Town of Scituate v. Scituate Teachers' Ass'n

• Decision Date: 06 November 1972
• Docket Number: No. 1744-A,1744-A
• Citation: 296 A.2d 466,110 R.I. 679
• Parties: , 82 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2007, 69 Lab.Cas. P 52,930 TOWN OF SCITUATE et al. v. SCITUATE TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION et al. ppeal.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 466

296 A.2d 466

110 R.I. 679, 82 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2007, 69 Lab.Cas. P 52,930

TOWN OF SCITUATE et al. v. SCITUATE TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION et al.

No. 1744-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

Nov. 6, 1972.

Gorham & Gorham, John Gorham, Providence, for plaintiffs

Urso & Adamo, Natale L. Urso, Westerly, for defendants.

OPINION

JOSLIN, Justice.

The plaintiffs have appealed to this court from a Superior Court judgment denying and dismissing their action for a declaratory judgment. After the case was docketed here the defendants moved to dismiss on the ground of mootness. We denied that motion without prejudice to their right to renew at the hearing on the merits. Town of Scituate v. Scituate Teachers' Ass'n, R.I., 292 A.2d 242 (1972). At that hearing the motion was renewed and is now granted.

The facts giving rise to this case may be briefly stated. On April 16, 1970 the Scituate Teachers' Association, bargaining agent for all certified teachers in that town's public school system, and the School Committee of the Town of Scituate entered into a collective bargaining agreement setting forth the terms and conditions of employment for the town's teachers for the two-year period commencing September 1, 1970 and terminating August 31, 1972. Insofar as here pertinent that agreement provided that salaries for the second year of the contract (September 1, 1971-August 3, 1972) were subject to renegotiation. Pursuant thereto, and following several bargaining sessions, the parties on March 15, 1971, orally agreed to a revised salary schedule for the school year 1971-72.

Less than a month thereafter the school committee presented the financial town meeting with a proposed operating budget for the ensuing fiscal year. It was prepared on a line, or itemized, basis and, if approved, would have permitted implementation of the new salary schedule. Though both the school committee and the town council recommended its approval, the financial town meeting ignored those recommendations. Without discussing the possible deleterious effect of nonapproval on the town's educational system, it cut the proposed budget by $110,000.

Under our law the expenditure of the appropriation was within the school committee's sole and exclusive jurisdiction. Dawson v. Clark, 93 R.I. 457, 176 A.2d 732 (1962); Bailey v. Duffy, 45 R.I. 304, 121 A. 129 (1923); Times Publishing Co. v. White, 23 R.I. 334, 50 A. 383 (1901). By reason of the nonacceptance of its proposed budget, however, the school committee was faced with a dilemma. On the one hand, it could have satisfied its contractual obligations to the school teachers under the revised salary schedule, but only by eliminating other budgeted services. That elimination, the trial justice found-and his finding is not challenged-would have been '* * * detrimental to the educational interests of the students and pupils of the Town of Scituate in the public school system.' On the other hand, those 'educational interests' could not be met in full unless the revised salary agreement was repudiated.

One possible solution was the reopening of salary negotiations, but the association refused to bargain any further on that issue, and instead requested the committee to reduce to writing the March 15 oral agreement on salary revisions. The committee refused. Thereupon the association complained to the State Labor Relations Board that the committee's refusal constituted an unfair labor practice under G.L.1956 (1968 Reenactment) § 28-9.3-4. ¹

After a formal hearing, the board found the school committee guilty of an unfair labor practice, and ordered it to execute a written contract embodying the provisions of the oral agreement with respect to salary revisions. Thereupon the committee commenced this civil action in the Superior Court in which it asks for a judicial declaration of whether the collective bargaining agreement was binding upon the town in all events, irrespective of whether or not the financial town meeting provided it with the wherewithal to meet its contractual commitments to the teachers as well as to maintain proper educational standards.

On the legal issue thus raised, the parties differ on whether the failure to appropriate the requested funds created a supervening impossibility which excused the committee's performance of its new undertaking with respect to teachers' salaries. The trial justice had no doubts about that question. In a bench decision he made quite clear his opinion that the collective bargaining process contemplated by the School Teachers' Arbitration Act would be useless if the body charged with appropriating funds were free to ignore the existence of a valid agreement fairly reached at the bargaining table by the school committee and the bargaining agent. ²

After stating that legal conclusion, the trial justice turned from the general to the particulars, and observed that the school committee had neither attempted to present to the financial town meeting 'the precise dilemma' which had resulted from its refusal to approve the budget submitted, nor requested the convening of a special financial town meeting at which 'this precise problem' could be presented for determination by the voters of the town. These omissions, he believed, could not be ignored and accordingly he denied declaratory relief without prejudice, however, to the town's right to seek that relief again if the...