IL Decision: Paid Leave Counts for Teacher’s Tenure

After two years of teaching in School District 186, Tammy Wood was in a car accident.  Her contract had been renewed for a third year, and the District granted her request for leave for both semesters to recover.  At the end of that year, the District again renewed Wood’s contract.  She returned that fall and taught for a fourth year at District 186.

At the end of the year, the District issued Wood a letter informing her – without providing a reason - that it would not be renewing her contract for the following school year.  Wood sued the District, claiming she had tenure, and the District couldn’t terminate her contract without cause. 

The School District argued that Wood wasn’t tenured because she hadn’t taught for four consecutive years.  She taught for two, was out on disability for one whole year, and then taught for another year.  The curcuit court agreed with Wood and ordered the District to reinstate her.  The District appealed, and last week the Court of Appeals sided with Wood as well.

In Illinois, by statute, teachers reach tenure after 4 consecutive years in the same district.*  Tenure, of course, means job protection – a nontenured teacher is employed year-by-year, while a tenured teacher’s contract automatically renews – they can only be fired for cause, or as the statute puts it, “a specific reason.”

The Appellate Court said that the School Code didn’t require four years of teaching – it required four years of employment as a teacher:

It is undisputed that Wood was employed in the district as a full-time teacher for four years.  That she was granted a leave of absence from her teaching duties to recover from a serious injury does not change the fact that she was a contractual employee and that she was paid as a full-time teacher for four consecutive years, including the [year she was on leave].

Finally, it’s important to note that the District’s error was not necessarily terminating Wood, but that it didn’t give “a specific reason” for the termination.  Since she was arguably on the cusp of tenure, and there’s no rule against giving non-tenured teachers reasons for their termination, the District could have saved itself a lot of time (and money – appeals aren’t cheap) by explaining its reasoning in the first place.

 The court seemed to think the District may have omitted the “specific reason” because it didn’t have one.  In dicta, the court noted that the District renewed Wood’s contract the year after her leave, which means they must have “held a favorable view of her abilities” at the beginning of the year. 

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*IL School Code – 105 ILCS  5/24-11

Read the decision: Wood v. North Wamac School District No. 186

Handbooks as Contracts: A Cautionary Tale

This recent 7th circuit opinion is a good reminder why employment lawyers should be involved in every step of a company’s HR program – this case involves FMLA rules, state breach-of-contract claims, employee notice and designation procedures, and more. And it’s all because of a handbook (are you listening, Sam Zell?):

In Peters v. Gilead Sciences, Inc. (July 14, 2008), an employee sued after the company denied him reinstatement after what he thought was FMLA leave.  This is from an Ogletree Deakins Client Update:

The day after beginning his leave, Peters received a letter from Gilead, stating the terms of his “FMLA” leave, and informing him of his right to reinstatement after leave.  The letter tracked language that was set forth in the company’s employee handbook regarding employees’ entitlement to family and medical leaves.  Although the letter and the handbook both included the 1250 hour/12 month language, neither included the 50-employees-within-a-75-mile-radius (“50/75”) language and, in fact, Gilead did not have 50 employees within a 75 mile radius. 

***

In April of 2003, Gilead decided to replace Peters with another employee.  On April 25, Gilead sent a letter to Peters, designating him as a “key” employee.  Under the FMLA, that designation – which includes the highest paid 10% of all salaried employees – allows a company to replace such a key employee rather than hold his position open.  The letter advised Peters that his position had been filled, but offered an alternative position to him, which he declined.

When the employee sued, the district court granted summary judgment because the company did not meet the 50/75 requirement.  But the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the case, because it thought Mr. Peters could have a state law contract claim, since the FMLA language was folded into the handbook.  The theory is this:  a handbook can be a contract under certain circumstances, and if that handbook is a contract, and it contains the same promises that are offered under the FMLA, it doesn’t matter whether you would be subject to the law or not, you’ve contractually obligated yourself to provide for leave the way the handbook says.  

The moral of the story, of course, is be careful with your handbooks.  Don’t just take a boilerplate policy set and hand it out.  What you think is just an explanation of a possibly-applicable law could become a binding contract and obligate you to all kinds of scary things like reinstatement and back pay.  

[ed. note: We normally don’t cite to firm publications, but I have to HT Ogletree Deakins for this one – we missed it here, and I haven’t seen it anywhere else, either.

BREAKING: Sex Is A Major Life Activity

(HT: LawMemo via Workplace Prof Blog)

In order to prove you have a disability in federal court, you generally have to be able to show 2 things (and this is obviously generalizing a lot):

1. You have some type of impairment.
2. That your impairment substantially limits a ‘major life activity’.

Of course, the laws governing disability discrimination neglect to define either of these terms, which means courts have, over the years, had a lot of fun with them. Especially that second requirement.

As it stands right now, breathing, eating, walking, lifting, caring for ones self all count as “major life activities.” AIDS is a disability for straight women, because it impairs the major life activity of reproduction, but not for gay men, because it doesn’t impair anything but remaining alive, which, interestingly, is not a major life activity. Working is (usually) a major life activity, but working more than 40 hours a week generally isn’t. (How one lawyer convinced a bunch of other lawyers of that is a total mystery to me.) In one case involving a mentally handicapped Wal-Mart applicant, the 11th Circuit said they weren’t sure if “thinking, communicating and social interaction are ‘major life activities’ under the ADA.”

Last month, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals made headlines when it held that sleeping was a major life activity. Seriously.

Well, now the D.C. Circuit has done it again: Having sex, apparently, is a major life activity. In Adams v. Rice, the court noted that a woman recovering from cancer, whose symptoms and treatments were messing with her sex life had a valid disability.

All this confusion over what constitutes a disability may be “cleared up” by an amendment before Congress right now, which would define the definition to include anything that “materially restricts” a “major bodily function.” The amendment’s proponents think this language would encompass things like AIDS and cancer automatically. I wonder if we’re just giving the courts two more phrases to ponder over.

Back to sex in D.C. – One of the judges issued a dissent – not arguing that sex isn’t a MLA, thank God – but rather saying that the plaintiff didn’t show any interference with her sex life until long after the alleged discrimination took place. This is quite interesting, and is a sub-issue that will probably outlast any amendment made to the ADA.

Either way, an appellate court has once again explained something most of us took for granted. Employment law is such a great lens through which to view the difference between the judicial system and real life.