State ex rel. Chavis v. Sycamore City School Dist. Bd. of Edn.

• Decision Date: 23 November 1994
• Docket Number: No. 94-557,94-557
• Parties: , 95 Ed. Law Rep. 652, 1994 SERB 4-71 The STATE ex rel. CHAVIS et al., Appellants, v. SYCAMORE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT BOARD OF EDUCATION, Appellee.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 26

71 Ohio St.3d 26

641 N.E.2d 188, 95 Ed. Law Rep. 652, 1994 SERB 4-71

The STATE ex rel. CHAVIS et al., Appellants, v. SYCAMORE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT BOARD OF EDUCATION, Appellee.

No. 94-557.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted Sept. 20, 1994.

Decided Nov. 23, 1994.

[1994 SERB 4-71] Relators-appellants are fourteen individuals employed as tutors by respondent-appellee, Sycamore City School District (a.k.a. Sycamore Community School District) Board of Education ("board"), at various times during the 1986-1987 through 1990-1991 school years. Eleven of the appellants provided supplemental instruction to learning disabled ("LD") students and the three remaining appellants provided supplemental instruction in English as a second language ("ESL"). All of the fourteen appellants held valid teaching certificates when they performed tutorial duties for the board in the pertinent time period.

Appellants were employed under individual "tutor" contracts in which they agreed to perform LD and ESL "tutoring services" on an "as needed basis" at an hourly rate of pay. The tutors' salary schedules set a flat hourly rate for school years 1986-1987 through 1988-1989 and included increases in the hourly rates based on years of service for school years 1989-1990 and 1990-1991. The tutors' salary schedules did not provide for increments based upon training and were not filed with [1994 SERB 4-72] the Superintendent of Public Instruction pursuant to R.C. 3317.14. During school years 1986-1987 through 1990-1991, the board made contributions to the State Teachers Retirement System ("STRS") on behalf of each of the appellants, based on wages paid to them as LD and ESL tutors. Funds under R.C. Chapter 3317, the School Foundation Program, were paid to STRS by the Ohio Department of Education on behalf of the board.

During the same period in which appellants were employed under LD and ESL "tutor" contracts, the board entered into several collective bargaining agreements with the Sycamore Education Association, the exclusive collective bargaining agent for all board employees with "teacher" contracts. The collective bargaining agreements in effect during school years 1986-1987 through 1990-1991 covered all persons "employed as teachers by the Board * * * excluding * * * all hourly paid employees[.]" As the parties all concede, since appellants were hourly paid employees when they were employed under the LD and ESL "tutor" contracts, they were not included within the bargaining unit, were not represented by the union, and were not covered by the agreements. The teachers' salary schedules in the collective bargaining agreements included increments based upon training and years of service. Although the board does not know whether the teachers' salary schedules were filed with the Superintendent of Public Instruction pursuant to R.C. 3317.14, it submitted the schedules to the Ohio Department of Education for school years 1986-1987 through 1990-1991. The collective bargaining agreements also contained a grievance and arbitration procedure.

During school years 1986-1987 through 1990-1991, all appellants were paid in accordance with the tutors' salary schedules for duties performed under their "tutor" contracts and were not paid under either the teachers' salary schedules incorporated in the collective bargaining agreements covering this period or the R.C. 3317.13(C) minimum salary schedule for teachers for these duties. In some of the school years in this period, appellants Jane Duncan, Noreen D. Eyre, Susan H. Ford, and Constance K. Weethee were also employed by the board as teachers expressly covered under the collective bargaining agreements and were paid the amounts set forth in the teachers' salary schedules. However, these appellants were not given experience credit by the board on the teachers' salary schedules for past years of tutor service, and the union eventually filed a grievance on their behalf.

In the collective bargaining agreement effective beginning with the 1991-1992 school year, LD and ESL tutors, including appellants, were brought into the bargaining unit and a separate salary schedule was incorporated into the collective bargaining agreement, providing for lower annual salaries for tutors than other instructors. Shortly following appellants' inclusion in the bargaining unit, they became aware of recent court decisions concerning tutors, and in June 1992, they demanded that the board properly compensate them for their tutoring for school years 1986-1987 through 1990-1991. The board refused appellants' demand.

Appellants instituted a mandamus action in the Hamilton County Court of Appeals, seeking to compel the board to pay them the difference between their actual pay as tutors and the pay set forth in the collective bargaining agreements' teachers' salary schedules for school years 1986-1987 through 1990-1991. Alternatively, appellants requested a writ compelling the board to pay the difference between their pay as tutors and the amounts mandated in the R.C. 3317.13(C) teachers' minimum salary schedule. Appellants Duncan, Eyre, Ford, and Weethee requested payment of the additional amounts they would have received as classroom teachers if the board had credited their years of service as tutors in computing their salaries.

