Case Title: Fairborn Professional Fire Fighters' Assn., IAFF Local 1235 v. Fairborn

Citation: 2000-Ohio-46

Docket Number: 19991469

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2000-10-18T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as Fairborn Professional Fire Fighters’ Assn., IAFF Local 1235 v. 
Fairborn, 90 Ohio St.3d 170, 2000-Ohio-46.] 
 
 
 
FAIRBORN PROFESSIONAL FIRE FIGHTERS’ ASSOCIATION, IAFF LOCAL 1235, 
APPELLANT, v. CITY OF FAIRBORN, APPELLEE. 
[Cite as Fairborn Professional Fire Fighters’ Assn., IAFF Local 1235 v. Fairborn 
(2000), 90 Ohio St.3d 170.] 
Public employees — Collective bargaining — Arbitrator exceeds his powers in 
finding for city of Fairborn on performance-appraisal issue, when — 
R.C. 4117.14(G)(7), applied. 
(No. 99-1469 — Submitted April 26, 2000 — Decided October 18, 2000.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Greene County, No. 99-CA-19. 
 
This case involves the attempt of appellant, Fairborn Professional Fire 
Fighters’ IAFF Local 1235, to modify or vacate an arbitrator’s conciliation award 
that resolved a collective bargaining dispute between the union and the appellee, 
the city of Fairborn.  The union claims that the arbitrator failed to follow the 
dictates of R.C. Chapter 4117 in arriving at the award. 
 
The parties’ most recent collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”) was in 
effect from January 1, 1995 through December 31, 1997.  The CBA provided for 
mandatory arbitration if the parties could not arrive at a successor contract eleven 
days before the expiration of that agreement.  The CBA also stated that the 
arbitration would be conducted in accordance with the applicable provisions of 
R.C. Chapter 4117. 
 
On December 15, 1997, the parties reached an impasse in negotiations on 
several provisions in the new agreement.  Pursuant to the CBA, the parties 
submitted the disputed issues to arbitration.  Each party submitted a prehearing 
statement to the arbitrator setting forth its final settlement offer on the unresolved 
issues as required by R.C. 4117.14.  The arbitrator conducted a hearing on 
February 23, 1998, and issued an award on March 27, 1998. 
 
 
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The union filed a motion for modification or vacation of the award in the 
Greene County Court of Common Pleas, citing two major flaws in the arbitrator’s 
decision.  Both involved the city’s failure to address disputed issues in its 
prehearing statement.  Since the city failed to properly take positions on those 
issues, the union argued, the arbitrator erred in finding against the union on those 
issues. 
 
The trial court denied the union’s motion for modification or vacation of 
the arbitrator’s award.  The court of appeals affirmed the trial court’s decision. 
 
The cause is now before this court upon the allowance of a discretionary 
appeal. 
__________________ 
 
Jill J. Jay Couch, for appellant. 
 
Pickrel, Schaeffer & Ebeling Co., L.P.A., Janet K. Cooper and Melissa 
Green Azallion, for appellee. 
__________________ 
 
PFEIFER, J.  Under R.C. Chapter 4117, orders in final-offer arbitration are 
subject to review by the court of common pleas as provided in R.C. Chapter 2711. 
R.C. 4117.14(G)(8).  The union claims that the trial court should have modified or 
vacated the arbitrator’s award pursuant to R.C. 2711.10(D) because the arbitrator 
“exceeded [his] powers, or so imperfectly executed them that a mutual, final, and 
definite award upon the subject matter submitted was not made.”  The union 
argues that the arbitrator exceeded his powers by not following the mandates of 
R.C. 4117.14. 
 
R.C. 4117.14 contains the procedures governing the negotiation of 
successor collective bargaining agreements for public employees.  R.C. 
4117.14(G)(1) addresses those instances when public employers and public safety 
employees have reached an impasse in negotiations necessitating the involvement 
 
 
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of an arbitrator.  The statute requires the parties to “submit to final offer 
settlement those issues that are subject to collective bargaining * * * and upon 
which the parties have not reached agreement.”  R.C. 4117.14(G)(3) requires each 
party to submit “a written report summarizing the unresolved issues, the party’s 
final offer as to the issues, and the rationale for that position.”  After a hearing, 
R.C. 4117.14(G)(7) requires arbitrators to “resolve the dispute between the parties 
by selecting, on an issue-by-issue basis, from between each of the party’s final 
settlement offers.” 
 
