A lawsuit by a group of teachers against the Provo City School District and Board of Education will continue after a judge denied three motions to dismiss the case and one for summary judgment filed by the district's attorneys.

In August 2005, 34 teachers filed suit against the district, Board of Education, Provo Classified Employees Association, Provo Education Association and Utah Education Association. The suit was filed over the cancellation of the teachers' post-retirement Medigap insurance, which pays for health care expenses not covered by Medicare. Of the 34 teachers who originally filed suit, about two-thirds have dropped out.

The district's attorneys focused mostly on the summary judgment motion and the third motion to dismiss, in which they contended that the teachers did not go through the proper procedure in filing grievances against the district, and that they implicitly accepted a May 2004 employment contract that did not include Medigap benefits.

Judge Fred Howard of the 4th District Court in Provo said he had to deny the motions because the court lacked an adequate record on the subjects. The court's record, Howard said, does not support any basis by which he could determine that the teachers ratified the 2004 contract.

"Therefore, the motion must be denied," he said.

Thomas Seiler, an attorney for the district, emphasized that the teachers' contracts were negotiated on a yearly basis -- state law does not allow contracts for public employees of more than five years -- and that they ratified the 2004 agreement by continuing to work for the school district and by accepting future contracts in subsequent school years.

"All those post-retirement benefits are subject to change until those employees retire," Seiler said. "These employees, in my view, have no protectable interests."

Seiler also said the teachers did not exhaust their administrative options under the district's grievances policy, a criteria for taking the district to court, and in fact did not even file a grievance.

Evan Schmutz, who is representing the teachers, said they did not file a grievance claim because that procedure does not provide for monetary relief.

While Medigap coverage was not included in the 2004 contract, Schmutz said it is among other aspects of the teachers' employment relationship with the district that are covered in policies other than yearly contracts. For the 25 years that the Medigap benefits were in place, Schmutz said, teachers accepted a lower salary because of the value of those benefits.

"Over the course of 20-25 years they were sacrificing income for retirement rights," Schmutz said. "(The school district) had to set up a trust to take care of the future obligations they had committed to provide for. ... They failed to do it."

Howard denied two other motions for dismissal filed by Seiler. One argued that the teachers' claims constituted a tort, which means they would have had to file their claim within one year of the contract. Schmutz said the suit was filed over a breach of contract, not a tort. Seiler's other motion argued that the teachers were employees of the Board of Education, not the school district, and that the district should therefore be dismissed as a defendant.

A review hearing will be scheduled for either Sept. 10 or 17 where the two sides will determine how to proceed with the case.

Jeremy Duda can be reached at 344-2561 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it