## Facts

- Maureen Murphy Soules taught remedial reading for Independent School District No. 518 under a series of one-year contracts from 1967–1968 through 1971–1972.
- Her assignment was part-time, half-day work at St. Mary’s Parochial School in Worthington, Minnesota, in a Title I federally funded program renewed on a year-to-year basis.
- After Soules’s 1971–1972 contract expired, the school district did not renew it and did not provide notice or a hearing required for termination of a continuing contract under the Minnesota Teachers’ Tenure Act.
- Soules sued for reinstatement and damages for wrongful termination/breach of her continuing contract.
- The trial court granted partial summary judgment for Soules on liability and ordered reinstatement; she was reinstated on January 13, 1975.
- After a bench trial on damages, the trial court found $17,401.48 in damages (lost salary, insurance benefits, and interest) for the approximately 2.5-year interval between discharge and reinstatement.
- The trial court reduced damages by $9,100 for failure to mitigate, reasoning that Soules rejected a job offer and did not make reasonable efforts to obtain suitable employment.
- One declined offer was a full-time teaching position involving similar responsibilities but substantially lower pay than her prior effective rate.
- Soules appealed only the $9,100 mitigation reduction; liability and the base damage figure were not disputed on appeal.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence supported a $9,100 reduction in damages for failure to mitigate under the rule of avoidable consequences.
2. Whether Soules acted unreasonably by declining a lower-paid full-time teaching offer and by allegedly not seeking other suitable employment.
3. How mitigation should be calculated for a wrongfully discharged teacher whose prior position was part-time and half-day.

## Decision

- The Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed the unchallenged determinations of wrongful termination and the $17,401.48 base damages figure.
- The court held the $9,100 mitigation offset lacked evidentiary support under a proper application of the avoidable-consequences rule.
- The court ruled Soules was reasonably justified in rejecting a full-time position that paid substantially less than her prior effective compensation.
- The court concluded mitigation could not rest on speculative assumptions about available earnings from allegedly comparable work, particularly where the assumed work was not shown to be realistically available and compatible with Soules’s prior part-time status.
- The court directed modification of the judgment to increase Soules’s net recovery to $11,095.82, effectively reducing the mitigation offset to about $4,550 and accounting for her substitute-teaching earnings.

## Legal Principles

- A wrongfully discharged employee must make reasonable efforts to reduce damages by seeking and accepting reasonably comparable employment.
- The employee is not required to accept work that is substantially inferior, including employment with significantly lower compensation or materially different conditions.
- The employer bears the burden to prove (1) the availability of suitable, comparable employment and (2) the amount by which damages should be reduced.
- Mitigation findings and offsets must be supported by record evidence; reductions may not be based on conjecture about alternative earnings.
- In assessing mitigation, compatibility with the employee’s prior contractual status (including part-time versus full-time work) is relevant to whether alternative employment is comparable.

## Conclusion

The court modified the damages award because the school district did not support a $9,100 mitigation reduction with evidence of reasonably available, comparable work; Soules’s rejection of a substantially lower-paid position was reasonable, and the proper judgment increased her recovery to $11,095.82.


Soules v. Indep. Sch. Dist. No. 518, 258 N.W.2d 103 (Minn. 1977)