Opinion
C.A. No. 05A-01-15 SCD.
Submitted: January 20, 2006.
Decided: March 10, 2006.
OPINION
This is an appeal from a decision of the Court of Common Pleas finding that appellee, Appoquinimink School District, did not breach an employment contract with appellant Gary Berg.
FACTS
In the summer of 2001, Gary Berg ("appellant") interviewed with Dr. Vaughn Lauer of Appoquinimink School District ("Appoquinimink") about a job opening in their special education department. Appellant was then offered the position of special education coordinator. Appellant says that in additional to the regular teacher's contract, he was orally offered additional contract terms by Dr. Lauer. The alleged oral promises made by Dr. Lauer included a guarantee of twenty additional summer work days and permission to work overtime as appellant deemed necessary, to be compensated either with pay or compensatory time. Based upon these additional promises, appellant says he left his teaching job at Brandywine. On August 22, 2001, appellant was sent a letter confirming his employment with Appoquinimink effective October 1, 2001.
Appellant informed the Court that he signed the letter of acceptance he received from Mr. Marusa. Trial Tr., 70, December 30, 2004.
On October 1, 2001, appellant began working as a special coordinator for the Appoquinimink School District. Pursuant to his teacher's contract as well as the alleged oral promises made by Dr. Lauer, appellant accumulated various overtime hours during the 2001-2002 school year. Appellant used these additional hours as compensatory time with the approval of Dr. Lauer's office.
Through the additional testimony of Appoquinimink employees Lisa Donaldson, Barbara Mazza, Kathy Bromwell and Zenon Marusa, it was established that the operating procedure at Appoquinimink allowed special education coordinators to keep track of and work overtime hours at their professional discretion. Coordinators were then permitted to "trade in" these additional hours for compensatory time, i.e., doctor's appointments, vacation time, etc. provided they obtained the requisite approval.
In the summer of 2002, appellant worked his twenty additional summer work days and received pay for this time as well as overtime he accumulated as head of the summer special education program. Before the commencement of the 2002-2003 school year, Appoquinimink adopted new procedures which required pre-approval for both overtime work and the twenty additional summer work days.
Based on these operational changes, appellant resigned on September 15, 2002. Before his resignation, he submitted a time sheet with 108 overtime hours for which he seeks compensation.
PROCEDURAL HISTORY
On August 29, 2003, appellant filed an action against Appoquinimink School District and eleven employees and school board members (collectively "Appoquinimink") seeking damages for breach of contract. This complaint was amended on September 2, 2003. Appoquinimink filed an answer to the amended complaint on October 20, 2003. On September 16, 2004, Appoquinimink filed a motion for summary judgment. Appellant filed a motion for summary judgment along with a motion to amend the complaint on September 24, 2004. On October 8, 2004, the Court issued a bench ruling denying both parties' motions for summary judgment as well as appellant's motion to amend the complaint. On December 30, 2004, after the presentation of evidence, the Court entered a judgment in favor of Appoquinimink on all counts. On March 21, 2005, appellant filed this appeal.
See Pl. Am. Compl., at 4. Plaintiff's amended complaint corrected clerical errors and omissions and added an additional request for relief: compensation for harm to Mr. Berg's professio nal reputation.
Plaintiff's motion to amend the com plaint sought to add Count II for Quantum Meriut and Count III for unjust enrichment.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
Appeals in civil cases from the Court of Common Pleas to this Court are reviewed on the record and not de novo. As a non-jury case, the appeal is based upon both law and fact. If there is evidence sufficient to support the decision of the trial judge, it must be affirmed. The Court resolves issues of credibility and weighs the evidence. A court abuses its discretion when its ruling has, "exceeded the bounds of reason in view of the circumstances" and has "so ignored recognized rules of law or practice so as to produce injustice.
10 Del. C. § 1326(c); Super. Ct. Civ. R. 72(g).
Levitt v. Bouvier, 287 A.2d 671, 673 (Del. 1972).
Id.
Id.
Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. v. Adams, 541 A.2d 567, 570 (Del. 1988).
COURT OF COMMON PLEAS RULING
The Court below held that appellant failed to prove his claim of breach of contract. No damages were awarded.In support of its ruling, the Court determined that there was an express employment contract between appellant and the Appoquinimink School District which did not provide for the cash payment of overtime. Because no agreement existed, no agreement was breached. Appellant was not awarded compensation for the 108 hours of overtime.
The Court found,
There is no written agreement outlining this process, this offer, or this procedure. . . . the overwhelming evidence in the record and the documentation is that there has not been any payment for, no anticipated payment in the future, nor presently, any policy which compensate for overtime for this category of employees.
The Court ultimately concluded, "the plaintiff has failed to establish by pre ponderance of the evidence his claim for compensation for comp time, and I find for the defendant."