Thus, the statute requires that the parties submit in writing their final 
offers on disputed bargaining issues and that the arbitrator choose between those 
two offers in determining a resolution.  There is no splitting the baby on specific 
issues—the arbitrator must choose from one final offer or the other on each issue. 
 
Since the statute requires each party to submit final offers on each 
disputed issue, the union argues that the arbitrator erred in finding in favor of the 
city on issues where the city failed to submit proper offers.  The union cites two 
instances where the city’s final-offer statement was deficient as to specific issues: 
(1) where the city submitted a bundled proposal and (2) where the city submitted 
no proposal at all.  We deal with each of these issues separately. 
 
First, the union argues that the city bundled several proposals into one 
proposal, rather than separately delineating each issue upon which the parties had 
reached impasse.  The bundled proposal at issue dealt with the hours of duty in 
the work week and the scheduling of vacations and holidays.  The union argues 
that the bundled proposal cannot be considered a final offer.  The city’s bundled 
proposal was presented in its final offer statement as follows: 
 
“3. Article XXI—Hours of Duty, Work Week, § 21.01; Article XXIV—
Vacation, § 24.08; Article XXIX—Holidays, § 29.04. 
 
“Bargaining unit employees currently have six earned days off (EDOs) 
each year, and thus work an average of 53 hours per week, with a schedule of 24 
 
 
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hours on, and 48 hours off. The City has proposed seven EDOs in 1999 and eight 
EDOs in 2000, which results in an average work week of 52 hours. This proposal 
was made contingent upon the Union agreeing to the City’s scheduling proposals 
for EDOs, holidays and vacations. The parties agreed to new language for 
scheduling of EDOs, holidays and vacations during negotiations, but are at 
impasse on the number of EDOs granted to bargaining unit employees each year. 
The Union is proposing 10 EDOs, effective in 1999. 
 
“ * * * 
 
“The language in Articles XXIV and XXIX which the parties have agreed 
to is as follows: 
 
“24.08. Effective January 1, 1999, all vacation leave must be scheduled in 
advance. Employees must give notice no later than one calendar day prior to the 
requested vacation usage. However, notice can be given and vacation taken on the 
same day provided that granting of the request does not result in overtime. 
Vacation can be taken in no less than two (2) hour increments, and multiples 
thereof. 
 
“29.04. Effective January 1, 1999, all holidays must be scheduled in 
advance. Employees must give notice no later than one calendar day prior to the 
requested holiday usage. However, notice can be given and holidays taken on the 
same day provided that granting of the request does not result in overtime. 
Holidays can be taken in no less than twenty-four (24) hour increments. Holidays 
cannot be taken before they occur.” 
 
The union’s final-offer statement featured discrete discussions of the 
work-week issue, the vacation issue, and the holiday-time issue: 
 
“Issue No. 3, Article XXI—Hours of Duty, Work Week § 21.01.  The 
Union proposes a reduction in the average work week from the current 53 hours 
per week to 51 hours per week, effective January 1999. 
 
“ * * * 
 
 
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“Issue No. 6, Article XXIV—Vacation § 24.08. The Union opposes the 
City’s attempt to limit the manner in which bargaining unit members may use 
negotiated vacation leave time. 
 
“ * * * 
 
“Issue No. 7, Article XXIX—Holidays § 29.04. The Union opposes the 
City’s attempt to limit the manner in which bargaining unit members may use 
their annual holiday time-off.” 
 
We do not agree with the union that all aspects of the final settlement offer 
must be dealt with in distinct paragraphs.  All three issues were distinctly 
addressed in the city’s one paragraph, with the paragraph heading noting all three 
issues to be discussed therein.  R.C. 4117.14 requires only that the parties address 
each issue that has resulted in impasse.  The statute is silent on the structure the 
final settlement offer must take.  Clearly, substance is superior to form in the 
statute.  In this case, the issues the city bundled together had logical relevance to 
each other but were not inextricably intertwined.  The distinct ideas were there, 
and the arbitrator freely chose from among them.  He did not err simply by 
finding in the city’s favor on all of those points. 
 
The arbitrator did err, however, in finding for the city on an issue it did not 
include in its final settlement offer.  The union addressed the issue of employee 
performance appraisals as follows: 
 
“Issue No. 12.  New Article XLII—Employee Performance Appraisal § 
42.01.  The Union proposal seeks to delete an unfair, partial, subjective and 
discriminate [sic] evaluation system.” 
 
