foundations upon which it predicates its ultimate conclusion in each case.

There are in addition two procedural questions which, because they are likely to arise on remand, should now be decided. One is the committee's contention that the administrators were not 'aggrieved.' It may be summarily rejected since it is abundantly clear that an unpaid claim for services rendered pursuant to an alleged contract is a 'classic example of a litigated right adversely adjudicated.' Pawtucket School Committee v. State Board of Education, 103 R.I. 359, 3668 237 A.2d 713, 717 (1968).

The committee's reliance upon McKeon v. Warwick School Committee, 77 R.I. 421, 75 A.2d 313 (1950), for a contrary result is misplaced since in that case there was no presently existing dispute...