Sigurdson v. Isanti County, C2-88-1460

• Decision Date: 17 November 1989
• Docket Number: No. C2-88-1460,C2-88-1460
• Citation: 448 N.W.2d 62
• Parties: 51 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1181 Renja SIGURDSON, Respondent, v. ISANTI COUNTY, et al., Petitioners, Appellants.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 62

448 N.W.2d 62

51 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1181

Renja SIGURDSON, Respondent, v. ISANTI COUNTY, et al., Petitioners, Appellants.

No. C2-88-1460.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Nov. 17, 1989.

Syllabus by the Court

1. The doctrine of law of the case does not preclude consideration of an issue raised but never decided in the first two appeals in this ongoing litigation.

2. The gender discrimination in this case is a continuing violation which extended the time of the prescribed statute of limitations.

Richard A. Beens, Scott M. Lepak, Steffen & Munstenteiger, Anoka, for appellants.

David A. Singer, Ltd., St. Louis Park, for respondent.

Heard, considered, and decided by the court en banc.

SIMONETT, Justice.

This case asks whether defendants' gender discrimination was a continuing violation so that the time for filing a complaint was extended beyond the prescribed statute of limitations. We agree with the court of appeals that the doctrine of law of the case does not preclude consideration of this issue and that the discrimination was a continuing violation. We affirm.

This is the third appeal in this protracted litigation. We pick up our story at Sigurdson II, the second appeal. ¹ There the court of appeals reversed the trial court in part, ruling that one of plaintiff's several discrimination claims had been proven. Sigurdson v. Isanti County, 408 N.W.2d 654 (Minn.App.1987). We denied the county's petition for further review. See order dated August 19, 1987. The case then returned to the trial court for a determination of damages. The trial court, however, again denied plaintiff relief, this time ruling that the discrimination claim was time-barred. Once again plaintiff has appealed.

In this third appeal, Sigurdson III, the court of appeals has reversed the trial court, ruling that plaintiff's claim is not time-barred and again remanding to the trial court for the awarding of damages. Sigurdson v. Isanti County, 433 N.W.2d 910 (Minn.App.1988). We granted the county's petition for further review.

We have granted review to consider the "continuing violation" doctrine as it applies to the statute of limitations in discrimination cases. Whether or not there was gender discrimination against Ms. Sigurdson is no longer an issue. Sigurdson II decided there was. We did not grant further review in that second appeal; consequently, Sigurdson II's ruling finding discrimination in failure to promote plaintiff is the law of this case. See Part I, infra. Only the time-bar issue remains. To deal with this issue, we first must identify and understand the precise discrimination sought to be time-barred.

In the spring of 1976, the Isanti County Assessor's office consisted of an assessor (Aaron Boettcher), three "deputy assessors," and several "clerks." One of the clerks was plaintiff Renja Sigurdson who aspired to being a deputy assessor. In April 1976, deputy assessor Duane Johnson quit, leaving Curtis Becker and Dean Boettcher as the only deputy assessors. In May 1979, "chief deputy assessor" Dean Boettcher quit, creating a second vacancy. In September 1979, Sigurdson was allowed to do field appraising, even though almost 3 years earlier, in December 1976, Sigurdson had qualified to do appraisals and even though during this time period there was always at least one vacancy for the position of deputy assessor.

When Sigurdson went in the field to appraise in September 1979, the union contract for county employees was being negotiated. In March 1980 the union contract was executed, retroactive to August 1979. Pursuant to a job study commissioned by the county, the union contract designated three job classifications in the assessor's office, namely, deputy assessor, property appraiser, and office clerical. The salary schedule for deputy assessors was higher than for property appraisers. Sigurdson was designated a "property appraiser" under the union contract and given a lump sum payment to cover her pay increase as a property appraiser retroactive to September 1979. Sigurdson claimed, however, that she should have been allowed to do field appraising from December 1976, as she was then qualified and there was an opening. She also claimed she should have been made a deputy assessor.

In Sigurdson II, 408 N.W.2d at 661, the court of appeals ruled that "an opening for a deputy assessor existed after April 1976, that Sigurdson was qualified to fill it as of December 1976 and that she was wrongfully denied this opportunity until the fall of 1979." ² On remand, the trial court noted that the court of appeals had found the gender discrimination to exist "until the fall of 1979." Sigurdson, however, did not file her complaint with the Department of Human Rights until October 30, 1980, long after the 6-month statute of limitations had expired. See Minn.Stat. Sec. 363.06, subd. 3 (1980), since amended to increase the limitation period to 1 year. Act of April 26, 1988, ch. 660, Sec. 6, 1988 Minn. Laws 921, 922. It is this ruling that gives rise to this current appeal.