The city, on the other hand, made no final settlement offer regarding the 
employee evaluation system.  Since R.C. 4117.14(G)(3) requires an arbitrator to 
choose between two competing proposals, and since the city offered no proposal, 
the arbitrator’s only option was to find in favor of the union on that issue, if the 
issue had been a part of collective bargaining, and impasse had been reached. 
 
 
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While the city argues otherwise, we find that the issue of employee 
evaluation was a bargaining issue that had reached impasse.  The union submitted 
a proposal regarding the evaluation procedure to the city on February 12, 1998.  
Also on February 12, 1998, the union wrote to the city, “Should you desire to 
meet and negotiate the union’s Article XLII proposal [regarding performance 
appraisals], please advise.”  The city did not respond. 
 
The city argues that if we find for the union, parties might subvert the 
bargaining process by submitting wholly new items for the first time as disputed 
issues in the final-offer statement.  We agree that that would contravene the spirit 
and intent of the collective bargaining Act.  However, that is not what happened 
here.  A week before the city filed its final-offer statement, the union sent the city 
a proposal regarding performance appraisals that was practically identical to the 
union’s final-offer statement on the same issue.  This was not a surprise thrown in 
by the union in its final-offer statement.  Still, we warn that arbitration by ambush 
is not a tactic that either side should employ in collective bargaining, and that the 
union’s one-week gap between proposal and final-offer statement, whether 
planned or not, is about as close to a surprise attack as we would be comfortable 
allowing. 
 
We find that the parties had bargained to impasse on the issue of 
performance appraisals and that only the union submitted a final settlement offer 
on that issue.  Therefore, pursuant to R.C. 4117.14(G)(7), the arbitrator was 
powerless to find for the city on that issue.  Since the arbitrator therefore 
exceeded his powers in finding for the city on the performance-appraisal issue, we 
vacate that portion of the award pursuant to R.C. 2711.10(D). 
Judgment affirmed in part 
and reversed in part. 
 
RESNICK and F.E. SWEENEY, JJ., concur. 
 
DOUGLAS, J., concurs in judgment. 
 
 
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MOYER, C.J., and LUNDBERG STRATTON, J., concur in part and dissent in 
part. 
 
COOK, J., concurs in part and dissents in part. 
__________________ 
 
COOK, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part.  I concur with the 
majority’s decision to affirm in part.  I respectfully dissent, however, from the 
majority’s decision to reverse in part. 
__________________ 
 
LUNDBERG STRATTON, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part.  I 
would have dismissed this case as having been improvidently allowed, as I 
believe that it concerns only factual disputes and clarifies no new legal issue. 
 
Since the majority chooses to consider the merits, I agree with the 
majority on the issue of bundling, but dissent from the majority on the issue of 
late notice.  Even the majority concedes that one week is too close for comfort. 
 
In this case, the performance-appraisal issue was not bargained for or 
negotiated by the parties in their meetings.  It had not been brought up prior to the 
impasse on December 15, 1997.  It was not included in the union’s final offer of 
January 28, 1998. 
 
The performance-appraisal issue was first presented to the city by letter on 
February 12, 1998, well after the impasse.  The city had precious little time even 
to discuss this major issue before the deadline for prehearing statements on 
February 18, 1998.  I believe that the city was within its rights to ignore this last-
minute inclusion and that the arbitrator had the right to consider this issue not part 
of the final proposal, a factual finding that both the trial court and court of appeals 
affirmed. 
 
By this opinion, we are indeed permitting “arbitration by ambush.”  We 
are allowing an issue never negotiated or discussed until the eleventh hour to be 
now considered.  Worse yet, we are requiring the arbitrator to automatically adopt 
 
 
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the union’s proposal.  This decision can have far-reaching consequences on the 
process of negotiating for both sides, who can now interject last-minute proposals 
into what was an orderly and timely process. 
 
At the very least, since we are making findings of fact affecting 
arbitrability, and are now allowing very late submissions on unnegotiated issues, 
we should order the parties to submit this matter to arbitration to allow the city an 
opportunity to respond and to allow consideration of the two proposals on their 
merits. 
 
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s decision to 
reverse this portion of the judgment. 
 
MOYER, C.J., concurs in the foregoing opinion.