Community College Dist. 508 v. McKinley

Ronald McKinley (plaintiff) was a tenured radiology instructor at a community college overseen by the Board of Trustees of Community College District 508 (the board) (defendant). McKinley’s contract barred him from accepting any concurrent full-time employment position while he was teaching. The board’s collective-bargaining agreement with the teachers’ union contained a similar provision. Full-time employment was not defined in either document. McKinley, while employed by the board, began working a second job in the radiology department of a hospital. Initially, McKinley worked an average of 37.13 hours per week, even though his application for hospital employment specified that he was supposed to work 72 hours per two-week period. Under the hospital’s policies, full-time employment was defined as working 75 or more hours per two-week period. The head of the radiology department stated that McKinley had been hired as a part-time employee because of his teaching responsibilities. McKinley did, however, receive full-time benefits. For three years, McKinley omitted this employment on yearly employment-disclosure forms that faculty were required to fill out. When he finally did disclose it, McKinley had voluntarily reduced his work period to 20 hours per week. After learning of McKinley’s outside employment, McKinley’s director of labor relations at the college recommended that he be terminated. McKinley received notice from the board that he was being terminated for violating his contract’s ban on outside full-time employment. McKinley sought administrative review by an independent hearing officer, who ultimately ruled in his favor and ordered his reinstatement, concluding that, even though McKinley had falsified his employment-disclosure statements, termination was too harsh of a punishment. The hearing officer’s decision was based, in part, on the ambiguity surrounding the term full-time employment in McKinley’s contract. A circuit court upheld the hearing officer’s decision. The board appealed.