The opinion
[This opinion has been published in Ohio Official Reports at 75 Ohio St.3d 60.]
HARA, APPELLANT AND CROSS-APPELLEE, v. MONTGOMERY COUNTY JOINT
VOCATIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT, APPELLEE AND CROSS-APPELLANT.
[Cite as Hara v. Montgomery Cty. Joint Vocational School Dist.,
1996-Ohio-131.]
Schools—Teachers—Supplemental contract for additional duties improperly
reduced, when—Term of automatically renewed supplemental contract—
Former R.C. 3119.11, construed and applied.
(Nos. 94-2684 and 95-49—Submitted January 9, 1996—Decided March 4, 1996.)
APPEAL and CROSS-APPEAL from and CERTIFIED by the Court of Appeals for
Montgomery County, Nos. 13636 and 13937.
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{¶ 1} Teachers are employed pursuant to a contract between the teacher and
a board of education. R.C. 3319.08. Such a contract is either continuing, one that
remains in effect until the teacher resigns, retires or is terminated, or limited, one
with a term not to exceed five years. Id. Teachers and boards of education may
also enter into supplemental contracts, also called extended service contracts, which
cover duties, for example, coaching, performed by the teacher in addition to the
teacher’s regular duties. Id. Supplemental contracts are limited contracts. Id. All
of the above-mentioned contracts must be in writing. Id.
{¶ 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-
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hundred-fifteen-day basis. In the spring of 1975, Hara and the board entered into a
continuing contract. From that time forward, the supplemental contracts between
Hara and the board were oral and had no specified term.
{¶ 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 R.C. 3119.11 for
five years, not merely for the succeeding year. However, the referee found that
Hara had unreasonably delayed asserting her claim, thereby prejudicing the board,
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January Term, 1996
and therefore she was entitled to back pay only for school years 1987-1988 through
1990-1991.
{¶ 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).
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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.
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WRIGHT, J.
{¶ 9} The central issue in this case is whether the supplemental contract
between Hara and the board was automatically renewed under former R.C. 3319.11
for a period of five years or for a period of one year from the time she received her
continuing contract (1975).1 The court of appeals held that the initial automatic
renewal of the supplemental contract (from the time Hara and the board entered
into a continuing contract) was for a five-year term. The court of appeals also held
that the supplemental contract was automatically renewed for a term of one year in
each subsequent year until the board notified Hara in writing that her supplemental
contract was not being renewed. We agree in part and reverse only that portion of
the opinion of the court of appeals that held that the initial renewal of the
supplemental contract was for a term of five years. We affirm that portion of the
court of appeals’ opinion that upheld the trial court’s application of the doctrine of
laches.
{¶ 10} The statutory framework which we are called upon to interpret is
cloudy at best. Very little of the language of R.C. Chapter 3319 explicitly addresses
supplemental contracts between teachers and boards of education. Consequently,
we have looked for guidance wherever limited contracts are discussed in the statute
because supplemental contracts are a subset of limited contracts. R.C. 3319.08.
{¶ 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. R.C. 3319.08.
1. Effective July 1, 1989, supplemental written contracts were excluded from the automatic renewal
provisions of R.C. 3319.11. R.C. 3319.11(I), 142 Ohio Laws, Part II, 3363.
2. There is no dispute about the continuing contract. Both Hara and the board have continued to
perform under the terms of the continuing contract.
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January Term, 1996
Accordingly, we find that under former R.C. 3319.11, Hara’s supplemental contract
was automatically renewed for the succeeding year under the same terms and
conditions as the previous supplemental contract. Tate v. Westerville City Bd. of
Edn. (1983), 4 Ohio St.3d 206, 4 OBR 524, 448 N.E.2d 144, syllabus. We further
find that her supplemental contract was automatically renewed at the end of each
contract for the succeeding year until April 1988 when Hara was notified in writing
that her supplemental contract was not being renewed.
{¶ 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 R.C. 3319.08. Hara’s pay was reduced
accordingly and she reduced her work days accordingly, but her acquiesence in this
improper modification is beside the point. The board attempted to decrease Hara’s
salary and duties without complying with the statutory requirements. Such
reductions are specifically forbidden by the statute; accordingly, the attempted
modification was without effect and each of the subsequent supplemental contracts
was for fifty-five days of extended service. R.C. 3319.08.4
{¶ 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
3. This change in the supplemental contract was effected without a writing.
4. It is also immaterial that Hara accepted the earlier modification that increased the days of work
governed by the supplemental contract. R.C. 3319.08 provides that duties and compensation may
be increased during the term of a contract; they may not, however, be diminished.
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ultimately a factual determination. See State ex rel. Polo v. Cuyahoga Cty. Bd. of
Elections (1995), 74 Ohio St.3d 143, 656 N.E.2d 1277; State ex rel. Meyers v.
Columbus (1995), 71 Ohio St.3d 603, 646 N.E.2d 173; State ex rel. Cater v. N.
Olmsted (1994), 69 Ohio St.3d 315, 631 N.E.2d 1048; Stevens v. Natl. City Bank
(1989), 45 Ohio St.3d 276, 285, 544 N.E.2d 612, 620-621. Both fact finders, the
referee and the trial court, found laches to be applicable. Their findings were
affirmed by the court of appeals. We find no facts in the record that justify
overturning that decision.
{¶ 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.
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