GERALD WILSON v. THE STATE OF ILLINOIS (2002)

OPINION

This university employee back wage claim is before the court for final determination following trial to our commissioner, J. Michael Mathis Jr.

Nature of the Claim

Claimant Gerald W. Wilson brings this claim against respondent's Western Illinois University (the University or WIU) and its [former] governing board to recover $33,714 of salary that claimant alleges is the aggregate amount of salary increases or adjustments to which he was entitled, but that the University did not give him, from July 1, 1989 to January 1, 1995.

Claimant's claim of entitlement is based on the University's 1986-1987 and 1991-1993 publications of its Civil Service Handbook for Employees and Supervisors, Personnel (collectively, the Handbooks), which he asserts were his (or part of his) employment contract under Duldulao v. St. Mary of Nazareth Hosp. Center, 115 Ill.2d 482, 106 Ill.Dec. 8, 505 N.E.2d 314 (1987) and its caselaw progeny.

Based on provisions of the Handbooks, and his 1984-1995 civil service job classification as a building maintenance coordinator, which is an open range position for salary purposes, claimant advances two claims to contractual entitlement to higher salary during the 1989-1995 period: (1) that he was entitled to the same annual (or periodic) equity adjustments in salary that others in his classification at WIU received during that time, and (2) that he was entitled to increases necessary to maintain his salary within the range specified for his job classification as that range (i.e., its minimum and maximum salary levels) was raised during the 1989-1995 period.

Jurisdiction

Claimant predicates jurisdiction of this court on/8(b) of the Court of Claims Act (705 ILCS 505/8(b), our contract jurisdiction, on the ground that he seeks to enforce an employment contract with the State, as the University and its governing Board are State agencies. Despite this court's surprise at being called upon to resolve a university wage dispute, we agree that we have apparent jurisdiction to decide this contract claim.

Our surprise at finding this claim before us derives from the applicability of the State University Civil Service System to the claimant's employment at WIU. However, unlike a demotion or termination (see 110 ILCS 70/36o), this kind of wage dispute is not subject to any statutory administrative procedure before the University Civil Service Merit Board. If it were, of course, then this court would be divested of jurisdiction by the statutory provision of judicial review under the Administrative Review Law (the ARL) (see, 110 ILCS 70/36o, making all final administrative decisions of the Merit Board subject to judicial review under the ARL; see also, Mason v. Board of Trustees of Southern Illinois University, 125 Ill.App. 3d 614, 466 N.E.2d 365 (5th Dist. 1984)). The availability of judicial review under the ARL or any other statute divests this court of jurisdiction over such disputes which it otherwise would have (see, 705 ILCS 505/8(a)).

For this reason, it is important that we point out here our presumptions (a) that the claimant has exhausted his administrative grievance remedies within the University, and (b) that there is no grievance or other procedure available to the claimant before the Merit Board for this wage dispute, which we make in light of the University's failure to assert an exhaustion objection and both parties insistence that this claim belongs in this court. A failure to exhaust a Merit Board remedy, if available, would be a jurisdictional exhaustion objection. But in the absence of an alternative procedure that leads to circuit or appellate court review, this court must decide this wage dispute.

The University's Defenses

The University maintains that the claimant's job (formerly designated as a building maintenance scheduler, and the duties of which never changed) was mis-classified into an incorrect category as a building maintenance coordinator during the University's 1984 reclassification pursuant to revised job classifications that were then mandated by the State University Civil Service Commission. WIU nevertheless declined to reclassify the claimant into the appropriate new job class because that classification was lower than his previous one and would have required a reduction of his current salary and retirement benefits, which the University, as a matter of policy, declined to do to incumbent employees. Despite a job audit that was initiated by the claimant in 1989 that verified his mis-classification, WIU maintains that it kept Mr. Wilson in the mis-classified category but declined to grant him the salary increases that were given to other building maintenance coordinators because the claimant was not properly in that class and was already being overpaid for his actual job duties.

