Court Opinion

ID: 9652227
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:20:59.882172+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:49.569859
License: Public Domain

POMEROY, Justice,
concurring.
In Community College of Beaver County v. Community College of Beaver County, Society of the Faculty, 473 Pa. 576, 375 A.2d 1267 (1977) (hereafter Beaver County), this Court held that the Arbitration Act of 19271 (hereafter “Arbitration Act” or “Act of 1927”) had not been impliedly repealed by the Public Employe Relations Act of 19702 (“PERA”), and that both statutes applied to public employee arbitration matters.3 In the same case we approved the “essence” test of the Steelworkers Trilogy4 as the proper *423approach to be followed in Pennsylvania in the interpretation of collective bargaining agreements. We further held that an arbitrator, when interpreting such an agreement, is engaged in a fact-finding process and that his interpretation will not be set aside under Section 11(d) of the Arbitration Act so long as it derives its “essence” from the agreement.
In its opinion today, for no apparent reason and without vouchsafing an explanation, the Court departs from the Beaver County rationale. It holds, after misreading the Arbitration Act, that a court is without jurisdiction to review an arbitrator’s interpretation. This is at odds with the recent holding in Beaver County, and while the result reached by the Court is correct in this case, I cannot join in its opinion.
I.
The parties to this appeal are also parties to a collective bargaining agreement covering the employment of teachers in the appellee school district. The agreement provides: “The criteria to determine a temporary professional or professional employee’s salary shall be the individual’s years of teaching experience and his proper categorization as determined by his credentials.” At issue is whether the parties intended “years of teaching experience” to refer to total years of experience or only to years of experience within the school district. The arbitrator found that the parties intended the former interpretation and not the latter. Since the arbitrator’s finding, which stands on the same footing as a jury’s resolution of a question of fact, is one that can be rationally derived from the agreement, the award should be sustained. Beaver County, supra, 473 Pa. at 592, 375 A.2d at 1274-75.5 I therefore agree with the result reached by the *424majority, viz., that the Commonwealth Court erred in reversing the arbitrator’s award.
II.
The foregoing should be all that is required to decide this case as the Court does decide it. The opinion of the Court, however, goes further and engages in what, in my view, is a faulty analysis of the Act of 1927, supra note 1. The opinion states that because the school district is seeking a vacation of the arbitrator’s award, a court must confine its scope of review to the ground stated in Section 10 of the Arbitration Act, see note 1, supra, which section deals with the vacation of arbitrators’ awards.6 This analysis ignores the rationale *425of our recent decision in Beaver County, supra, while purporting to apply it; the Court gives inordinate attention to the single word “vacate.”
A reading of Section 10 of the Arbitration Act should make it apparent that the language of subsection (d) thereof, which authorizes the vacation of an award “[w]here the arbitrators exceeded their powers or so imperfectly executed them that a final and definite award upon the subject matter was not made,” refers to cases in which the arbitrators have no authority, by terms of the agreement under which they operate, to hear the dispute or to cases in which the arbitrators failed to enter a decision that resolved the merits of the controversy. This interpretation is consistent with the other grounds for vacation mentioned in Section 10, viz., fraud, corruption, or procedural abuses. See, e. g., Majcher v. Brodner, 22 Pa.D. & C.2d 218, 220 (C.P. Allegheny), aff’d on opinion below, 401 Pa. 500, 165 A.2d 251 (1960). I have found no authority for the majority’s assertion that Section 10(d) offers a ground for judicial review if an arbitrator has “granted an award which is prohibited by law.” Opinion of the Court, ante at 418. That ground is to be found, rather, in Section 11(d) of the Arbitration Act.
Perhaps, as a matter of draftsmanship, the General Assembly would have done better, when it added the “n. o. v.” standard of review to the text of the Model State Arbitration Act of 1926 and enacted the model act as our Arbitration Act of 1927, to have placed that standard in Section 10 *426rather than in Section 11, where it is found as subsection (d).7 But I cannot see why the placement of this provision in the statute should be controlling, as the majority does, with respect to the scope of judicial review. Certainly “modifying or correcting the award” pursuant to Section 11 fairly includes a judicial determination under Section 11(d)’s “n. o. v.” test, as that test is explained and informed by the “essence test” of the Steelworkers Trilogy, supra note 4, that an arbitrator’s award is wrong as a matter of law. But such a determination will not be made merely because a court disagrees with the interpretation of the arbitrator. Thus we held in Beaver County:
“[W]here a task of an arbitrator, [under] PERA or otherwise, has been to determine the intention of the contracting parties as evidenced by their collective bargaining agreement and the circumstances surrounding its execution, then the arbitrator’s award is based on a resolution of a question of fact and is to be respected by the judiciary if ‘the interpretation can in any rational way be derived from the agreement, viewed in light of its language, its context, and any other indicia of the parties’ intention . . . .’ Ludwig Honold Mfg. Co. v. Fletcher, 405 F.2d 1123, 1128 (3d Cir. 1969).” 473 Pa. at 593-94, 375 A.2d at 1275.
When one compares this holding with the majority’s assertion that “[w]e have no jurisdiction to determine the question of whether the arbitrator mistakenly interpreted the agreement,” Opinion of the Court ante at 1205, it should be obvious that the majority has chosen to overlook both the Arbitration Act and the approach which this Court adopted in Beaver County only a few months ago. Jurisdiction we surely have; the only question is how it should be exercised. Compare County of Allegheny v. Allegheny County Prison *427Employees Independent Union, - Pa. -, -, 381 A.2d 849 (1977).
Since I am satisfied, however, that the Beaver County approach requires a reinstatement of the award made by the arbitrator in this case, I concur in the order of reversal.