The parties submitted the matter to the court of appeals on motions for summary judgment limited to the liability issues. On January 26, 1994, the court of appeals granted the board's motion for summary judgment and denied appellants' petition for a writ of mandamus.

The cause is now before this court upon an appeal as of right.

Gary Moore Eby, Cincinnati, for appellants.

Taft, Stettinius & Hollister, and Robert J. Townsend, Cincinnati, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

The court of appeals granted the board's motion for summary judgment and denied the writ because it determined that the collective bargaining agreements' exclusion of appellants from coverage prevailed over any provisions of R.C. Chapters 3317 and 3319 containing more expansive definitions of the term "teacher" or establishing conflicting salary requirements. The court of appeals relied on R.C. 4117.10(A), which provides:

"An agreement between a public employer and an exclusive representative entered into pursuant to this chapter governs the wages, hours, and terms and conditions of public employment covered by the agreement. * * * Where no agreement exists or where an agreement makes no specification about a matter, the public employer and public employees are subject to all applicable state or local laws or ordinances pertaining to the wages, hours, and terms and conditions of employment for public employees. * * * [T]his chapter prevails over any and all other conflicting laws, resolutions, provisions, present or future, except as otherwise specified in this chapter or as otherwise specified by the general assembly. * * * " (Emphasis added.)

R.C. 4117.10(A) was designed to free public employees from conflicting laws which may interfere with their right to collectively bargain. State ex rel. Rollins v. Cleveland Hts.-Univ. Hts. Bd. of Edn. (1988), 40 Ohio St.3d 123, 127, 532 N.E.2d 1289, 1293. "Except for laws specifically exempted, the provisions of a collective bargaining agreement entered into pursuant to R.C. Chapter 4117 prevail over conflicting laws." State ex rel. Parsons v. Fleming (1994), 68 Ohio St.3d 509, 513, 628 N.E.2d 1377, 1381; Streetsboro Edn. Assn. v. Streetsboro City [1994 SERB 4-73] School Dist. Bd. of Edn. (1994), 68 Ohio St.3d 288, 626 N.E.2d 110. A collective bargaining agreement does not prevail over conflicting laws where it either does not specifically cover certain matters, State ex rel. Clark v. Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Auth. (1990), 48 Ohio St.3d 19, 22, 548 N.E.2d 940, 943, or no collective bargaining agreement is in force. State ex rel. Internatl. Union of Operating Engineers v. Cleveland (1992), 62 Ohio St.3d 537, 584 N.E.2d 727.

Appellants, when employed as LD and ESL tutors during the pertinent school years, were excluded from the applicable collective bargaining agreements because they were hourly paid employees. Appellants were not members of the bargaining unit represented by the unions when the agreements were negotiated, executed, or in effect. R.C. 4117.10(A) specifies that public employment collective bargaining agreements govern only the wages, hours, and terms and conditions "covered by the agreement." Since appellants were not covered by the agreements, R.C. Chapters 3317 and 3319 governed appellants' employment conditions. The court of appeals thus erred in concluding otherwise.

Appellants contend that a tutor is a "teacher" under R.C. 3319.09(A), a tutor is entitled to compensation according to the board's duly adopted pay schedule under R.C. 3317.14, and a tutor may obtain back pay by way of mandamus, citing State ex rel. Tavenner v. Indian Lake Local School Dist. Bd. of Edn. (1991), 62 Ohio St.3d 88, 578 N.E.2d 464, and State ex rel. Brown v. Milton-Union Exempted Village Bd. of Edn. (1988), 40 Ohio St.3d 21, 531 N.E.2d 1297. The board asserts that tutors are not teachers for purposes of determining whether they are entitled to be paid under the teachers' salary schedule specified in R.C. 3317.13 and 3317.14.

In Brown and Tavenner, the court relied on the R.C. 3319.09(A) definition of "teacher." R.C. 3319.09 provides:

"As used in sections 3319.08 to 3319.18, inclusive, of the Revised Code:

"(A) 'Teacher' means all persons certified to teach and who are employed in the public schools of this state as instructors, principals, supervisors, superintendents, or in any other educational position for which the state board of education requires certification including persons having a certificate issued pursuant to sections 3319.22 to 3319.31, inclusive, of the Revised Code and employed in an educational position, as determined by the state board of education,...