Trial Tr., 113, December 30, 2004.
As to appellant's contention that he was guaranteed an additional twenty summer work days, the Court appears to assume, arguendo, such a contractual obligation, then found no breach of that agreement. In fact, appellant was provided with twenty additional summer work days in 2002 and compensation was provided. The Court further found that the prospective change in the regulation regarding the twenty days of summer work and prior approval of overtime did not constitute a material breach of contract.
The Court held,
[W]hat he now seeks is the twenty days for which he believed that he would have been paid had the School District not changed its policy and procedure. The testimony and documents in the record indicate that the District, at no point, ind icated to him that he would not be paid, but only that the process for approving and managing the twenty-days was subject to new staff, or regulations or new management.
I do not find that unreasonable. On the claim on twenty days, there is no written agreem ent, as I said before. The overwhelming evidence is not supportive of the fact that the District would not have granted the twenty days, therefore, I find no basis for that claim and I find for the defendants.
Trial Tr., 111, December 30, 2004.
The Court rejected appellant's claim for damage to his reputation and punitive damages. Neither is addressed on appeal.
ARGUMENT
Appellant argues that the Court abused its discretion by denying his request to treat the witnesses he called who were still Appoquinimink employees, as hostile pursuant to Delaware Rule of Evidence 611 which provides:
(c) Leading Questions. Leading questions should not be used on the direct examination of a witness except as may be necessary to develop his testimony. . . . . . When a party calls a hostile witness, an adverse party or a witness identified with an adverse party, interrogation may be by leading questions.
The appellant's brief attempts to support his argument regarding the hostility of the three witnesses with material outside the record. Appoquinimink does the same. All references to materials outside the record are stricken.
The record shows that the only reason offered by the appellant to prove the existence of hostility during the trial was the employment relationship. The Court initially denied the motion, but stated that if it became clear there was adversity, the Court would revisit the issue. The Court detected such adversity as appellant questioned his third witness, Ms. Kathy Bromwell, and permitted appellant to treat her as hostile.
Trial Tr., 4-6, December 30, 2004.
Trial Tr., 6, December 30, 2004.
Delaware Rule of Evidence 611 provides that leading questions of an individual identified with an adverse party may be permitted by the Court. The Court in its discretion, and with the benefit of personal observation of the demeanor and tone of the witness, found that only one witness demonstrated hostility so as to justify the use of leading questions. Additionally, the appellant makes no claim, and provides no evidence within the boundaries of the record, that the discovery of truth was impaired.
D.R.E. 611 (a) The court shall exercise reasonable control over the mode and order of interrogating witnesses and presenting evidence so as to (1) make the interrogation and presentation effective for the ascertainment of the truth . . .
Appellant's second basis for appeals is quoted below:
The trial court denied relief to appellant on a claim the appellant did not put forth and such a claim did not exist in the appellant's pleadings. The nonexistent claim that was denied would have been of such a disingenuous nature had it in fact been pursued by appellant, that it could cast doubt on the validity of the genuine claims that the appellant was seeking. Had the court not misunderstood the claims of the plaintiff in a way that cast doubt on their validity, the court would have more likely found for the appellant.
The absence of specificity in this assertion makes it impossible to ascertain the alleged grievance. It has no merit.
Appellant's final grievance is:
The trial court failed to address issues of unjust enrichment and Quantum Meruit. The evidence showed that there were 108 uncompensated hours when Appellant resigned from Appellee school district. The evidence at trial showed that overtime was part of the job and it was compensated in one way or another. The evidence further showed that Appellee knew that the overtime work took place. Quantum Meruit and unjust enrichment doctrines serve to disallow the unfair result of a person working for another and not getting just compensation.
The Court made the factual finding that the way an employee was to be rewarded for overtime was through compensatory time. The record supports the conclusion. The Court found that there was a contract between the appellant and Appoquinimink, and that the contract provided that overtime would be paid with compensatory time. Unjust enrichment contemplates the situation where there is no contract, but there is a benefit conveyed for which damages should be paid.
Trial Tr., 15-19, 25-27, 31-32, 38, 40-43, 91-92, 94, 98, December 30, 2004.
"Unjust enrichment is the unjust retention of a benefit to the loss of another, or the retention of money or property of another against the fundamental principles of justice or equity and go od conscience." ID Biomedical Corp. v. TM Technologies, Inc., 1995 WL 130743, *15 (Del.Ch. Mar. 16, 1995) (quoting Fleer Corp. v. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., 539 A.2d 1060, 1062 (Del. 1998)).
The question of unjust enrichment does not arise in the context of a contract where the benefit was available, but not agreeable to a party.
The decision of the Court of Common Pleas is AFFIRMED.
IT IS SO ORDERED.