Court Opinion

ID: 9635646
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:58:02.988031+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:17:16.363082
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION BY
Judge, FRIEDMAN.
I concur in part and dissent in part. I agree with the majority that the dispute in this matter is subject to arbitration. I also agree with the majority that the arbitrator’s reasoning was faulty to the extent *916that it suggests that the Board of School Directors (Board), merely because it did so in the past, is forever obligated to follow the high school principal’s recommendations when assigning extra-duty work.1 However, unlike the majority, I do not believe that a remand is appropriate. I do not believe that this mistake in the arbitrator’s reasoning is fatal to the arbitrator’s award of back pay to teachers Terra Be-golly and Dan Rzewnicki (Award). Given the deferential standard of review required for a challenge to an arbitrator’s award under the Public Employe Relations Act,2 I believe that the Award can be rationally derived from the collective bargaining agreement (CBA), using reasoning which differs only slightly from that upon which the arbitrator relied.
The undisputed testimony before the arbitrator established that, until the 1999-2000 school year, the Board consistently assigned extra-duty work to members of the bargaining unit who expressed an interest in the work and were recommended by the high school principal. Based on this testimony, the arbitrator concluded that the Board’s past practice of following the principal’s recommendations had given rise to a local working condition protected by the CBA. Thus, reasoned the arbitrator, the Board violated the CBA when it abandoned this past practice. The majority concludes that the Award was not rationally derived from the CBA because it interfered with the Board’s discretionary hiring power. However, under the “essence test,” an arbitration award must be upheld if it can, in any rational way, be derived from the CBA. See School District of the City of Erie v. Erie Education Association, 749 A.2d 545, 546 (Pa.Cmwlth.) appeal denied, — Pa. -, 795 A.2d 983 (Pa.2000). Although the arbitrator based his the conclusion that the Board violated the CBA on the Board’s failure to follow the high school principal’s recommendations, the arbitrator just as easily could have based that conclusion on the fact that the Board assigned the extra-duty work to non-bargaining unit members. Put another way, the “past practice” that was protected by the CBA. was the past practice of giving extra-duty assignments to bargaining unit members, not the past practice of following the high school principal’s recommendations. This would have been the correct way for the arbitrator to come to the same result, and it would have been consistent with other case law in which this court affirmed arbitration awards on the ground that bargaining unit members had preference over non-bargaining unit members in acquiring extra-duty assignments. See, e.g., Cranberry Area School District v. Cranberry Education Association, 713 A.2d 726 (Pa.Cmwlth.1998), appeal denied, 563 Pa. 621, 757 A.2d 935 (1999).
Instead of affirming the arbitrator’s decision, the majority remands the case to the trial court “with specific instructions to remand to the Board, to allow the Board to utilize its discretion in making extra-duty assignments from within the appropriate bargaining unit, ie., the Association.” (Majority op. at 8; emphasis added.) The majority’s decision to remand the case necessarily implies that the Board violated the CBA by choosing non-bargaining unit members for the extra-duty work. Otherwise, there would be no need for a remand; the majority could simply have reversed *917the trial court’s decision to uphold the Award. Given that the Board violated the CBA, the proper inquiry is whether the arbitrator’s decision to award back pay to Begolly and Rzewnicki was rationally derived from the CBA. School District of the City of Erie. I believe it was. The extra-duty work was taken away from Begolly and Rzewnicki and given to non-bargaining unit members in violation of the CBA. Begolly and Rzewnicki, as members of the bargaining unit and the former holders of the extra-duty assignments, were injured as a result. Therefore, the Award, which granted back pay to Begolly and Rzewn-icki for the 1999-2000 school year, has a perfectly rational basis in the CBA and should be upheld.
I do not mean to suggest that Begolly and Rzewnicki3 automatically are entitled to be selected for their former extra-duty assignments in any school year other than the 1999-2000 school year at issue here. As the majority notes, the Board must be free to select the persons of its choosing for extra-duty work. However, as the majority also notes, the persons chosen must be bargaining unit members. By reversing the award of back pay to the injured parties in this case, the majority is allowing the Board to violate the CBA with impunity.
Additionally, the majority’s decision to remand this case so that the Board can reselect a senior class sponsor and an assistant seventh grade boys’ basketball coach “from within the appropriate bargaining unit” seems, to me, illogical. The arbitrator’s Award, dated May 26, 2000, pertains only to the extra-duty assignments made for the 1999-2000 school year. The year is now 2002. The majority is giving the Board leave to go back in time and name two bargaining unit members as holders of extra-duty assignments that have already been performed by two ttore-bargaimng unit members in violation of the CBA. Whom will the Board select? The Board cannot select the non-bargaining unit members who actually performed the work. Nor is the Board likely to select Begolly and Rzewnicki, who litigated against its initial choices. A remand allows the Board to avoid any consequence for violating the CBA. This result is unjustified. Moreover, it oversteps the deferential standard of review with which this court should approach the arbitrator’s decision.
For all of the above reasons, I would affirm.

. Indeed, this would conflict with section 508 of the Public School Code, Act of March 10, 1949, P.L. 30, as amended, 24 P.S. § 5-508, which gives the Board the duty and authority to vote on the hiring of teachers.

. Act of July 23, 1970, P.L. 563, as amended, 43 P.S. §§ 1101.101-1101.2301. This act is sometimes referred to as “Act 195.”

. The record does not reveal that any other bargaining unit members applied for the extra-duty work sought by Begolly and Rzewn-icki.