78 Pa. Commw. 1 | Pa. Commw. Ct. | 1983
Opinion by
The Commonwealth Department of Education, Millersville State University (Millersville) has appealed two orders of the Board of Claims (Board), the first, that Millersville pay Gail Miller $516.01 damages for breach of an employment contract and the second rejecting Millersville’s claim for restitution in the amount of $814.10.
Ms. Miller, a registered clinical dietician, received a letter written by the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs of Millersville, stating the following:
I am pleased to offer you a temporary appointment for the 1980 fall semester only as an adjunct instructor of Biology on a one-third time ' basis to team-teach a course in nutrition and dietetics to the nursing students of St. Joseph Hospital School of Nursing. The compensation for this assignment will be $2,139.47.
Ms. Miller accepted the offer and performed the duties described in the letter. Millersville had paid her $1,623.46 by the time she had finished the work. It refused to pay the balance, claiming that it had made a mistake in calculating the amount of the compensation offered. Millersville also made demand for $814.10, the difference between the amount Ms. Miller
The Board concluded that assuming a mistake was made it was unilateral to Millersville and that Ms. Miller “had no reason to be aware, and, in fact, was not aware” of the mistake. The law of Pennsylvania is that if a mistake is not mutual, but unilateral, and is not due to the fault of the party not mistaken, but to the negligence of the one who acted under the mistake, it affords no basis for relief, unless the party not mistaken has good reason to know of the unilateral mistake. McFadden v. American Oil Co., 215 Pa. Superior Ct. 44, 257 A.2d 283 (1969).
We must affirm the order of the Board unless it is not in accordance with the law or unless the findings of fact are not supported by substantial evidence. Department of Transportation v. Westmoreland Engineering Co., 63 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 318, 438 A.2d 1005 (1981).
Millersville contends that the record contains evidence that Ms. Miller had reason to know that the offer of $2,139.47 was a mistake. The evidence principally depended on in this respect is that Ms. Miller, was paid only $11.77 an hour for her hospital work so that she could not have believed that the offer of $2,-139.47 for teaching fourteen classroom hours for $142 an hour, was not a mistake. Ms. Miller responded that she did not know of the mistake and that based on the total hours spent performing her teaching duties, including thirty hours reading term papers, she earned about seven dollars an hour teaching at Millersville.
The Board, as noted, found that Ms. Miller did not have reason to know of the mistake, assuming one was made. The record contains substantial evidence to support the finding and no evidence favorable to Millersville was capriciously disregarded.
Order affirmed.
Oedeb
And Now, this 21st day of October, 1983, the order of the Board of Claims dated September 30, 1982, is hereby affirmed.