Opinion ID: 2015708
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Review of Cases Applying the Public Policy Exception

Text: The seminal case involving the exception is United Paperworkers International Union v. Misco, Inc., 484 U.S. 29, 108 S.Ct. 364, 98 L.Ed.2d 286 (1987). There, the United States Supreme Court examined the role of public policy in vacating an arbitral award which reinstated an employee discharged for violation of the employer's drug policy. The employee had been arrested on company premises in another's car that was filled with marijuana smoke, and traces of marijuana were found in his own car on the company lot. The arbitrator found that there was no evidence that the employee had used drugs during working hours. The district court vacated the award on public policy grounds, and the circuit court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court held the reversal of the arbitral award improper because the award did not contravene public policy. Specifically, the Court faulted the circuit court of appeals for making no attempt to review existing laws and legal precedents in order to demonstrate that they establish a `well-defined and dominant' policy. Misco, 484 U.S. at 44, 108 S.Ct. at 374, 98 L.Ed.2d at 302. Moreover, the court of appeals inappropriately drew factual inferences from evidence which had been rejected by the arbitrator. Misco, 484 U.S. at 44, 108 S.Ct. at 374, 98 L.Ed.2d at 303. In Delta Air Lines, Inc. v. Air Line Pilots Ass'n International, 861 F.2d 665 (11th Cir. 1988), a pilot, while intoxicated, flew a commercial airliner on its scheduled flight. His employer discharged him after discovering the misconduct. Pursuant to a collective-bargaining agreement, the pilot complained that his conduct was insufficient to establish just cause for discharge. The arbitrators in that case agreed and ordered his reinstatement. A federal district court overturned the award as violative of public policy. In affirming the decision, the court of appeals noted: [When a] person performs his employment duties and, in doing so, violates standards, restraints and restrictions on conduct, clearly and explicitly established by the people in their laws, a requirement that the employer suffer that malperformance and not discharge the offender does itself violate the same well established public policy. (Emphasis in original.) Delta, 861 F.2d at 674. The court of appeals stressed that the employer, Delta, was under a duty to prevent the wrongdoing of which the employee was guilty and it could not agree to arbitrate that issue. Thus, the collective-bargaining agreement, as interpreted by the arbitrator, violated public policy. Similarly, in Iowa Electric Light & Power Co. v. Local Union 204, 834 F.2d 1424 (8th Cir.1987), a nuclear power plant employee in a hurry to leave his work area to go to lunchordered a foreman to disconnect a safety device on a doorway designed to protect the public from harmful radiation. After the employee was discharged for this misconduct, an arbitrator ordered his reinstatement. The district court overturned the award as incompatible with public safety concerns. The court of appeals affirmed, noting that Congress had established a strict nuclear regulatory scheme which the worker willingly contravened. The court concluded that the worker could no longer    be trusted to work in such a critical environment when he shows no respect for the safety implications of his actions and when he is willing to jeopardize the safety of the public. Iowa Electric, 834 F.2d at 1429. See also United States Postal Service v. American Postal Workers Union, 736 F.2d 822, 825 (1st Cir. 1984) (vacating, on public policy grounds, an award reinstating postal worker convicted of embezzling postal funds because the offense went to the heart of the worker's responsibilities, and because the employee represented a branch of the federal government and was imbued with the public trust. His actions directly violated that trust). We have previously considered whether the public policy exception may be used to vacate an arbitral award in American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees v. State of Illinois . There, this court was presented with the case of two mental health technicians who were away from their workplace, a facility for the mentally disabled, for an unauthorized time. While they were away, an unattended patient at the facility died. The patient, however, was not assigned to the ward where the technicians should have been on duty. For this reason, among others, the arbitrator reduced their subsequent discharges for conduct constituting mistreatment of a mental health recipient to mere suspensions. In upholding the award, this court rejected the Department of Mental Health's public policy argument, mainly because it could not identify a well-defined and dominant public policy: There is simply no policy that mandates the discharge of all employees found guilty of mistreatment of a service recipient when the arbitrator expressly finds that the grievants were exemplary mental health employees, when punishment has been imposed, and where no nexis [ sic ] exists between the infraction and the patient's tragic death. American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, 124 Ill.2d at 262-63, 124 Ill.Dec. 553, 529 N.E.2d 534. In contrast, our appellate court has invoked the public policy exception to vacate an arbitral award which reinstated a school bus driver whose unsafe driving had caused her discharge. The court identified a dominant and well-defined public policy favoring the safe transportation of school children and held that the reinstatement of an unsafe driver would contravene that policy. Board of Education of School District U-46 v. Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board, 216 Ill.App.3d 990, 159 Ill.Dec. 802, 576 N.E.2d 471 (1991). Finally, the appellate court has vacated an arbitral award in which a DCFS worker was discharged from and then reinstated to her position after falsifying a case report concerning the veracity of a report of child abuse, a factual situation somewhat akin to that presented here for review. The arbitrator found that discharge violated the collective-bargaining agreement's progressive discipline provision. Finding that the safety and well-being of children required zealous investigation and honest reporting, the appellate court held that the worker's reinstatement to her former position violated that explicit public policy. See Department of Central Management Services v. American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, 245 Ill.App.3d 87, 98, 185 Ill.Dec. 379, 614 N.E.2d 513 (1993). The above cases demonstrate that although a rote recitation of the exception's two-prong test can be easily made, the exception's ultimate applicability to a case is necessarily fact dependant. With these principles in mind, we turn to the facts of the present case.