State ex rel. Boggs v. Springfield Local School Dist. Bd. of Edn.

• Citation: 93 Ohio St.3d 558,757 NE 2d 339
• Decision Date: 14 November 2001
• Docket Number: No. 00-2304.,00-2304.
• Parties: STATE EX REL. BOGGS ET AL., APPELLEES; BRANNON ET AL., CROSS-APPELLANTS, v. SPRINGFIELD LOCAL SCHOOL DISTRICT BOARD OF EDUCATION, APPELLANT AND CROSS-APPELLEE.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

93 Ohio St.3d 558

757 NE 2d 339

STATE EX REL. BOGGS ET AL., APPELLEES; BRANNON ET AL., CROSS-APPELLANTS, v. SPRINGFIELD LOCAL SCHOOL DISTRICT BOARD OF EDUCATION, APPELLANT AND CROSS-APPELLEE.

No. 00-2304.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted September 18, 2001.

Decided November 14, 2001.

Buckley, King & Bluso, James E. Melle and Scott F. Sturges, for appellees and cross-appellants.

Johnson & Angelo, James A. Budzik and Jeffrey C. Miller, for appellant and cross-appellee.

Per Curiam.

Relators-appellees ("relators") are twenty-two school bus drivers and mechanics who were employed by respondent-appellant and cross-appellee, Springfield Local School District Board of Education, three of whom are also cross-appellants. Relators' bargaining representative, Local 530 of the Ohio Association of Public School Employees/AFSCME-AFL-CIO, entered into a collective bargaining agreement with the board that was effective, according to its terms, from September 1, 1990, through 11:59 p.m. on August 31, 1993.

In early 1993, the board notified the union that it was considering subcontracting its school busing services to a private company that is a division of Laidlaw Transit, Inc. ("Laidlaw"). Despite the board and union's negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement, no new agreement was reached by the August 31 expiration date of the existing agreement.

On September 13, 1993, the board adopted a resolution authorizing the superintendent of the school district to enter into a transportation contract with Laidlaw and abolishing the classifications of bus driver and mechanic. On September 14, union members went on strike. On September 17, most of the relators ended their strike and notified the superintendent that they wanted to have their continuing and other contracts honored by the board and that they wished to go back to work as school bus drivers employed by the board.

Also on September 17, 1993, relators filed a complaint in the Court of Appeals for Summit County. In their complaint, as subsequently amended, relators requested a writ of mandamus to compel the board to reinstate them to their positions as bus drivers with the board, award them back pay and benefits for the time they had been excluded from employment, order the board to recognize and honor relators' continuing and limited contracts, prevent the board from taking any further action under the Laidlaw contract, and declare all prior actions concerning the Laidlaw contract to be void. Relators went back to work driving buses and performing their regular duties.

On October 11, 1993, the board executed a transportation contract with Laidlaw in which Laidlaw agreed to provide bus drivers for transporting students for the school district and further agreed to offer existing drivers employment and recognize their accumulated seniority and benefits. In accordance with its previous resolution, the board abolished its positions of bus driver and mechanic, and relators were deemed to be employees of Laidlaw.

On January 19, 1994, the court of appeals denied the writ and dismissed the case. On appeal, we reversed the judgment of the court of appeals and remanded the cause for further proceedings. State ex rel. Boggs v. Springfield Local School Dist. Bd. of Edn. (1995), 72 Ohio St.3d 94, 647 N.E.2d 788 ("Boggs I"). We held that the court of appeals erred in dismissing the case based on materials filed by the board that were extrinsic to the complaint. Id. at 97, 647 N.E.2d at 791-792.

On remand, the court of appeals granted summary judgment in favor of the board and again denied the writ of mandamus.

On appeal, we found that relators "are entitled to a writ of mandamus." State ex rel. Boggs v. Springfield Local School Dist. Bd. of Edn. (1998), 82 Ohio St.3d 222, 225, 694 N.E.2d 1346, 1349 ("Boggs II"). We held, "Where a collective bargaining contract executed pursuant to R.C. Chapter 4117 includes an express termination date, the agreement may be deemed to continue by implied mutual assent after that date only until such time as either party to the agreement acts in a manner inconsistent with the inference that both parties wish to be governed by the contract." Id. at syllabus. When relators returned to work and indicated their intent to be governed by statutory law rather than the expired collective bargaining agreement, their rights were governed by R.C. 3319.081. Id. at 226, 694 N.E.2d at 1349. We thus concluded that relators "have a clear legal right to recognition of their rights to continued employment pursuant to R.C. 3319.081." Id. at 227, 694 N.E.2d at 1350.

