Court Opinion

ID: 9942593
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-21 16:06:06.816937+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:48:16.621582
License: Public Domain

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
                             FOURTH DISTRICT

      THE SCHOOL BOARD OF BROWARD COUNTY, FLORIDA,
                        Appellant,

                                     v.

                           GREGORY SMITH,
                              Appellee.

                            No. 4D2023-0369

                           [February 21, 2024]

   Appeal from the County Court for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit,
Broward County; Kathleen McHugh, Judge; L.T. Case No. COCE22-
057433.

    Stephanie M. Marchman and Fabian A. Ruiz of GrayRobinson, P.A.,
Gainesville, and Kristie Hatcher-Bolin of GrayRobinson, P.A., Lakeland,
for appellant.

  Mark J. Berkowitz of Mark J. Berkowitz, P.A., Fort Lauderdale, for
appellee.

KLINGENSMITH, C.J.

   Appellant School Board of Broward County, Florida (“the Board”) asks
this court to reverse the trial court’s order denying a motion to vacate and
confirming an arbitration award entered in favor of appellee Gregory
Smith. Because the arbitrator exceeded his authority in ordering the
remedy specified in the arbitration award, we reverse.

    Appellee is a member of the Broward Teachers Union whose grievance
was subject to the terms of the Union’s collective bargaining agreement
(“the CBA”). Under the CBA, Union employees and the Board agree to
submit all unresolved grievances to arbitration. The CBA provides that
the selected arbitrator “shall limit his/her decision to the application and
interpretation of [the CBA] and shall have no power to modify, alter, add
to, or subtract from the provisions of [the CBA].” Further, both the Union
and Board agree that the arbitration award “shall be final and binding.”
   Under the CBA, the Board must follow specific procedures when filling
vacancies in Broward County schools. Regarding employees who apply for
promotions, the CBA provides: “If more education support professionals
apply than there are positions, attendance and reliability and seniority in
the District, shall be the criteria considered by the principal in awarding
the promotion.” (emphasis added).

   After not being selected for multiple behavioral technician positions for
which he had applied, appellee filed a grievance with the Board, and the
parties went to arbitration. The key issue before the arbitrator was
whether the Board violated the CBA by not considering appellee’s seniority
in the school district during the hiring process. This was made clear at
the beginning of the arbitration hearing when the arbitrator acknowledged
that the parties had agreed the presented issue was whether appellee was
“denied a promotional opportunity in violation of article 13F1 of the [CBA].”

   In his order, the arbitrator found the Board violated the CBA by not
considering appellee’s seniority when making the hiring decision on the
positions in question. The arbitrator then found the appropriate remedy
was for appellee to be hired by the Board as a behavioral technician and
receive backpay from the date of his filed grievance.

    After appellee moved to confirm the award, the Board moved to vacate
the award under section 682.13, Florida Statutes (2022), and argued the
ordered remedy exceeded the scope of the arbitrator’s authority under the
CBA. After a hearing, the county court denied the Board’s motion to vacate
and confirmed the award, finding the arbitrator “was in a better position
to analyze the [CBA] and he had the ability to impose an applicable
remedy, based upon his analysis of the terms of that CBA.” This appeal
followed.

   A motion to vacate an arbitration award is reviewed under a mixed
standard: legal questions are reviewed de novo whereas factual findings
are reviewed for competent substantial evidence. LeNeve v. Via S. Fla.,
L.L.C., 908 So. 2d 530, 534 (Fla. 4th DCA 2005); see also Boyhan v.
Maguire, 693 So. 2d 659, 662 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997). To vacate an
arbitration award, the movant must establish one of six statutory grounds
set forth in section 682.13(1). See LeNeve, 908 So. 2d at 534. Among the
six grounds is that the “arbitrator exceeded the arbitrator’s powers.” §
682.13(1)(d), Fla. Stat. (2022). This occurs when the arbitrator “goes
beyond the authority granted by the parties or the operative documents
and decides an issue not pertinent to the resolution of the issue submitted
to arbitration.” Commc’ns Workers of Am. v. Indian River Cnty. Sch. Bd.,

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888 So. 2d 96, 99 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004) (emphasis added) (quoting
Schnurmacher Holding, Inc. v. Noriega, 542 So. 2d 1327, 1329 (Fla. 1989)).

    Even though the parties agreed under the CBA that the arbitrator’s
award would be “final and binding” on them, such an award is not self-
executing and must be confirmed by a court of competent jurisdiction to
be enforceable. While the standard of review is highly deferential to the
arbitrator’s findings and arbitration awards can be confirmed even if
legally incorrect, such an award must nonetheless stay within the bounds
of section 682.13. See Schnurmacher Holding, 542 So. 2d at 1329.

   Our decision in Nash v. Florida Atlantic University Board of Trustees,
213 So. 3d 363 (Fla. 4th DCA 2017), is instructive. There, a professor
applied for a promotion and tenure, which the university denied. Id. at
365. After filing a grievance and going to arbitration, the arbitrator found
that the university did not consider the proper criteria in reviewing the
professor’s tenure application and that the appropriate remedy was to
direct the university to grant the tenure application. Id. at 366. On appeal,
we found the arbitrator exceeded his authority under the agreement
because the issue before the arbitrator was not whether the professor was
entitled to tenure but “whether the University had violated the CBA’s
procedure for determining an application for tenure and promotion.” Id.
at 367–68. We noted “that once the arbitrator found the University
violated the procedure by not relying on established criteria, ‘the
appropriate remedy’ was for the arbitrator to direct the University to review
Nash's application using the correct criteria.” Id.

    Like in Nash, the arbitrator’s authority to order a remedy in this case
was limited to directing the Board to reconsider appellee’s application in
light of the factors which the Board had not previously considered. See id.
Such a remedy would have addressed the Board’s breach of the CBA and,
more importantly, the issue presented to the arbitrator. See id. However,
the arbitrator instead effectively awarded the position to appellee—a power
which the CBA vests with principals, not arbitrators. See id.; see also Lake
City Fire & Rescue Ass’n, Local 2288 v. City of Lake City, 240 So. 3d 128,
131 (Fla. 1st DCA 2018) (arbitrator improperly fashioned an award that
was outside of the arbitrator’s vested authority and equated to an
amendment of the bargaining agreement at issue).

   The express vesting of hiring authority, combined with the fact that the
parties asked the arbitrator to determine only whether the Board
considered appellee’s seniority in the hiring process, clearly shows the
arbitrator did not have the authority to unilaterally hire appellee. See
Commc’ns Workers of Am., 888 So. 2d at 99. Allowing the arbitrator to

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order the promotion of appellee would equate to modifying or altering the
CBA, which the agreement explicitly forbids. See Nash, 213 So. 3d at 368.

   Therefore, we reverse the lower court order denying the Board’s motion
to vacate the award as it relates to the portion of the award requiring
appellee be hired as a behavioral technician with backpay, and remand for
the lower court to direct the Board to review appellee’s application while
invoking the correct CBA criteria. See Nash, 213 So. 3d at 368.

   Reversed and remanded with instructions.

GROSS and CONNER, JJ., concur.

                           *        *         *

   Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

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