HARA, APPELLANT AND CROSS-APPELLEE, v. MONTGOMERY COUNTY JOINT VOCATIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT, APPELLEE AND CROSS-APPELLANT.
Nos. 94-2684 and 95-49
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO
Decided March 4, 1996
75 Ohio St.3d 60 | 1996-Ohio-131
Submitted January 9, 1996. APPEAL and CROSS-APPEAL from and CERTIFIED by the Court of Appeals for Montgomery County, Nos. 13636 and 13937.
{¶ 2} In May 1971, Shirlee Hara, a guidance counselor, and the Montgomery County Joint Vocational School District Board of Education (“board“) entered into a one-year limited contract for the standard one-hundred eighty-five-day work year. In April 1972, Hara and the board entered into a one-year limited contract on a two-hundred-five-day basis consisting of a one-hundred eighty-five-day limited contract and a twenty-day supplemental contract. The next contract between Hara and the board was a two-year limited contract on a two-
{¶ 3} From the 1976-1977 school year until the 1981-1982 school year, Hara‘s supplemental contract with the board was for fifty-five days. In the spring of 1981, Hara‘s supervisor, James Deeter, informed her that her supplemental contract was being reduced to forty days. Hara did not receive written notification of this reduction. She noticed that her pay had been adjusted to reflect the reduction and accordingly worked only two hundred twenty-five days, one hundred eighty-five days to fulfill her continuing contract obligation and forty days to fulfill her supplemental contract obligation.
{¶ 4} Hara continued to work, and to be paid, as if she had a forty-day supplemental contract through the 1986-1987 school year. Prior to the beginning of the 1987-1988 school year, Deeter informed Hara that her supplemental contract was being reduced to twenty days. Again, Hara did not receive written notification of this reduction.
{¶ 5} In late 1987 or early 1988, Hara filed a grievance complaining that the reduction of her supplemental contract was improper. The board notified Hara in writing in April 1988 that it did not intend to reemploy her under the supplemental contract. In December 1988, Hara filed this declaratory judgment action in the Montgomery County Common Pleas Court. In June 1992, the referee issued her Report and Recommendation finding that Hara‘s supplemental contracts for the school years 1981-1982 through 1990-1991 had been improperly reduced. Moreover, the referee concluded that when in April 1981 and April 1986, the board failed to provide timely written notice of its intention not to reemploy her, her supplemental contract was automatically renewed under former
{¶ 6} On August 31, 1992, the trial court adopted the Report and Recommendation issued by the referee with a minor modification not relevant here. The trial court agreed that the doctrine of laches was applicable in this case. In October 1992, the trial court entered judgment for Hara in the amount of $30,999.90 plus interest and penalties.
{¶ 7} Thereafter, the case embarked on a convoluted procedural journey that culminated when the Court of Appeals for Montgomery County upheld the trial court‘s finding that Hara was entitled to back pay. However, the court of appeals determined that the supplemental contract could only be renewed for one-year increments and therefore reversed the part of the trial court‘s decision that found that the supplemental contract could be renewed for five-year increments. Accordingly, the cause was remanded to the trial court so the award of back pay could be recomputed. The court upheld the trial court‘s application of the doctrine of laches.
{¶ 8} Finding its judgment to be in conflict with the judgment of the Court of Appeals for Holmes County in Swaykus v. E. Holmes Local School Dist. Bd. of Edn. (Feb. 7, 1983), Holmes App. No. CA-338, unreported, the court of appeals entered an order certifying a conflict. The cause is now before this court upon our determination that a conflict exists (case No. 95-49). The cause is also before this court pursuant to the allowance of a discretionary appeal and cross-appeal (case No. 94-2684).
Schnorf & Schnorf Co., L.P.A., and Christopher F. Parker, for appellant and cross-appellee.
Young, Pryor, Lynn & Jerardi and Larry A. Smith, for appellee and cross-appellant.
{¶ 9} The central issue in this case is whether the supplemental contract between Hara and the board was automatically renewed under former
{¶ 10} The statutory framework which we are called upon to interpret is cloudy at best. Very little of the language of
{¶ 11} This case arose because the board granted Hara a continuing contract for the 1975-1976 school year without reducing Hara‘s hitherto accompanying supplemental contract to writing.2 Even so, “the failure of such parties to execute a written contract shall not void” the accompanying contract.
{¶ 12} During the term of the first unwritten supplemental contract (1975-1976), Hara worked and was paid for thirty days of extended service. For the next five years, she worked and was paid for fifty-five days of extended service.3 Thus, though the contract was not in writing and therefore not in compliance with statutory law, both parties complied with the terms of the contract as they understood them through the 1980-1981 school year.
{¶ 13} In the spring of 1981, the board decreased Hara‘s supplemental contract to forty days. It effected this contract modification without providing written notice to Hara as required by
{¶ 14} We turn now to the doctrine of laches, which the board asserts as an affirmative defense. Whether the four elements of laches are applicable is
{¶ 15} We affirm in part and reverse in part and remand this cause to the trial court for a recomputation of the award of back pay in accordance with this decision.
Judgment affirmed in part and reversed in part.
MOYER, C.J., DOUGLAS, RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER and COOK, JJ., concur.