Based on the foregoing, we reversed the judgment of the court of appeals and remanded the cause "for application of this decision to each of the relators, including award of back pay to be calculated in accord with established principles." Id. at 227, 694 N.E.2d at 1350. On remand, the treasurer of the local school district learned that all but twelve of the relators from Boggs II had retired. By letter dated March 24, 1999, the treasurer sent letters to the remaining relators specifying that they were being reinstated as board employees pursuant to Boggs II. The treasurer advised relators that they must either report to the superintendent on April 12, 1999, to receive job assignments, resign from their employment with the board, or face termination proceedings if they did neither. In a separate letter, Laidlaw demanded that relators either resign their public employment with the board and continue their employment with Laidlaw or resign from their employment with Laidlaw.

In response to the letters, eight of the remaining twelve relators submitted their resignations from public employment with the board. The board accepted these resignations on May 11, 1999. The other four relators, Kimberly Brannon, Delores Halman, Mary Coomer, and Carol Gresens, who had not resigned from employment with the board, reported for work at the bus garage to drive their assigned routes. But Laidlaw informed these four relators that they would no longer drive school buses and that they had to report to the superintendent. The superintendent told them that the board was "no longer in the transportation business" and that these four relators would not be allowed to drive buses.

On April 13, 1999, the board authorized the new position of "General Public Employee" and assigned relators Brannon, Coomer, Halman, and Gresens to the position. In this new position, these relators were required to report to the superintendent and the business manager to receive specific job assignments. The new position further specified a one-hundred-eighty-six-day work schedule.

Before April 12, 1999, as bus drivers employed by Laidlaw, the cross-appellants, Brannon, Coomer, and Halman, worked six hours per day and were paid at hourly rates of $13.61, $13.61, and $13.87, respectively. Effective April 12, 1999, they worked as aides and custodians for four hours per day at reduced hourly rates: Brannon ($13.03), Coomer ($13.03), and Halman ($13.06).

On July 21, 1999, the court of appeals accepted the following stipulations by the parties:

"a. [The board] will allow those relators, who have not retired, but have submitted their resignations prior to May 4, 1999, to retract those resignations.

"b. [The board] will offer relators, who have not retired or who have withdrawn their resignations, continuing contracts.

"c. Relators make no claims of injury other than economic damages.

"d. Relators have suffered no economic damages prior to April 12, 1999; therefore, no calculation of such prior damages is necessary on remand. Economic damages, if any, shall begin to run from April 12, 1999." In their brief on remand, relators sought an order compelling the board to recognize their rights to continued employment as bus drivers and to pay relators Brannon, Coomer, and Halman back pay and lost benefits from April 12, 1999. The board countered that only relators Brannon, Coomer, and Halman had a continuing interest in this case and that they had been properly reassigned as general public employees by the superintendent.

In November 2000, the court of appeals held that under Boggs II, relators were entitled to reinstatement to their positions as bus drivers, and the court ordered the board "to offer each relator who has not retired reinstatement to the position of bus driver." The court of appeals further held that the relators who were reassigned to the position of general public employee had not established their entitlement to lost wages and benefits.

This cause is now before the court upon the board's appeal and relators' cross-appeal.

In its appeal, the board asserts that the court of appeals erred in granting a writ of mandamus reinstating relators to the specific position of bus driver. The board claims that the court of appeals exceeded its authority on remand and that the superintendent of the school district acted within his authority under R.C. 3319.01 in reassigning relators to the new position of general public employee.

The board's contentions are meritless. In Boggs II, we held that relators were entitled to a writ of mandamus, and we never specified that relators were not entitled to the specific relief they had requested, which included compelling their reinstatement to their positions as bus drivers employed by the board, awarding them back pay and benefits for the time they had been excluded from employment, and declaring the board's actions concerning the Laidlaw contract to be void.

We now clarify that under Boggs II, relators are entitled to the relief they requested. As we recently observed, our holding in Boggs II recognized that "nothing in R.C. 3319.081 or any other statutory provision authorizes layoffs of nonteaching local school district personnel" and "[t]herefore, in the absence of a collective bargaining agreement, R.C. 3319.081 prohibits a school district's board of education from abolishing...