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Martinez v. Northern Rio Arriba Electric Cooperative6/12/2002
he wage rate she was paid during the years those hours were accrued. Pursuant to the 1986 policy change, Martinez was to be paid for the eligible sick leave hours at one half of the applicable hourly rate. Martinez disagreed with the personnel committee's method of calculation and filed a grievance with the NORA Board of Trustees, which ultimately agreed with the personnel committee and affirmed its decision.
Martinez disagreed with the proposed calculations because, according to her testimony, she was exempt from the 1986 policy change and was to be compensated according to the previous policy in effect in 1980. Based on that 1980 policy and on representations made and implied by NORA personnel, Martinez argues that she should have been paid for all of her accrued sick leave hours, without any 600-hour limitation, and that she should have been paid at the full hourly rate she was earning at retirement, regardless of what she had been paid during the years of accrual. See Newberry v. Allied Stores, Inc., 108 N.M. 424, 427, 773 P.2d 1231, 1234 (1989) (stating that the existence of an implied contract may be found in written or oral representations, in the conduct of the parties, or in a combination of representations and conduct). NORA denies that it ever made a sufficiently explicit promise to support Martinez's claim of implied contract. See Hartbarger v. Frank Paxton Co., 115 N.M. 665, 672, 857 P.2d 776, 783 (1993) (holding that an offer or promise must be sufficiently explicit to give rise to reasonable expectations, in order to create an implied employment contract). Based on our review of the record, however, NORA's denial does not persuade us that the evidence was insufficient to support the jury verdict.
Substantial evidence supports Martinez's claims about the 1980 sick leave policy. The NORA Board of Trustees adopted its first sick leave policy in that year. The 1980 policy provided that accrued sick leave would be paid out to those employees who stayed with NORA until retirement or death, but it would not be paid if an employee quit or was fired. The policy also stated that " ick leave pay will be computed at the straight-time hourly rate[.]" A former Board member testified that the 1980 sick leave policy was adopted to discourage employees from taking unnecessary sick time, and to create an incentive for employees to build up a sick leave bank, to be used in the event of illness, or to be paid out upon retirement.
In 1986, the Board of Trustees revised the sick leave policy, limiting sick leave accrual to 600 hours. At the end of each calendar year, time accumulated in excess of 600 hours was to be redeemed at one-half the employee's current base rate of pay. According to Martinez, however, she and two other longtime NORA employees with large sick leave accruals were exempted from the 1986 policy change. That claim to an exemption finds support in the record.
NORA's former manager testified that certain employees with large amounts of sick leave accrual, including Martinez, had been "carved out" from the 1986 policy change, because of Board concerns about the cost of paying them at the end of that year for their excess accumulated sick leave. Former Board members also testified that the Board intended to "grandfather in" Martinez, and two other longtime employees, exempting them from the 600 hour sick leave cap.
Notably, in the years after 1986 until her retirement, Martinez was never paid for sick leave that she had accumulated in excess of 600 hours, as the 1986 policy change required. Instead, contrary to the 1986 policy change, she continued to accrue sick leave totaling 2845 hours by the time of her retirement. Although Martinez ad
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