State ex rel. Boggs v. Springfield Local School District Board of Education

Summary

The Ohio Supreme Court held that school bus drivers and mechanics were entitled to reinstatement as continuing-contract school board employees after the board improperly abolished their positions and contracted out transportation services. The court ordered reinstatement of nonretired relators to bus-driver positions and awarded certain relators back pay for reduced work hours and lost School Employees Retirement System contributions. The court otherwise affirmed the judgment below.

Holdings

1. Because the prior decision held that the relators were entitled to the mandamus relief requested, the court of appeals was required to order actual reinstatement of eligible relators to their bus-driver positions, not merely an offer of reinstatement.
2. In the absence of a collective bargaining agreement authorizing the action, R.C. 3319.081 prohibited the board from abolishing the relators' nonteaching positions and laying them off while retaining the same work and assigning it to private employees.
3. A superintendent's authority to assign nonteaching employees under R.C. 3319.01 does not include authority to unilaterally modify a written continuing-employment contract by changing the employee's classification.
4. A wrongfully excluded public employee may recover back pay and related benefits in a mandamus action when the amount can be calculated with reasonable certainty; a definitive dollar figure at the time of judgment is unnecessary if the amount will be readily ascertainable upon reinstatement.
5. The relators were entitled to back pay for the two work hours per day lost after their reassignment, calculated using the board's applicable current hourly rate, but they were not entitled to the higher hourly rates paid by Laidlaw.
6. Brannon, Coomer, and Halman were entitled to the board's SERS contributions attributable to the recoverable gross wages because the contribution rate and the applicable wages were readily ascertainable.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the court of appeals properly ordered the board only to offer reinstatement rather than to reinstate the relators to their positions as bus drivers.
2. Whether the board could abolish the bus-driver positions and effectively lay off nonteaching employees while retaining the same work and assigning it to a private contractor.
3. Whether the superintendent could use statutory assignment authority to reassign continuing-contract bus drivers to a different classification and thereby modify their written contracts.
4. Whether Brannon, Coomer, and Halman established with sufficient certainty their entitlement to back pay for reduced work hours and to lost SERS contributions.
5. Whether the relators were entitled to the higher hourly wages paid by Laidlaw in calculating back pay.

Disposition

writ_granted