In Sigurdson III, now before us, the court of appeals stated the trial judge had "misconstrued" the nature of the sex discrimination violation that it had found in the prior appeal. 433 N.W.2d at 913. The panel explained that although plaintiff was allowed to do field work in September 1979, her salary was never increased to reflect her promotion. Further, said the appeals panel, the work plaintiff was doing as a field appraiser was "identical" to the job duties of the male deputy assessors, id., a finding that had already been made in Sigurdson II where the panel had found Sigurdson was qualified to be a deputy assessor. Consequently, concluded the panel, the county's failure to eliminate the salary discrepancy was a "continuing discriminatory practice" which extended the statute of limitations so that plaintiff's complaint was timely filed. Id. The panel remanded the case to award damages. ³

In other words, the gender discrimination consisted of the county's refusal to promote Sigurdson to the position of deputy assessor with a deputy assessor's salary, a discrimination which was not cured in September 1979 by allowing Sigurdson to do field appraising nor was it cured by promoting Sigurdson to property appraiser in March 1980. ⁴

The real culprit in this case, it seems to us, has been the county's job classification system or, more accurately, the lack thereof. There is a suggestion in the record that a deputy assessor was supposed to have some managerial or supervisory duties, but, in fact, this is not how the office operated. Both Curtis Becker and Aaron Boettcher testified that the title "deputy assessor" held no special significance; anyone who did assessing, who went out in the field to appraise, was referred to as a deputy assessor--at least until Sigurdson was sent out in the field. When the county advertised for a deputy assessor in 1975, it simply said: "Isanti County is in need of a full-time Deputy Assessor. Requires someone with assessing experience. Some mathematical ability * * *." Not until March 1980 was the position of "property appraiser" created, but even then the new job classification system contained no job descriptions for the classifications. ⁵ Curtis Becker may have had more experience assessing, but insofar as his duties as a deputy assessor were concerned, he and Renja Sigurdson, once she was allowed to do field appraising, performed the same duties. The conclusion is inescapable that, as the court of appeals concluded, Sigurdson was doing the same work as the male deputy assessors but on a lower salary schedule. The county's claim that Sigurdson was only qualified for a lower job classification was pretextual; as we have already noted, it is the law of this case, established in Sigurdson II and not reviewable here, that the discrimination was gender motivated.

It is against this factual background that we now take up the time-bar issue.

I.

Plaintiff argues that Isanti County is precluded from asserting the statute of limitations defense because of the doctrine of law of the case. While plaintiff presents this argument as an "alternative" ground for affirmance, it is really a threshold issue.

In Sigurdson II the appeals panel found gender discrimination in failure to advance plaintiff to the job position to which she was entitled and remanded for assessment of damages. Plaintiff argues this decision precluded the trial court, on remand, from entertaining defendant's statute of limitations defense. Not so.

Law of the case applies when the appellate court has ruled on a legal issue and remanded for further proceedings on other matters. The issue decided becomes "law of the case" and may not be relitigated in the trial court or reexamined in a second appeal. Mattson v. Underwriters at Lloyds, 414 N.W.2d 717, 719-20 (Minn.1987). Such is the case here, with the court of appeals' determination finding gender discrimination in advancement. But, unlike res judicata, the doctrine of law of the case "applies only to litigated issues and does not reach issues which could have been but were not litigated." Lange v. Nelson-Ryan Flight Service, Inc., 263 Minn. 152, 156, 116 N.W.2d 266, 269 (1962).

Here, although the statute of limitations issue could have been reached in either Sigurdson I or II, it was not. While the defendant county had pled and argued the statute of limitations defense at the first trial, the trial court never made a ruling. The trial court saw no need to make a ruling because it had found no discrimination. ⁶ Here, too, unlike Mattson, neither Sigurdson I nor II finally concluded the lawsuit. On remand after Sigurdson II, the trial court had the same case before it with an unresolved statute of limitations issue, i.e., with a statute of limitations issue on which there was no "law of the case." The county is entitled to its day in court on its asserted, undecided defense claim.

II.

At the time Sigurdson filed...