Opinion
DOCKET NO. A-4021-13T2
03-07-2016
MICHAEL STARGELL and JOANN YOUNG, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. MARGARET SNYDER, Defendant-Respondent.
Matthew S. Wolf, attorney for appellants. Timothy J. Higgins, attorney for respondent.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION Before Judges Rothstadt and Currier. On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Camden County, Docket No. L-4651-13. Matthew S. Wolf, attorney for appellants. Timothy J. Higgins, attorney for respondent. PER CURIAM
Plaintiffs Michael Stargell and Joann Young appeal from the Law Division's March 24, 2014 order, which denied their motion for summary judgment, granted summary judgment in favor of defendant Margaret Snyder, and dismissed their complaint. Plaintiffs' complaint challenged defendant's eligibility to run for a seat on the Pennsauken Township Board of Education (Board) and her being sworn into office upon being elected in November 2013. According to the complaint, defendant, a former employee of the Board, maintained an outstanding claim against the Board for reimbursement of unused sick leave at the time she ran for office, which should have disqualified her candidacy. Defendant asserted that she was not disqualified because she assigned her claim to her adult daughter prior to being sworn into office. The motion judge agreed with defendant, reasoning that she "took the affirmative offense under the statute and . . . disavow[ed] herself of any right to a benefit which she justifiably earned." According to the judge, by assigning her claim to the unpaid sick leave, defendant had "cured any conflict" relating to the unpaid leave and there no longer existed "any pending indirect claim in th[e] matter."
On appeal, plaintiffs argue the motion judge erred in granting summary judgment because he misapplied N.J.S.A. 18A:12-2, which bars a "member of any board of education" from having any interest in any claim against the board. Defendant disagrees, maintaining the court properly recognized the validity of the assignment and correctly found that the claim did not prevent her from taking office.
We have considered the parties' contentions in light of our review of the record and applicable legal principles. We affirm.
We review an order granting summary judgment de novo, applying the same standard used by the trial court, Manahawkin Convalescent v. O'Neill, 217 N.J. 99, 115 (2014), which requires summary judgment be denied if "the competent evidential materials presented, when viewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, are sufficient to permit a rational factfinder to resolve the alleged disputed issue in favor of the non-moving party." Townsend v. Pierre, 221 N.J. 36, 59 (2015) (quoting Davis v. Brickman Landscaping, Ltd., 219 N.J. 395, 406 (2014)); see R. 4:46-2(c). We "first decide whether there was a genuine issue of material fact, and if none exists, then decide whether the trial court's ruling on the law was correct." Henry v. N.J. Dep't of Human Servs., 204 N.J. 320, 330 (2010). "A trial court's interpretation of the law and the legal consequences that flow from established facts are not entitled to any special deference." Manalapan Realty, L.P. v. Twp. Comm. of Manalapan, 140 N.J. 366, 378 (1995).
The salient facts, drawn from the competent evidential materials, and viewed "in the light most favorable to plaintiff, the non-moving party," Lippman v. Ethicon, Inc., 222 N.J. 362, 367 (2015) (citing Brill v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 142 N.J. 520, 523, 540 (1995)), were substantially undisputed and can be summarized as follows.
Defendant was employed by the Board as a school nurse for twenty-seven years when, in March 2013, she gave written notice of her retirement, effective July 1, 2013. At that time, defendant was advised of her entitlement to compensation for unused sick leave time, and she filed a claim with the Board for payment. According to defendant, she was entitled to $14,129 for reimbursement of unused sick leave at the time of her retirement.
While her claim was pending and prior to her retirement, on June 4, 2013, defendant filed a nominating petition to run for a seat on the Board. The election was held on November 5, 2013, and defendant received the largest number of votes. She was elected with Young and another candidate. Stargell, who also ran seeking re-election to the Board, was unsuccessful. The Camden County Board of Elections certified the election results on November 11, 2013.
After the election, plaintiffs filed their complaint challenging defendant's qualification to be a member of the Board, claiming that defendant's outstanding request for reimbursement of unused sick leave was in violation of N.J.S.A. 18A:12-2.
In an effort to cure the alleged conflict, defendant immediately began attempting to secure payment in satisfaction of her claim. She met with various Board members and staff to resolve the outstanding issue. Despite those negotiations, the Board denied her requests at several meetings held in December 2013.
Having been unable to resolve her claim with the Board, on December 27, 2013, defendant executed an assignment of her claim to her adult daughter, Lauren E. Farreny, who was married and not a member of defendant's household. According to its terms, the assignment became effective January 1, 2014. A copy of the assignment was filed with the Board on January 2, 2014, and, five days later, defendant was sworn into office.
Later in January, the Board convened to discuss payment of the assigned claim. Defendant did not participate and Young abstained from voting. At a meeting, the Board approved payment of the claim, which was made by January 30, 2014.
