Court Opinion

ID: 9645936
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:40:43.756896+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:33.241394
License: Public Domain

Loiselle, J.
(concurring). I agree with the second ground of decision — that there is not sufficient evidence to support the conclusion of the Commission on Human Eights and Opportunities — and believe the disposition of this case should be made solely on that ground.
Preliminarily, I must question whether the majority opinion’s authority for holding that parties are bound by the decision of an official administrative agency of the government is authority for holding them bound in all respects by an arbitrator’s award, in view of the dictum of Waterbury Savings Bank v. Danaher, 128 Conn. 78, 92, 20 A.2d 455, and the very limited scope of judicial review to which awards are subject; General Statutes § 52-418, Gary Excavating Co. v. North Haven, 160 Conn. 411, 414, 279 A.2d 543, and see United Steelworkers Trilogy, 363 U.S. 564, 568, 574, 593, 598, 80 S. Ct. 1343, 1347, 1358, 4 L. Ed. 2d 1403, 1409, 1424; whether the fact *324that Mrs. Corey lodged a grievance makes her a party to the arbitration proceeding which eventually determined it, in view of the particular contract in this case and McCaffrey v. United Aircraft Corporation, 147 Conn. 139, 141-42, 157 A.2d 920, cert. denied, 363 U.S. 854, 80 S. Ct. 1636, 4 L. Ed. 2d 1736; whether administrative agencies are to be overturned when they do not follow the sometime-applied judicial policy of collateral estoppel, in view of cases such as Waterbury v. Commission on Human Rights & Opportunities, 160 Conn. 226, 230, 278 A.2d 771, Viola v. Liquor Control Commission, 158 Conn. 359, 361, 260 A.2d 585, and Zawisza v. Quality Name Plate, Inc., 149 Conn. 115, 118-20, 176 A.2d 578, which traditionally limit the basis for our review to whether they have acted illegally, arbitrarily and in abuse of discretion or without foundation in substantial and competent evidence.
The legislative mandate which vests the Commission on Human Eights and Opportunities with the power to use the authority of law and the resources of government to eliminate invidious discrimination in employment is more compelling than the considerations in favor of foreclosing the action of the commission on the theory of collateral estoppel. Under these circumstances, the doctrine of estoppel should not be applied. I do not believe, moreover, that there is an identity of issues.
There is no dispute that there must be an identity of issues actually litigated before the arbitrators and the commission before the doctrine of collateral estoppel can be applied. For the commission to have determined the same question as the arbitration panel, discrimination would have to mean the same thing to both bodies. The majority implicitly finds such concurrence of standard without comparing the *325construction of the statutory provision, under which the commission acted, with the construction of the contractual provision, under which the arbitration panel acted.
The award cites the sources which the arbitrators considered in reaching their decision, including federal standards, and omits any reference to the state statute, under which the commission ruled, either as extra-contractual rights of the employee or as a guide to interpreting the contract. Because the award does not purport to deal with the statutory rights of the employee, foreclosing the employee from asserting his statutory rights to the commission may deny him the right to be heard with respect to them by either the commission or the arbitrators. Where it does not appear with reasonable certainty, from a submission and award, that rights were submitted for determination, there should be no bar. Hopson v. Doolittle, 13 Conn. 236, 240.
General principles of arbitration make it indisputable that the arbitrators were concerned with the contract and not with the statute. An agreement for the submission of issues to arbitration constitutes “the charter of the entire arbitration proceedings and defines and limits the issues to be decided by the arbitrators.” Gores v. Rosenthal, 150 Conn. 554, 557, 192 A.2d 210. If, as in this case, the contract does not require the arbitrators to apply legal standards, “arbitrators are not required to decide according to law. . . . ‘[They] are not bound to follow strict rules of law, unless it be made a condition of the submission.’” Chase Brass & Copper Co. v. Chase Brass & Copper Workers Union, 139 Conn. 591, 595-96, 96 A.2d 209; see United Steelworkers v. Enterprise Corporation, 363 U.S. 593, 597, 80 S. Ct. 1358, 4 L. Ed. 2d 1424.
