325 N.E.2d 901 | Ohio Ct. App. | 1974
Initially, North Royalton Education Association, et al. (appellants), filed a suit for an order compelling the North Royalton Board of Education (appellee) to arbitrate a grievance pursuant to the terms of a collective bargaining agreement. Appellee moved to dismiss the complaint and appellants amended the original pleading to add a cause of action for declaratory judgment.
Appellee's motion was granted in the court below on December 27, 1972. Appellants applied for reconsideration on January 8, 1973. Reconsideration was denied on May 4, 1973, accompanied by the trial court's findings of fact and conclusions of law. Appellants filed notice of appeal on May 31, 1973, assigning three errors:
"First Assignment of Error:
"THE TRIAL COURT ERRONEOUSLY CONCLUDED THAT A BOARD OF EDUCATION IS BARRED FROM ENTERING INTO A COLLECTIVE BARGAINING CONTRACT WITH A VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATION OF CERTIFICATED TEACHERS.
"A. The Power to Enter Into Collective Bargaining Agreements is Necessarily Implied in Those Powers Expressly Conferred Upon Boards of Education By Statute.
"B. There is No Legal Barrier in the State of Ohio Preventing Boards of Education From Engaging in Collective Bargaining and From Entering into Collective Bargaining Agreements with Voluntary Teachers Associations.
"Second Assignment of Error: *211
"THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN REFUSING TO ENFORCE THE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE BOARD AND THE ASSOCIATION DESPITE THE FACT THAT THE AGREEMENT HAD BEEN INCORPORATED IN THE CONTRACTS OF EACH INDIVIDUAL MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATION.
"Third Assignment of Error:
"THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN CONCLUDING THAT A CONTRACT PROVISION IN AN AGREEMENT BETWEEN A BOARD OF EDUCATION AND A TEACHERS ASSOCIATION AUTHORIZING SUBMISSION OF GRIEVANCES TO FINAL AND BINDING ARBITRATION WAS VOID AS AN UNLAWFUL DELEGATION OF THE BOARD'S AUTHORITY."
We reverse.
We are bound, of course, by the rules and by Kauder. However, we do not read either the rules or Kauder as requiring the elevation of form over substance. Consequently, it is necessary to examine appellants' post-trial motion to determine whether its substance requires that it be treated as a motion for reconsideration or as a motion for new trial. If the substance of appellants' motion establishes its nature to be that of a motion for reconsideration, the appeal is clearly out of rule. If the substance of the motion establishes its essence to be a request for a new trial, the substantive issues remain for disposition.
In our view appellants' "Application for Reconsideration" must be treated as a motion for new trial under Civ. R. 59(7). The whole tenor of the application's Parts (1) and (3) suggests, when not explicit, that the trial court erred as a matter oflaw when it apparently agreed that *212 the action to compel arbitration was premature in the light of appellee's willingness to participate in an adversary arbitration. The absence of prematurity seems especially clear because of a letter from appellee to the American Arbitration Association (see appellants' Motion for Reconsideration, Exhibit A) indicating that appellants' request for arbitration should be dismissed following the ruling of the trial court sustaining appellee's position. This pattern of facts rebuts willingness and supports the claimed error of law. Therefore, the appellee's motion to dismiss is overruled and we reach the substantive issues.
The appellant is a voluntary association which represents a majority of the certificated teachers in the North Royalton City School District (FF1).1 Appellee is the school board for the district responsible by law for the management and control of the district's affairs (FF4: Ohio Rev. Code
During the 1971-1972 school year a dispute arose over the interpretation of the contract. That dispute involved the formula for application of state funds during the 1972-1973 school year (FF9). The appellants took the position that the dispute was subject to the grievance procedure's arbitration clause. The appellee refused arbitration contending the entire contract is unenforceable (FF10). Appellants brought suit.3
No decision by the Supreme Court of Ohio has been found nor brought to our attention which decides these precise issues. However, it is clear that school boards, as agencies of the state for the "organization, administration and control of the public school system of the state," Cline v. Martin (1916),
Sections IV-VII set out our reasons for upholding the right and power of a school board to conclude a collective bargaining agreement and to agree to final and binding arbitration for the interpretation and applications of contract terms only within limits imposed by law.
