AMERICAN FEDERATION OF STATE, COUNTY AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES COUNCIL 18, AFL-CIO, CLC, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STATE OF NEW MEXICO, NEW MEXICO STATE PERSONNEL BOARD, and SANDRA K. PEREZ, Director of New Mexico State Personnel Board, Defendants-Appellees.
Docket No. 30,770
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO
August 15, 2013
KENNEDY, Chief Judge.
APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF SANTA FE COUNTY, Barbara J. Vigil, District Judge
Shane C. Youtz
Stephen Curtice
Albuquerque, NM
for Appellant
State Personnel Office
General Counsel
Katie Thwaits, Special Assistant Attorney General
Santa Fe, NM
for Appellees
OPINION
KENNEDY, Chief Judge.
{1} The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 18, AFL-CIO, CLC (the Union) appeals from the
I. BACKGROUND
{2} One of the terms in the Agreement is a sick leave incentive in Article 21, Section 5 that permits “[a]n employee who is assigned to shift work in a twenty-four hour facility and who does not utilize sick leave for a calendar quarter” to receive eight hours of administrative leave. Neither party disputes that “shift work” was not a term for which a definition had been established for purposes of the Agreement.
{3} After an arbitrator decided a grievance against the State holding that the sick leave benefit did not, as the State urged, only apply to those workers who worked in an assignment that constituted unending twenty-four-hour coverage of the job, the Board adopted a new regulation (the regulation) that defined the terms “normal work schedule” and “shift work schedule.” The regulation stated that a “‘shift work schedule’ means a normal work schedule assigned to an employee as part of a rotating group of individuals that must continuously maintain a twenty-four hour operation.”
{4} The Union sued the Board seeking a declaratory judgment that the regulation unconstitutionally impaired the Agreement under the Contract Clauses of the United States and New Mexico Constitutions and further requesting a preliminary injunction against enforcing the regulation. The Board moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground that it failed to state a claim pursuant to
{5} In a hearing that followed, the district court orally ruled that there was previously no clear definition of “shift work” in the Agreement, that the regulation applied prospectively, and that the Agreement was not substantially impaired by adoption of the regulation. The district court entered a generic
II. DISCUSSION
{6} “A motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under
{7} No state may pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts.
{8} We hold that the Union adequately pled that the regulation would substantially impair an existing contract right, so as to make the regulation unconstitutionally retroactive. The following allegations contained in the Union‘s complaint are more than sufficient to state a claim of substantial impairment of contract. Some state agencies had in the past “given the incentive to employees working in a 24-hour facility even when the employees did not work in a position requiring continuous shifts within a 24-hour period.” The State withdrew the incentive benefit from employees covered by the Agreement who had previously been accorded the benefit, based on the State‘s decision to deny the employees eligibility for the benefit on the ground that the job assignment was not one requiring twenty-four-hour coverage. In the arbitration involving these employees, the State specifically used its new interpretation of shift work in a twenty-four-hour facility to justify removal of the benefit from persons in jobs except those requiring twenty-four-hour coverage. Having lost the arbitration on that very point, the Board adopted a definition that was the exact opposite of the definition adopted by the arbitrator and that was an attempt to circumvent the arbitrator‘s decision and the State‘s obligations under the Agreement. The
regulation denied sick leave incentive pay that the State had contractually agreed to provide and had once paid, and impaired the Agreement in violation of the Contract Clauses of the United States and New Mexico Constitutions.
{9} Applying
{10} We reverse the district court and remand this case for further proceedings consistent with this Opinion.
{11} IT IS SO ORDERED.
RODERICK T. KENNEDY, Chief Judge
WE CONCUR:
JONATHAN B. SUTIN, Judge
LINDA M. VANZI, Judge