The claimant replies that mis-classification is not a legitimate reason, under the Manual, to deny him raises or the other benefits of that classification; effectively that the University had to either reclassify him or give him all the benefits of others in his actual classification.

As a legal matter, the University defends this claim on three bases:

1. On the legal ground that the 1991-93 Manual contained a disclaimer of contractual intent that, under the Illinois caselaw, precludes that document from constituting a contract, thus undermining claimant's claim at least as to the post-1991 period;

which the claimant, in turn, disputes as to the adequacy of that disclaimer -- primarily as to its lack of prominence in the Manual text -- under the post-Duldalao disclaimer caselaw standards;

2. As to claimant's claim of entitlement to equity raises during the disputed period, on the basis that the Manual does not entitle the claimant to any raises, irrespective of the raises that may have been granted to others in the building maintenance coordinators classification;

to which the claimant replies that he is entitled to the salary adjustments of the job class and that the University was not authorized to base claimant's salary adjustments on his mis-classification; and

3. As to his claim that Mr. Wilson was entitled to base salary increases as the salary range for building maintenance coordinator escalated, on the factual basis that the clamant's actual salary always fell within the range of salaries specified for that classification despite the periodic increases in its salary range;

to which the claimant does not substantially reply.

Analysis

We go directly to the merits of clamant's contract arguments in this case, in which the claimant's position is a near-perfect paradigm of the old saw no good deed goes unpunished.

Taking the claimant's second and weaker contention first, his salary range argument is readily disposed on the facts, which he appears to admit, and to which the University's witnesses both testified: that Mr. Wilson was never paid below the minimum salary range in effect for his building maintenance coordinators job classification during the disputed period. There is therefore no legal issue to be reached on that claim, which is rejected as factually baseless.

Claimant's primary claim of entitlement to raises -- either in general or to match those given in fact to other WIU employees in the same job classification during the disputed period -- turns on the language of the Manual, assuming as we do that one or both of the two Manual publications is enforceable by the claimant-employee as a contractual undertaking of WIU under the Duldulao line of cases. Claimant rests this wage increase claim on the following provision of the Manual (see, Claimant's Exh. 1 [1986 Manual], at 96; Claimant's Exh. 2 [1991 Manual], at 95):

All ... open-range ... employees ... shall be paid a salary in conformity with this pay plan. Increases, decreases or adjustments in base salary ... shall be made only in accordance with the provisions of this pay plan ....

This court does not read this provision as a mandate for periodic wage increases ... or adjustments or for uniform raises in a job classification, as the claimant contends. This provision, which is constructed in the contorted linguistic form of a limiting mandate (shall ... only ....), is unambiguously a limitation on the University: it restricts WIU's granting of increases to those in accordance with this pay plan, which we take broadly to mean the Manual. This provision does not itself mandate raises.

This takes the analysis to the next and obvious question: Where in the Manual (or in the law) are raises mandated? On this dispositive issue, the claimant is silent. He does not cite any other provision, of anything, that controls raises or that gives him any entitlement to any wage increase. Nor has this court discovered any in our own review of the Manual text that has been made available in this record.

As to claimant's view that the University's refusals to give him wage increases constitute adjustments that can only be made pursuant to the Manual -- and, of course, that the Manual does not expressly authorize such refusals, which are therefore improper, we congratulate the claimant and his counsel on a remarkably creative but inverted argument. But we reject the notion that wage increases and wage adjustments include unchanged wage levels, under this Manual or otherwise.

Accordingly, assuming arguendo that the Manual was a WIU-employee contract, claimant's wage raise claim must nevertheless die for want of a contractual basis.

Given our disposition of both of claimant's contractual claims, there is no need for us to address the parties dispute over whether or not the later Manual's disclaimer was effective.

Conclusion

For the reasons set forth above, this claim is denied, and forever barred.

EPSTEIN, J.