In the ensuing litigation, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. At oral argument, plaintiffs' counsel addressed the impact of defendant having assigned her claim to her daughter. He asserted that the assignment, in effect, did nothing more than change defendant's claim from a direct one to an indirect claim, still in contravention of the statute. Counsel contended that the only way defendant could have avoided the statute's bar was by withdrawing her claim completely. The motion judge considered the parties' written submissions and their counsels' arguments, placed its reasons on the record, and entered an order granting defendant's motion and denying plaintiffs'. This appeal followed.
We begin our review by observing that N.J.S.A. 18A:12-2 bars a member of the Board from maintaining a direct or indirect claim. The statute states:
No member of any board of education shall be interested directly or indirectly in any contract with or claim against the board, nor, in the case of local and regional school districts, shall he hold office as mayor or as a member of the governing body of a municipality, nor, in the case of county special services school districts and county vocational school districts, shall he hold office as a member of the governing body of a county.
[N.J.S.A. 18A:12-2.]
However, the statute does not require automatic disqualification for any claim against a board. Bd. of Educ. of Sea Isle City v. Kennedy, 196 N.J. 1, 16 (2008). In order for a claim to give rise to the statute's bar against membership on the Board, "the circumstances in the matter [must] demonstrate that the board member would benefit in a substantial and material way from said claim." Id. at 15 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). A claim involving "a request for specific monetary relief . . . [causes] a substantial conflict between a board member and the board" warranting the application of the statute's prohibition against serving as a member. Id. at 22. The existence of a claim can prevent an elected board member from taking office or require his or her resignation should the claim arise after having been sworn into office. See id. at 13-15 (stating that a claim can bar commencing "service in office as a local board of education member" and that "having an inconsistent claim can be additional cause for removal").
Notably, the Commissioner of Education has held that if the claim is of a nature that it can be cured before an elected board member takes office — i.e. through abandonment — it does not disqualify the board member from seeking office. See Bd. of Educ. of Barnegat v. Houser, 2007 N.J. AGEN LEXIS 544 at *11-12 (N.J. Adm) (finding that a family member's claim does not "represent an incurable conflict . . . where a choice can freely be made between board membership and maintaining a claim against the board" (citation omitted)).
Absent a contractual or public policy prohibition against assignment, a claim against a board arising from its contract with an employee may be assigned. See Aronsohn v. Mandara, 98 N.J. 92, 99 (1984) ("If the contract contains no prohibition on assignment, such rights may be assigned in the absence of any public policy reason to the contrary."). Assignable contract rights include "all choses in action arising on contract . . . and the assignee may sue thereon in his [or her] own name." N.J.S.A. 2A:25-1; see also Aronsohn, supra, 98 N.J. at 99 (noting that rights for breach of contract are ordinarily assignable). Once assigned, "the assignee of a [claim] has a right to be paid what is due from [an] obligor once the obligor receives notice of the assignment." Midstates Res. Corp. v. Burgess & Fenmore, 333 N.J. Super. 531, 536 (App. Div. 2000) (citing Spilka v. South Am. Managers, Inc., 54 N.J. 452, 462 (1969)), certif. denied, 165 N.J. 676 (2000).
Applying these guiding principles, we conclude the motion judge correctly determined that neither a direct nor indirect claim remained once defendant assigned her claim. Initially, we observe it was undisputed that any direct claim made by defendant existed only up until the time she assigned it to her daughter, which preceded defendant taking office. In their pleadings and submissions on summary judgment, plaintiffs never challenged the bona fides of the assignment, nor did they seek to amend their complaint to assert a claim contesting the assignment's validity. Rather, plaintiffs maintain the assignment merely created an indirect claim that continued to prevent defendant from holding office. We disagree.
We do not believe the mere fact that defendant assigned her claim to her adult daughter, without more, was sufficient to support a finding that, despite the assignment, defendant maintained a disqualifying indirect claim against the Board. There was nothing in the record to give rise to an inference that the assigned claim, once paid, would inure to defendant's benefit, in light of the uncontroverted language of the assignment. Without any evidence that defendant's adult daughter was a member of her mother's household, or was in some other similar financial relationship, there could be no inference drawn establishing that an indirect benefit to defendant existed after the assignment of her claim.
Plaintiffs argue to the contrary, citing to the Commissioner of Education's decision in Houser, supra, 2007 N.J. AGEN LEXIS 544 at *6. Quoting from that opinion, plaintiffs emphasize the Commissioner's reliance on the subject claim having belonged to a family member. In so doing, however, plaintiffs overlook the quotation's modifying clause, which defined indirect claims as those belonging to family members who were part of the "board members household." Here, again, the record contains no evidence demonstrating that defendant's daughter, a married adult, was a member of defendant's household at the time of the assignment or otherwise. --------
Affirmed. I hereby certify that the foregoing is a true copy of the original on file in my office.
CLERK OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION