Opinion ID: 1198955
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Refusal to grieve

Text: An employee may be excused from exhausting administrative remedies if the union refuses to process the employee's grievance. Casey, 670 P.2d at 1135. In that case, a former building inspector sued the City of Fairbanks for wrongful discharge. The superior court granted summary judgment to the City, ruling that Casey had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. Id. In reversing this ruling, we observed that Casey could not have pursued his grievance without the assistance of his shop steward or supervisor and that those individuals had refused to help him. Id. at 1136-37. Therefore we concluded as a matter of law that Casey made a good faith effort to pursue his grievance. Any further action that Casey could have taken was excused because it would have been futile. Id. at 1137. A majority of jurisdictions have held that a union's refusal to pursue an employee's grievance will excuse the employee's failure to exhaust where the union has sole power under the contract to invoke the higher levels of the grievance procedure and if the union has prevented the employee from exhausting his remedies by its wrongful refusal to process the grievance. Croston v. Burlington N.R. Co., 999 F.2d 381, 386 (9th Cir.1993) (emphasis in original) (citation omitted); see also Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171, 185-86, 87 S.Ct. 903, 17 L.Ed.2d 842 (1967); Thompson v. Modernfold Indus., 175 Ind. App. 686, 373 N.E.2d 916, 919 (1978); Gilstrap v. Mitchell Bros. Truck Lines, 270 Or. 599, 529 P.2d 370, 374-76 (1974). Most courts have equated a wrongful refusal to process a grievance with a breach of the union's duty of fair representation. See Thompson, 373 N.E.2d at 923 (holding that a union breaches its duty of fair representation by conduct which is arbitrary, discriminatory or in bad faith); Gilstrap, 529 P.2d at 375 (holding that a union has a duty to protect an employee's rights in good faith and in a nonarbitrary manner). In this case, the superior court found that based on Beard's contacts with Senkow, the union knew or should have known that Beard wished to grieve his overall work situation and that the union failed to file such a grievance. Like Casey, Beard needed the cooperation of a union representative to process a grievance past the initial steps. [1] Finding that the union failed to grieve, the superior court concluded that Beard was excused from exhausting his administrative remedies. The State asserts that this finding is both clearly erroneous and an improper extension of Casey. [2] Our review of the record leads us to conclude that the superior court erred in determining that Beard is excused from exhausting his remedies. The record suggests that up until mid-May 1986, about three months before he quit, Beard tried to resolve his work conditions through the available grievance procedures. See Casey, 670 P.2d at 1136 (holding that employee had made a good faith effort to pursue his grievance where the individuals required to process his grievance refused to process an employee's complaint). Beard grieved several incidents either on his own or with the union's help in the twelve months before his resignation. At the time he resigned, the union was still processing at least two grievances. The union, through its representative, Senkow, had refused to grieve several of Beard's complaints. Both Senkow's affidavit and his testimony at the hearing indicate that Beard asked Senkow to grieve various aspects of his work environment, but that Senkow told him that such matters were not grievable since these actions might be considered management prerogative. [3] For example, Senkow refused to grieve Beard's complaint about a supervisor who had required Beard to justify his use of sick leave in May 1986. Seymore's testimony also indicates that Senkow refused to grieve two of Beard's complaints, including his complaint that his supervisors forced him to keep detailed time sheets and avoided assigning work to him. Seymore also testified that Senkow refused to see a pattern in the conduct of Beard's supervisors. Nonetheless, Beard last asked the union to grieve his work conditions several months before he resigned. (He last sought union assistance concerning work conditions in May 1986, and resigned on August 22, 1986. [4] ) Following termination, Beard did not renew any earlier request that the union grieve a pattern and did not ask the union to grieve his resignation as a termination or constructive discharge. His only post-termination grievance request related to the bad final evaluation, not work conditions. Senkow testified that he would have filed a constructive discharge grievance had Beard asked him to do so. Because Beard never asked the union to grieve his departure from office, the union was never given a chance to participate in the grievance process with respect to Beard's resignation. See Casey, 670 P.2d at 1136-37. Where an ongoing pattern of harassment in the workplace culminates in an employee's resignation, the employee must attempt to grieve this involuntary termination even if the union has previously been unresponsive to the employee's complaints of harassment. In other words, the union must be afforded a reasonable opportunity to represent the employee, and the employer must be given an opportunity to remedy any wrongs through non-judicial means. To hold otherwise would undermine this court's strong policy favoring the resolution of labor disputes through administrative procedures. Given the facts, we hold that the superior court's findings that Beard made a good faith effort to file grievances and that the union did not support him in his effort were clearly erroneous with respect to an incipient constructive discharge claim. We therefore hold that the superior court abused its discretion in ruling that Beard's failure to exhaust his administrative remedies was excused under Casey.