Court Opinion

ID: 9638847
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:56:12.687071+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:10.236758
License: Public Domain

FLAHERTY, Judge,
concurring.
I agree with the majority that the present state of the law compels us to extend the narrow certiorari test of Pennsylvania State Police v. Pennsylvania State Troopers’ Ass’n (Betancourt), 540 Pa. 66, 656 A.2d 83 (1995), to this final and binding interest arbitration award under Section 805 of Act 1951 governing the employees of the Sheriffs Department necessary to the functioning of the courts.
The purpose of this opinion is simply to clarify my understanding of the majority opinion in which I concur.2
The principal question of any consequence raised by the appellant FOP relates to the third prong of the narrow certiorari test cited by the majority (Majority Op., at page 209), to wit, whether the award exceeded the arbitrators’ powers. Here, the FOP challenges the arbitration award on the grounds that there is no evidence in the record to support the challenged portions of the award. If that were the ease, I would vacate the arbitrator’s award even with a narrow certio-rari scope of review to prevent arbitrators who are essentially rewriting labor contracts which award benefits or make concessions on matters not previously discussed, negotiated or otherwise raised by at least one of the parties and to prevent arbitrators “from imposing their own brand of industrial justice.” (Appellant’s Brief, p. 9.)
Such is not the case here, however. The FOP in its brief at p. 14 cites six proposals as the basis for its claim of “no evidence”: management rights, disability program, work schedule changes, subcontracting, employees performing lower rated work and Civil Service Regulation 13. In each case, however, the FOP’s analysis claims that the “only evidence” offered by the city is so inadequate or *212insufficient as to virtually amount to no evidence. Thus, this is not a case where the arbitration panel is creating new items in the contract, which were not previously submitted by one of the parties but is merely the fashioning of a compromise of items in dispute by the parties. This process is not in excess of the powers of the panel under either the narrow certiorari test, the essence test or a substantial evidence test, in all of which cases there may be less evidence in favor of one item granted or denied than another. Otherwise, the appellate court would be reweighing the evidence, which is what the FOP basically seeks here. There seems to be only one sure way for a party to prevent an adverse interest arbitration award where that party may have more evidence on certain subjects than the other, and that is to settle and not go to arbitration.

. Act of July 23, 1970, P.L. 563, as amended, 43 P.S. § 1101.805 (Act 195).

. Because art. Ill, § 31 of the Pennsylvania Constitution does not appear to permit interest arbitration of disputes other than for policemen and firemen, it is questionable whether any Act 195 interest arbitration would be constitutional in any event. Since the constitutionality of the interest arbitration in the instant case was not raised, however, it has been waived and this court will not raise it, sua sponte.