Court hears tense wage claim appeal by Laconia School District

LACONIA — The Laconia School District is challenging a Department of Labor ruling in a case involving vacation payout, arguing against the DOL’s limits imposed on the length of the hearing, way of submitting testimony and legal lens used by the hearing officer. The district asked the Belknap Superior Court Monday to either refer the case back to the DOL or overturn its decision.

Christine Blouin, a former business administrator for the Laconia School District, was dismissed by Superintendent Steve Tucker in March 2022. In April 2022, the school board found her to be in breach of contract and therefore not entitled to a cash-out of her accumulated vacation time. Blouin challenged the finding of breach to the state. The Department of Labor sided with Blouin in December, awarding her more than $68,000 in vacation pay and damages. The district is appealing that ruling.

The crux of the DOL ruling, the hearing officer emphasized, was not about whether Blouin “actually committed” breach of contract, but whether the district had knowledge that she did before terminating her. The DOL found that the district did not “reasonably determine” Blouin had been in breach.

At the hearing, in addition to their arguments about the soundness of the DOL’s proceedings and ruling, lawyers for both Blouin and the district leveled weighty accusations against the other party.

The accusations in court documents and at the hearing, both by the district against Blouin and vice versa, raise questions about how the district handles personnel misconduct and its own mandatory reporting obligations.

DOL hearing concerns

At the hearing, the district’s attorney Scott Harris argued that the DOL unfairly limited its ability to justify the breach findings.

“Starting from the very beginning of the case, the DOL hearings officer set this hearing — which I think the court could recognize would take five to seven days to try in Superior Court — and limited it to three hours,” Harris said.

Blouin’s lawyer, Peter Callaghan, emphasized that the district only objected to the way the labor board conducted the session after the hearing officer sided with Blouin.

“They didn't object to the time. They didn't request more time,” Callaghan said. “As Your Honor knows, you can't complain later when you didn't object or request more time, because you didn’t preserve that issue for appellate review.”

Credibility claims

Questions about who in the district and on the board was aware of alleged workplace shortcomings or romantic immorality of Blouin and when they became aware are at the center of the DOL appeal.

“We don't know today who presented the evidence and what evidence was presented to the school board in support of the termination decision,” Callaghan told the court. “We do not know what they gave the school board, and what they told them.”

Such timeline uncertainties and unknowns, he continued, place added importance on the DOL’s credibility judgements.

Per the DOL ruling, an independent investigation into nine complaints against Tucker found that, though the complaints were unfounded, Tucker had retaliated against administrators who participated in an investigation of him, including Blouin. The DOL found that the school board, when it ruled a negative performance review Tucker gave Blouin could not be used against her, also found Tucker had retaliated.

Callaghan asserted that Tucker also lied about this retaliation finding in his DOL testimony.

“The superintendent was found to have lied. He lied on the witness stand,” Callaghan said. “The hearing officer says, ‘Mr. Tucker's testimony is inconsistent with the documentary evidence on record.’ That's a nice way of dressing it up.” 

This prompted an objection from Harris, who after the hearing said “we reject” that accusation.

Immorality allegations and reporting obligations

The district alleges that, as one of several ways she violated her contract, Blouin had a romantic relationship with “one or more” of the teenage foreign exchange hockey players she hosted and shared details — including nude photographs — with her coworkers. 

Blouin’s lawyer said the accusations of sexual misconduct were “not true” in an interview after the hearing.

The accusations raised questions about the district’s reporting obligations.

The DOL found that Blouin’s coworkers would have made a formal report if they “believed the conduct rose to the level of immoral behavior” and would have informed law enforcement if they thought she committed a crime.

The ages of the hockey players involved in the misconduct the district cites is unknown —  the appeal describes them as “between the ages of 16 and 18.” Harris said in an interview after the hearing that the information was “not knowable to the district.”

Harris told the court that whether the district staff were bound by reporting obligations was uncertain because the player was not a district student and was of unknown age. Yet, Harris said, regardless of the player’s exact age, the district had an “obligation to its students to have personnel who treat children, minors, students in a way that fosters their enhancement.”

Harris told the court Tucker first heard about the romantic relationship as early as 2019, but was not aware of its sexual nature or details until district staff testified about it at the DOL hearing.

After the hearing, Harris reiterated that the district could have found Blouin’s conduct to be immoral without being under obligation to report it to authorities. “It is reasonable to believe any relationship physical or otherwise transgressed that ethical standard. That doesn't necessarily mean that the conduct was affordable as an abuse,” Harris said.

Blouin’s defense criticized the district for being vague about the details of its immorality accusations while still weighting them in its appeal. 

“They're trying to meander through this maze of, ‘We can't get ourselves in a situation where we violate the mandatory reporting obligation, but we need to convince the factfinder that Christine is a really bad person,'” Callaghan said. 

While the DOL report indicates the hearing focused on each of the district’s list of grounds for finding Blouin in breach, in the written appeal and at the hearing the district emphasized the weight Blouin’s alleged romantic immorality played in her termination.

The Department of Education, Harris said, forbids relationships between those with DOE credentials and 18-year-olds until 10 months after their graduation. That rule "is a written statement of what our society and the education community thinks about relationships between those in authority, those who are working in our school system, and young teenagers,” Harris said. 

Hearing’s end

In a moment of irony, presiding Superior Court Judge Mark Attorri reminded counselors that the hearing had originally been scheduled for 30 minutes, as it stretched into an hour.

“I'm not going to be able to give you the time that I'm sure you would like to have this morning,” Attorri said. “I can see that this is a very factually involved case.” 

The court extended a period of two weeks for attorneys to submit documents and responses into the record.