Opinion ID: 203295
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Procedural Arbitrability

Text: Issues of procedural arbitrability are for the arbitrator, not the court, to decide. As we explained in Local 285, Service Employees International Union v. Nonotuck Resource Associates, Inc., 64 F.3d 735, 739 (1st Cir.1995), [t]hirty years of Supreme Court and federal circuit court precedent have established that issues concerning the timeliness of a filed grievance are `classic' procedural questions to be decided by an arbitrator. In an action to vacate or confirm an arbitral award, we review the district court's decision de novo, mindful that the district court's review of arbitral awards must be `extremely narrow and exceedingly deferential.' Bull HN Info. Sys., Inc. v. Hutson, 229 F.3d 321, 330 (1st Cir.2000) (quoting Wheelabrator Envirotech Operating Servs., Inc. v. Mass. Laborers Dist. Council Local 1144, 88 F.3d 40, 43 (1st Cir.1996)). We have found arbitral awards nearly impervious to judicial oversight, Teamsters Local Union No. 42 v. Supervalu, Inc., 212 F.3d 59, 61 (1st Cir.2000), because both parties have contracted to have disputes settled by an arbitrator and therefore it is the arbitrator's view of the facts and of the meaning of the contract that they have agreed to accept, United Paperworkers Int'l Union v. Misco, Inc., 484 U.S. 29, 37-38, 108 S.Ct. 364, 98 L.Ed.2d 286 (1987). Further, [t]hat a reviewing court is convinced that the arbitrators committed error  even serious error  does not justify setting aside the arbitral decision. This remains true whether the arbitrator's apparent error concerns a matter of law or a matter of fact. Cytyc Corp., 439 F.3d at 32 (citation omitted). It is the arbitrator's result, after all, not his reasoning, which is subject to judicial review. Coastal Oil of New England, Inc. v. Teamsters Local, 134 F.3d 466, 469 (1st Cir.1998) ([A] court should uphold an award that depends on the arbitrator's interpretation of a collective bargaining agreement if it can find, within the four corners of the agreement, any plausible basis for that interpretation. (quoting El Dorado Technical Servs., Inc. v. Union General De Trabajadores de P.R., 961 F.2d 317, 319 (1st Cir.1992)) (internal quotation marks omitted)). Even erroneous reasoning will not necessarily lead to vacating the award. Id. There are some exceptions where a court will overturn an arbitral award. The first set of exceptions is codified in the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) in section 10(a). [1] This section limits a court's intervention to specific and enumerated instances. We have found that it authorizes vacatur of an award in cases of specified misconduct or misbehavior on the arbitrators' part, actions in excess of arbitral powers, or failures to consummate the award. Advest, Inc. v. McCarthy, 914 F.2d 6, 8 (1st Cir.1990). The second set of exceptions derives from our inherent power to vacate arbitral awards and is very narrow. See Cytyc Corp., 439 F.3d at 33. This second set may arise in labor arbitration when either (1) an award contravenes the plain language of the applicable contract or (2) when an arbitrator disregards applicable law. Id. We are mindful that despite these exceptions, great deference remains the general mode of approach to judicial review of arbitral awards. Id. The Hospital's arguments on appeal are focused on the nature of the occurrence and whether the Hospital's failure to make payments can be considered a continuous violation. The Hospital maintains that the arbitrator improperly focused on the effect of the violation rather than on the violation itself. It argues that by focusing on the Hospital's failure to pay the appropriate differential each day after a holiday, the arbitrator's approach would lead to the conclusion that a grievance would remain timely indefinitely because the Hospital never made any proper differential payments for the holidays not worked. It concludes that any discrete violation could be construed as a continuous violation so long as it was not remedied. This approach would then nullify the timeliness provision in the CBA. The Hospital relies heavily on El Mundo Broadcasting Corp. v. United Steelworkers of Am., 116 F.3d 7 (1st Cir.1997). In El Mundo, the Union filed a grievance based on the employer's failure to post a full-time editor position as required under the CBA. Id. at 8. The arbitrator found that the grievance was procedurally arbitrable because it was of a continuous nature. Id. at 10. He analogized the failure to post a position to a situation where an employer changes a rate of pay and deprives employees of daily pay. Id. at 10-11. Consequently, he issued an award in the Union's favor. Id. The district court then issued a ruling vacating the award, which we affirmed on appeal. The Court overturned the arbitrator's finding because it distinguished specific occurrences  such as the failure to post a position  from instances where an employer changes a rate of pay which could properly be described as a continuous violation. Id. at 11-12. The Court's concern was that settled order could be disturbed, and employers unduly prejudiced, if an employer that failed to post a position did not have arguments regarding that failure settled in a timely manner. Id. If specific occurrences, such as terminating an employee's employment, were construed as continuous violations, employers' rights to have issues settled promptly would be compromised in favor of allowing employees to file grievances at their convenience. Id. at 12. The Court found that the appointment of an editor is a specific occurrence that cannot properly be construed as a continuous violation. Id. Consequently, it held that [b]y misstating the basic nature of the occurrence the arbitrator read the time provisions out of the contract, ignoring its `essence.' Id. The outcome in El Mundo is distinguishable; its reasoning in fact supports the arbitral ward. El Mundo concerned a single event: the naming of a person to an editorship, and not the pay received. The untimely consideration of the claim by the arbitrator led to a belated order that ousted an incumbent from a position. Here, by contrast, there was no question of retroactivity of relief or harm to settled expectations because the arbitrator refused to award a retroactive remedy to the Union based on holidays preceding the filing of the grievance. The policy concerns that underlied the Court's finding in El Mundo regarding an employer's right to have issues settled within a fixed period of time do not exist in this case because the Hospital did not have to compensate the employees for the prior holidays. Certainly, this case does not present a situation where the employer mistakenly believes that a prior action ( i.e., posting a position or firing an employee) has been fully resolved and cannot result in future liability. At the time the second grievance was filed, the Union clearly had general notice that the employees were not going to receive differential payments from the Hospital for any holidays. During oral argument, counsel for the Hospital conceded that if an employee had notice before a holiday occurred that he would not be compensated for that holiday, an anticipatory grievance could be considered timely. There was no reason for the Hospital to believe that the Union did not intend to pursue the same remedy for all employees after the Union was alerted to the Hospital's unwillingness to apply the arbitral award to every employee. This case fails to meet the exceedingly high threshold for judicial interference with arbitral awards. We agree with the lower court that there is insufficient evidence to find that the award was unfounded in reason and fact, mistakenly based on a crucial assumption that is concededly a non-fact, or based on reasoning so palpably faulty that no judge, or group of judges, ever could conceivably have made such a ruling. See Cytyc Corp., 439 F.3d at 34. We hold that the award draws its essence from the collective bargaining agreement. United Steelworkers of Am., 363 U.S. at 597, 80 S.Ct. 1358.