Court Opinion

ID: 9752593
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 18:18:45.818618+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:18.477453
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION BY
Judge SMITH-RIBNER.
I write separately to state my view that although the Supreme Court in Westmore-land Intermediate Unit # 7 v. Westmore-land Intermediate Unit # 7 Classroom Assistants Educational Support Personnel Association, PSEAJNEA 595 Pa. 648, 939 A.2d 855 (2007), abandoned the “core functions” exception in favor of the newly adopted federal public policy exception to the “essence test” standard of review of arbitrators’ awards, the essence test standard is still valid and reliable and remains the most lucid and precise standard by which the award in the case sub judice should be reviewed. The Supreme Court recognized that the core functions test analyzed in City of Easton v. AFSCME, Local 447, 562 Pa. 438, 756 A.2d 1107 (2000), had created uncertainty and criticism in the area of labor arbitration and that the test was insufficiently precise. As a consequence, the court discarded the core functions test and replaced it with the federal public policy exception to be applied as well to awards under the Public Employe Relations Act (PERA).
Justice Castille (now Chief Justice) pointed out in his dissent that the parties did not advocate the public policy exception, which the Supreme Court adopted sua sponte; that the plurality’s new standard created unnecessary delay in resolving the matter before the Supreme Court; and that the plurality adopted the public policy exception in a vacuum, which fails to offer lower courts sufficient guidance, resulting in more uncertainty and generating more litigation in an area where certainty and predictability is critical. My concern with today’s decision by the majority in the case sub judice is that it will do just what Justice Castille has warned. The majority’s application of the public policy exception to reverse the trial court’s order here will generate more confusion, more uncertainty and less predictability in resolving these types of cases under PERA. Notwithstanding my full agreement with the majority that all workplaces must be free of sexual harassment, I must adhere to the view that the employers, union employees, arbitrators and the bar are entitled to a reasonable degree of stability and certainty in the area of labor arbitration jurisprudence and are entitled to know that labor disputes will be resolved consistently with legislative mandates.
The Supreme Court in Westmoreland Intermediate Unit # 7 again reaffirmed the essence test as articulated in State System of Higher Education (Cheyney University) v. State College University Professional Association (PSEA-NEA), 560 Pa. 135, 743 A.2d 405 (1999). In Chey-ney University the Supreme Court articulated a precise two-part analysis for judicial review of arbitration awards, called the essence test: first, courts must determine if the issue as properly defined is within terms of the collective bargaining agreement; and, second, if the issue is so embraced by the agreement and thereby properly before the arbitrator, then the arbitrator’s award is to be upheld if his/her interpretation can rationally be derived from the agreement. In other words, a court will vacate an arbitration award only when it “indisputably and genuinely” lacks foundation in or fails to logically flow from the parties’ agreement. Id. at 150, 743 A.2d at 413.
The essence test standard is clear, it has been the proper standard for judicial review for thirty years as observed in West-moreland Intermediate Unit # 7, and it promotes legislative mandates for the final and binding resolution of labor disputes in *489this Commonwealth. This standard, if properly applied to the Court’s reconsideration of the appeal in the case sub judice, would result in affirming the trial court’s order. The issue before the arbitrator was whether the Philadelphia Housing Authority had just cause to terminate Thomas Mitchell, the warehouse employee who was discharged for sexually harassing another employee. Article VIII of the collective bargaining agreement provided that no disciplinary action or discharge would be imposed upon an employee without just cause, except insofar as it related to dismissal during the probationary period for new hires. The arbitrator determined that the prior discipline of Mitchell sufficiently dealt with his actions, which ended subsequent to the discipline, and therefore that the Housing Authority could not terminate him. The arbitrator concluded that no just cause existed for the discharge and ordered that Mitchell be reinstated. The trial court held that the award was rational and could not be seen as one that failed to flow logically from the collective bargaining agreement. See Cheyney University.
In adopting the public policy exception in Westmoreland Intermediate Unit # 7 the Supreme Court held that on appropriate challenge by a party, “a court should not enforce a grievance arbitration award that contravenes public policy. Such public policy, however, must be well-defined, dominant, and ascertained by reference to the laws and legal precedents and not from general considerations of supposed public interests.” Id. at 666, 939 A.2d at 865-866. In response to the court’s adoption of the exception, Justice Castille proposed that a “manifestly unreasonable” review standard would be less unwieldy than the new public policy exception and that it would accomplish the same result, while also striking a balance between deference due arbitration awards and meaningful judicial review. Justice Eakin joined in Justice Castille’s dissent as he too disagreed with sua sponte implementation of the public policy exception, and Justice Saylor concurred in the result reached by the plurality as he believed that the circumstances met a narrow exception to the requirement of adherence to stare decisis and as he did not object to a public policy exception to essence test review so long as the exception was “exceptionally narrow.”
Regardless of the concerns expressed about the uncertainty created in this area of the law, I stress that the Supreme Court’s remand order did not direct this Court to apply the newly-adopted public policy exception in Westmoreland Intermediate Unit #7. I also note that plurality opinions may be considered for their persuasive value and that they are not prece-dential. Piunti v. Department of Labor and Industry, Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 933 A.2d 135 (Pa.Cmwlth.2007). Even if the public policy exception applied here, I agree with the view expressed by Judge Pellegrini in his dissent that the majority has improperly expanded the exception by holding that public policy requires the automatic discharge of the employee here. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court was emphatic in reaffirming the essence test standard of review articulated in Cheyney University, and that test, if properly applied, commands that the trial court’s order be affirmed. I therefore dissent.
Judge McGINLEY joins in this dissenting opinion.