Judicial Rulings
Illinois Supreme Court

No-strike contracts for teachers

THE ILLINOIS Supreme Court ruled June 20 it is constitutional for school boards to withhold pay raises from teachers who refuse to sign no-strike contracts. However, the high court said when tenured teachers refuse and are paid under previous contracts, they are entitled to the longevity and educational raises built into those contracts.

The case, Janice J. Bond, et al v. The Board of Education of Mascoutah Community Unit School District No. 19, stemmed from 23 tenured teachers who were denied pay raises when they refused to sign 1977-78 no-strike contracts. The 23 were paid under 1976-77 contracts, but were denied the built-in raises.

The board argued that the contract's no-strike clause was a valuable commodity. The teachers argued the clause was moot since Illinois law prohibits teachers from striking.

The teachers won their case in the St. Clair County Circuit Court and the Fifth District Appellate Court, but the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in favor of the board except for the board being "in error" when it withheld the built-in raises.

On the main issue, the high court said," [T]he public policy against strikes . . . has been frequently and blatantly ignored. . . . [W]here this policy has been included within a contract, imposing a personal and individual responsibility on a teacher to avoid such conduct, participation of signing teachers in strikes has been conspicuously absent. Boards must . . . utilize every legitimate means to reduce the risk of subsequent untoward expenses such as those that might accrue as the result of a strike."

". . . [I]t follows that the classification between signers and nonsigners is reasonable and justifies the salary differential. The salary differential applied not 'simply because' [teachers] did not sign a contract, but because by refusing to sign, they avoided a personal commitment to a consideration which was of practical benefit to the [board]."

RTA tax upheld

The Illinois Supreme Court ruled the RTA sales surtax constitutional May 30. The ruling clarified a special taxing district's right to set differential rates for nonproperty taxes.

The case, Walter Peckat Co. v. The Regional Transportation Authority et at, stems from the Illinois General Assembly's approval last fall of the financing for Gov. James R. Thompson's new four-year road program. That involved refinancing the RTA by replacing a state subsidy with the new taxing power designed to make the RTA self-supporting — a goal the RTA had failed to achieve in the three years since its creation.

The new law (P.A. 81-SS23) allowed the RTA to create two classes of taxpayers and to tax them at two rates; thus the sales surtax was not uniform throughout the district. And the RTA set the rates at the maximum, which in effect increased the combined state and local sales tax from 5 to 6 cents per dollar in Cook County and from 5 to 5 1/2 cents per dollar in the collar counties: DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will.

Justice Robert C. Underwood, writing the high court opinion, said the Constitution clearly gives all local taxing districts the right to set differential rates for nonproperty taxes. "... .[W]e did not find any limitation in the 1870 Constitution upon the ability of taxing authorities ... imposing a nonproperty tax. Moreover, the opinion of this court in Gilligan v. Korzen [(1974), 56 Ill. 2d 387], clearly indicates that no such restriction applies under the present constitution, even had one existed under the former constitution."

Underwood said the Constitution allows all local taxing districts to create different classes of taxpayers as long as the classifications are reasonable. And it allows districts to tax them at different tax rates as long as the rates are uniform within the class.

"... [T]he legislature authorized the RTA to use the [dual] classification and to impose the [dual] tax involved in this case," Underwood said. "[Peckat] does not contend that the classification is unreasonable or that the tax imposed within each class is not uniform, and we find no reason to conclude that it is."

Premises liability: a home is still a castle

The Illinois Supreme Court refused to broaden the application of common law on premises liability in a 4-3 decision June 30. Specifically, the high court said it saw no need to make property owners as liable for social guests as they are for business guests.

Illinois has no premises liability statute. A bill that would have given social guests the same rights as business guests (H.B. 2275, sponsored by Rep. Lee A. Daniels, R., Elmhurst), was killed in the House 33-93 April 15.

The case before the court was Suren Pashinian v. Alex Haritonoff; Pashinian fell down stairs while visiting at Haritonoff's Lake County home in 1975.

Pashinian argued the traditional interpretation of common law is no longer effective in premises liability cases involving social guests. He suggested social guests, like business guests, should recover damages if they prove property owners guilty of wilful and wanton misconduct.

Haritonoff argued common law is not outdated because a property owner's residence remains a sanctuary in which he is immune to liability for social guests. He suggested the legislature, rather than the courts, should decide whether social guests recover under the same standards as business guests.

The high court dismissed the case, affirming rulings by the Lake County Circuit Court and the First District Appellate Court.

28/September 1980/Illinois Issues