The exempt status of the present appellee (see fn. 5) leaves freedom to bargain, or not, untrammelled by federal legislation and no Ohio statute specifically prohibits, allows, or compels it. Thus, the appellee has no duty to bargain collectively to establish terms and conditions for its employees but this does not foreclose the questions whether it may bargain and what its responsibilities are if it does negotiate a collective bargaining agreement.
The first two objections are easily met. There is nothing *216 about either strict construction or the separation of powers, assuming the power to contract at all, which requires that the power be exercised in a particular way. And, while a collective agreement could not overturn or modify either a statutory civil service standard or a valid regulatory scheme under such a statute, collective bargains can anticipate and take account of existing law so as not to conflict with it.
The proposition that one public official should not be able to bind a successor founders on the lack of a clear comprehension of the capacity in which a public official operates. He performs not for himself or for his successors. His principal is the public and when he acts for it he can bind it to contracts beyond his term in the absence of statutory impediments, cf.State ex rel. McGoldrick v. Lewis (1901), 12 Ohio Dec. 46, 50.
Indeed, if the matter of successor binding is crucial, there is no reason why a contract cannot be negotiated with an open termination clause providing successors with the option to continue or modify.
Nor do the Ohio cases of binding authority foreclose the notion that power implied from a school board's power to contract individually with its teachers provides the authority for a collective bargain.
§
"The board of education of each school district shall be a body politic and corporate, and, as such, capable of suing and being sued, contracting and being contracted with, acquiring, holding, possessing, and disposing of real and personal property, and taking and holding in trust for the use and benefit of such district, any grant or devise of land and any donation or bequest of money or other personal property." (Emphasis supplied.)
§
"The board of education of each city . . . shall enter into written contracts for the employment and reemployment of all teachers. (Emphasis supplied.)
The statutes do not command collective bargaining. They do provide a basis for the implied authority to bargain collectively. The power to contract and the duty to enter into written contracts with teachers is explicit. The statute does not specify individual written contracts. In our view the legislature did not intend to bind the school boards of the state to a duty to enter into written contracts with teachers and at the same time insure that the burden of bargaining those contracts be as onerous as multiple, individual bargains could make it. Such a burden on administration with consequent waste in efficiency, time, and money should not be inferred. If this consequence is the intent of the legislature, it must be made manifest by specific legislative direction.
Accordingly, we find that the appellants' first assignment of error — that the trial court erred in concluding that a board of education is barred from entering into a collective bargaining contract with a voluntary association of certificated teachers — is well taken. It follows that appellants' second assignment assessing error for the trial court's refusal to enforce such a contract is also well taken subject to the limits and reservations delineated in the discussion of the third assignment of error in VII.
The argument that final and binding arbitration of grievances is an unlawful delegation of power founders upon two considerations. These are, first, the kinds of issues which are subject to arbitration, and second, the conditions which render the arbitrator's decision final.
The arbitration clause in issue here is confined to grievances *218 and does not purport to reach basic contract terms.10 Thus, there is no requirement that crucial policy questions be submitted to arbitration. In addition, should the arbitrator decide corruptly, or contrary to law, or exceed the authority of the submission in a decision on a matter properly submitted, his judgment is subject to challenge in a court of law.11 Given these conditions there can be no unlawful delegation of board authority without court challenge. The third assignment of error is well taken. Reversed and remanded for further proceedings according to law.
Judgment reversed.
SILBERT, C. J., and KRENZLER, J.,12 concur.
"A combination of workmen to raise their wages may be considered in a two fold point of view: one is to benefit themselves . . . the other is to injure those who do not join their society. The rule of law condemns both."