*326Arbitrators commonly apply contract standards of discrimination rather than legal standards or make no reference to the applicable legal standards. See, for example, awards collected by Edwards & Kaplan in “Religious Discrimination and the Role of Arbitration under Title VII,” 69 Mich. L. Rev. 599, 645 n.225. If arbitrators are not necessarily considering legal rights when they construe contracts governing the same subject area, this court should be reluctant to consider these legal rights to be concluded by such arbitration. See Mr. Justice Harlan’s concurring opinion in United States Bulk Carriers v. Arguelles, 400 U.S. 351, 361-62, 91 S. Ct. 409, 27 L. Ed. 2d 456, in which he discusses the comprehensiveness of arbitration.
Even if the language of the statute and contract were the same, their construction may be different because the rules for their interpretation differ dramatically. In construing contracts, arbitrators look, for example, to industrial harmony and the long-standing practices of the industry and the shops covered by the contract — the common law of the shop. United Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Co., 363 U.S. 574, 582, 80 S. Ct. 1347, 4 L. Ed. 2d 1409; see Local 1078 v. Anaconda American Brass Co., 149 Conn. 687, 691-92, 183 A.2d 623 (Baldwin, C. J., concurring). In construing statutes, the courts look, for example, to expressed purposes and legislative history and accord great deference to the construction given the statute by the agency charged with its enforcement. Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 433, 91 S. Ct. 849, 28 L. Ed. 2d 158; Downer v. Liquor Control Commission, 134 Conn. 555, 561, 59 A.2d 290. When two bases for interpretation diverge, it is hard to conclude that conclusions which flow from them necessarily converge. Perhaps for *327this reason, several United States Circuit Courts of Appeals share the view that the doctrine of collateral estoppel should not necessarily be applied to bar a determination of discrimination under a fair employment statute.1
In statutes of equal dignity, the legislature has conferred the power to construe contracts on arbitrators ; General Statutes § 4-52-408—52-421, 31-91—31-100; and the power to determine unfair employment practices under statutes on the commission; General Statutes 31-122—31-128. That this may result in overlapping remedies should not void either so long as no one is unjustly enriched. Experience under federal labor acts suggests that the Sixth Circuit Court may have been overcautious in its ap*328prehension that allowing an agency determination of statutory rights to upset an arbitrator’s determination of contract rights would be the death knell of arbitration. See Dewey v. Reynolds Metals Co., 429 F.2d 324 (6th Cir.), affirmed by an equally divided court, 402 U.S. 689, 91 S. Ct. 2186, 29 L. Ed. 2d 267. The National Labor Relations Board has precisely that power, which it has sometimes exercised with respect to unfair labor practices, and arbitration has not disappeared from that area.
If we are to say that an employee cannot pursue his statutory rights when the contract under which he works covers the same subject matter, we must face the fact that we are construing the statute as not applying to the vast number of union employees, like the complainant in this case, whose contracts require that grievance procedures be the exclusive employee remedy, and who may be bound to exhaust these remedies before turning elsewhere. See Glover v. St. Louis-San Francisco Ry. Co., 393 U.S. 324, 89 S. Ct. 548, 21 L. Ed. 2d 519; Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171, 87 S. Ct. 903, 17 L. Ed. 2d 842; Republic Steel Corporation v. Maddox, 379 U.S. 650, 85 S. Ct. 614, 13 L. Ed. 2d 580. Even in the absence of such a requirement to exhaust contract remedies; see United States Bulk Carriers v. Arguelles, 400 U.S. 351, 91 S. Ct. 409, 27 L. Ed. 2d 456, Culpepper v. Reynolds Metals Co., 421 F.2d 888 (5th Cir.); it is only reasonable to infer that the legislature understood that the natural reaction of an employee faced with a grievance would be to complain to his union representative and that the legislature did not intend that such an act, perhaps made without advice of counsel and while unaware of alternatives, should eliminate the employee from the protection of the statute by estoppel.
*329It may well be that Connecticut's Fair Employment Practices Act takes the view that invidious discrimination by its very nature is a public wrong. That view is buttressed by the fact that the act did not simply create civil liability for discrimination, it set up a commission to investigate a complaint of discrimination, with the power to compel testimony and the production of records and grant immunity from prosecution, provided for one of its commissioners or investigators to attempt conciliation, directed the attorney general to argue the case against the employer, and provided remedies which may be substantially broader than those available to an arbitrator under a contract. Carey v. General Electric Co., 315 F.2d 499, 510 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 377 U.S. 908, 84 S. Ct. 1162, 12 L. Ed. 2d 179, distinguished between “the private interests advanced in the arbitral forum and the public interest advanced in the administrative forum.” N.L.R.B. v. Marine Workers, 391 U.S. 418, 425, 88 S. Ct. 1717, 20 L. Ed. 2d 706, noted that enacted legislation in an area otherwise a matter of private concern may bring it into the “public domain.”
