Court Opinion

ID: 9697021
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:04:07.304865+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:28.607288
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent.
The majority correctly cites Mazzie v. Commonwealth, 495 Pa. 128, 432 A.2d 985 (1981), for the standard of review in this case, which standard requires that this Court determine, upon examination of the record, whether “there were any apparently reasonable grounds to support [the] action [of the lower court] and [to] reverse only if no such grounds exist.” Id., 495 Pa. at 134, 432 A.2d at 988 (emphasis added). Then the majority proceeds to misapply the standard and vacates the order of Commonwealth Court by finding “a lack of reasonable grounds to support the injunction.” Maj. op. at 193. Questions of semantics aside, what the majority has done is to lose sight of the evidence supporting Commonwealth Court’s finding that the District Lottery Representatives (DLRs), appellees, were likely to prevail on the merits in the grievance and PLRB proceedings. Furthermore, the majority balances “impediments to the achievement of efficiency in the department” with the specter of economic, personal and social losses which would befall furloughed employees pending resolution of the grievance proceedings and the coercive effect of the furloughs on the collective bargaining rights of the remaining DLRs.
This balancing of interests and harms is not what is contemplated by the standard of review we have adopted in appeals from the imposition of a prohibitory preliminary injunction, and indeed, this balancing reaches the ultimate merits of the underlying controversy.
To issue a preliminary injunction, Commonwealth Court was required to find that (1) the rights of the plaintiff are clear; (2) the need for relief is immediate; and (3) injunctive *205relief is necessary to avoid injury which is irreparable and cannot be compensated for by damages. Mazzie v. Commonwealth, supra, 495 Pa. at 133 n. 1, 432 A.2d at 987 n. 1.
The majority inappropriately determines that appellees do not have a “per se right” to employment with the government. The “right” that must have been clear to the Commonwealth Court in this case was appellees’ likelihood of success on the merits of the matter before the PLRB and not the right of employment with the government. If appellees succeed before the PLRB, then the initiation of the furloughs would have constituted an unfair labor practice; thus the department would have had no right to impose the furloughs as a bargaining tactic.
There were “apparently reasonable grounds” to support Commonwealth Court’s action in this case. First, analogous portal-to-portal (p-t-p) pay systems have twice been upheld by arbitrators during grievance proceedings instituted by other members of the same union following state efforts to eliminate the systems. Second, the department did not resubmit the proposal to eliminate the p-t-p pay system in collective bargaining negotiations ending in June 1985, choosing instead in July 1985, to seek the system’s elimination by proposing a reorganization involving loss of jobs and dislocations as the only alternative should the union not capitulate on the pay system issue. It took no stretch of the imagination for Commonwealth Court to conclude that the proposed reorganization plan was not genuine and that the union would most likely succeed before the PLRB.
The need for relief was certainly immediate in that the furloughs were scheduled to take effect on August 28, 1986.
On the issue of irreparable, non-compensable harm the Commonwealth Court held that the evidence was clear that of the thirteen DLRs scheduled for furlough, seven would have the “opportunity” to relocate to Harrisburg and six would be standing in line seeking unemployment compensation. Following final resolution of the grievance proceed*206ing, perhaps as long as two years or more after the furlough took effect, an appellee success would mean reinstatement and back pay, but no compensation for the very real consequences of dislocation and layoff, i.e., the losses attendant upon the sale and purchase or lease of two residences, disruption of spouse employment, disruption of children’s schooling and social patterns, disruption of medical care arrangements and mortgage foreclosures.
The majority concluded that there was no harm to appellees and in support thereof states that these losses are “speculative”, that they “might” occur, that they are “possible”, and cites a 1965 case in which there had not been any hearings to establish such losses and hardship on the record. Berkowitz v. Wilbar, 416 Pa. 369, 206 A.2d 280 (1965). In the case sub judice, such testimony was elicited and provided a reasonable ground for Commonwealth Court’s conclusion of irreparable harm and thus injunctive relief was necessary to preserve the status quo pending resolution of the grievance proceedings.
The majority further errs in dismissing Commonwealth Court’s conclusion that no remedy would be available “to offset the coercive effect of the department’s threat of reorganization, as an alternative to foregoing the p-t-p system, upon the past-practice labor rights of the remaining five groups of DLRs elsewhere in the state.” Mem. op. at 202. The majority views this coercive effect as merely “speculative” and states that: “there is no basis for the conclusion that irreparable harm is incurred merely as a result of the fact that department management has at its behest certain bargaining tools with which to possibly counter the instant union’s position regarding proposals to alter the p-t-p pay system.” Id. (emphasis added).
The majority insists that the reorganization plan is a legitimate action taken by a department concerned with efficient governmental operation and that the courts must not impede this pursuit of efficiency. Yet, the majority concedes that the plan is a coercive bargaining tool, which *207Commonwealth Court has determined will likely be deemed an unfair labor practice by the PLRB.
Therefore, I dissent, and would affirm Commonwealth Court’s issuance of a preliminary injunction.