. Act of April 25, 1927, P.L. 381, No. 248, 5 P.S. § 1 et seq., as amended, 5 P.S. § 161 et seq. (1963).

. Act of July 23, 1970, P.L. 563, No. 195, Art. I, § 101 et seq., 43 P.S. §§ 1101.101-1101.2301 (Supp.1977-78).

. To the extent that there were any inconsistencies between the two, we stated that PERA, as the later enactment, should prevail. 473 Pa. at 594, 375 A.2d at 1276.

. United Steelworkers v. American Mfg. Co., 363 U.S. 564, 80 S.Ct. 1343, 4 L.Ed.2d 1403 (1960); United Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf *423Navigation Co., 363 U.S. 574, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409 (1960); United Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Co., 363 U.S. 593, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424 (1960).

. The interpretation which the arbitrator made cannot be said to be “against the law” within the meaning of Section 11(d) of the Arbitration Act and does not render the collective bargaining agreement “in *424violation of, or inconsistent with, or in conflict with any statute” within the meaning of Section703 of PERA. The majority adequately disposes of the school district’s contention under Section 706 of PERA, 43 P.S. § 1101.706. I would add that I see no fatal inconsistency between the agreement, negotiated under PERA, and the legislative policy expressed in Section 1142(a) of the 1949 Public School Code, Act of March 10, 1949, P.L. 30, as amended, 24 P.S. § 11— 1142(a) (Supp.1977).
Section 1142(a) provides in part:
“[A]ll school districts . . . shall pay all regular . . teachers . . . the minimum salaries and increments . as provided in the following tabulation in accordance with . . the step which the professional employe has attained by years of experience within the school district . . . .” (Emphasis added.)
This, in my view, presents no problem, for by the use of the word “minimum” the legislature obviously meant to set forth in Section 1142 a floor and not a ceiling on teacher pay and its calculation. An agreement to include all years of experience, whenever received, in calculating salary does not run against the legislature’s minimum requirements.
Section 1142(a) of the School Code also provides in part: “When a school district, by agreement, places a professional employe on a step in a salary scale, each step thereafter shall constitute one year of service. ...” (Emphasis added.) The school district argues that by virtue of this provision, the school board must remain free to negotiate individual salary calculations with teachers at the hiring stage. But if a school district chooses to enter into a collective bargaining agreement that includes newly-hired teachers, I see no fundamental inconsistency with any established legislative policy.

. Although it is true that the relief desired by the school district in this case is much like the vacation of an award, there is no basis in the briefs or record for the majority’s statement that the district *425“sought to vacate the arbitrator’s award.” Opinion of the Court ante at 417. The school district, finding itself aggrieved by the arbitrator’s award in this case, brought a petition for review in the Commonwealth Court under Pa.R.J.A. 2101, which was then in effect. (Review would now be had in the court of common pleas pursuant to Pa.R.Civ.P. 247 (effective July 1, 1976). See Beaver County, supra, 473 Pa. at 581-85, 375 A.2d at 1269-71.) The Commonwealth Court, without stating any statutory standard, sustained the “appeal” and “reversed” the arbitrator. We allowed an appeal to this Court. The school district, of course, now simply asks us to affirm the Commonwealth Court, and its brief does not even mention the Arbitration Act, much less rely on any specific section of that statute. This is understandable, since this case was briefed and argued before our decision in Beaver County, supra, which held that the Act of 1927 did apply to arbitrations conducted pursuant to PERA, supra note 2.

. Section 11(d) provides:
“[T]he court shall make an order modifying or correcting the award upon the application of any party to the arbitration:
**********
“(d) Where the award is against the law, and is such that had it been a verdict of the jury the court would have entered different or other judgment notwithstanding the verdict.”