The essential question is whether an arbitration proceeding should deprive the commission of the power conferred by statute to act on behalf of that public interest when it receives an individual’s complaint. See Newman v. Avco Corporation-Aerospace Structures Division, 451 F.2d 743, 746 (6th Cir.). Although through dicta and in a different context, Chief Judge Lehman, I believe, has answered the question: “The Board is not solely a judicial body appointed to adjudicate impartially controversies between employers and employees. The Board is a public agency acting in the public interest; the instrument created by the Legislature to assure to *330the people of the State protection from the ‘unfair labor practices’ described in the statute. . . . An order of the Board commanding that an employer shall cease and desist from such unfair labor practices vindicates a public right to protection against conduct which the Legislature has found is inimical to the welfare of the People of the State. No agreement of the employee and the employer and no litigation between them for the vindication of their private rights can deprive the public of its right to protection against labor practices which the Legislature has forbidden. Doubtless, as the Appellate Division pointed out in its opinion, the court, in making its determination in the injunction suit, gave consideration to the public interest but the People of the State had no opportunity in that action to contest the issue whether the Employer has been guilty of the ‘unfair labor practices’ described in the complaint of the Labor Relations Board. A determination of the issues in an action between private parties cannot bar a contest to vindicate the public interest, as provided in the statute [emphasis supplied], just as a judgment in civil litigation between private parties does not bar a contest of the same issues by the State in a criminal action. ... No principle of ‘res judicata’ or of ‘estoppel’ and no public policy precludes an investigation of the facts by the Labor Board in the public interest or bars the Board from making a valid order commanding the Employer to ‘cease and desist’ from acts which upon such investigation appear to be unlawful and which constitute ‘a continuing means of thwarting the policy of the Act.’” Matter of New York State Labor Relations Board (Holland Laundry, Inc.), 294 N.Y. 480, 63 N.E.2d 68, rehearing denied, 295 N.Y. 568, 64 N.E.2d 278.

 Voutsis v. Union Carbide Corporation, 452 F.2d 889, 894 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 406 U.S. 918, 92 S. Ct. 1768, 32 L. Ed. 2d 116 (title VII proceeding in spite of prior settlement by a state Human Rights Commission); Taylor v. Armco Steel Corporation, 429 F.2d 498, 499 (5th Cir.) (consideration in spite of judicial determination prior to Civil Eights Act); Hutchings v. United States Industries, Inc., 428 F.2d 303 (5th Cir.) (prior arbitration award); Fekete v. United States Steel Corporation, 424 F.2d 331, 333 n.3 (3d Cir.) (suit for injunctive relief not mooted by arbitration award); Norman v. Missouri Pacific R., 414 F.2d 73, 84 (8th Cir.) (prior judicial determination under Railway Labor Act); see also Tipler v. E. I. DuPont deNemours Co., 443 F.2d 125, 129 (6th Cir.) (consideration of title VII claim in spite of prior determination on discrimination by N.L.R.B.: “This is because the purposes, requirements, perspective and configuration of different statutes ordinarily vary”); see, e.g., Pacific Seafarers, Inc. v. Pacific Far East Line, Inc., 404 F.2d 804 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 1093, 89 S. Ct. 872, 21 L. Ed. 2d 784; N.L.R.B. v. Stafford Trucking, Inc., 371 F.2d 244 (7th Cir.); Title v. Immigration Naturalization Service, 322 F.2d 21, 25 (9th Cir.). Even the Sixth Circuit Court’s Dewey v. Reynolds Metals Co., 429 F.2d 324, 332, affirmed by an equally divided court, 402 U.S. 689, 91 S. Ct. 2186, 29 L. Ed. 2d 267, is limited so as not to apply to the facts of this case. Newman v. Avco Corporation-Aerospace Structures Division, 451 F.2d 743, 748 (6th Cir.); Spann v. Kaywood Division, Joanna Western Mills Co., 446 F.2d 120, 122 (6th Cir.).