Court Opinion

ID: 9700904
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:53:06.63537+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:15.909355
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Weisberger,
with whom Mr. Justice Doris joins, dissenting. The majority have in effect determined that an arbitration award, even where clearly erroneous and based upon substantial amendments to a collective bargaining agreement, will be insulated from judicial review unless *918utterly irrational in nature. In coming to this conclusion, my brothers have embraced a distinguished line of federal cases which generally support the finality of arbitration in the private sector.
In applying the principles of these cases to arbitration of labor disputes in the public sector, we must consider certain lurking perils. The “common law of the shop” or past practice may include the application of elaborate statutory schemes for the government of state and municipal employees, and an arbitrator can be called upon to adjudicate disputes which may involve the interpretation of such statutes. Should the arbitrator under such circumstances be substantially insulated from judicial review? My position in this matter may be helpfully illustrated if a brief analysis of the case law in this area is given.
In Belanger v. Matteson, 115 R.I. 332, 346 A.2d 124 (1975), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 968, 96 S. Ct. 1466, 47 L. Ed. 2d 736 (1976), we reversed the trial justice for overturning the decision of the arbitrator on a question of law relating to the shifting of the burden of proof. In taking this position, we followed an extensive line of cases beginning with United Steelworkers of America v. American Manufacturing Co., 363 U.S. 564, 80 S. Ct. 1343, 4 L. Ed. 2d 1403 (1960); United Steelworkers of America v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U.S. 574, 80 S. Ct. 1347, 4 L. Ed. 2d 1409 (1960); and United Steelworkers of America v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 80 S. Ct. 1358, 4 L. Ed. 2d 1424 (1960).
In the last case of this famous trilogy, Mr. Justice Douglas set forth the standard of review for an arbitrator’s decision as follows:
“When an arbitrator is commissioned to interpret and apply the collective bargaining agreement, he is to bring his informed judgment to bear in order to reach a fair solution of a problem. This is especially true when it comes to formulating remedies. There the need is for flexibility in meeting a wide variety of situations. The *919draftsmen may never have thought of what specific remedy should be awarded to meet a particular contingency. Nevertheless, an arbitrator is confined to interpretation and application of the collective bargaining agreement; he does not sit to dispense his own brand of industrial justice. He may of course look for guidance from many sources, yet his award is legitimate only so long as it draws its essence from the collective bargaining agreement. When the arbitrator’s words manifest an infidelity to this obligation, courts have no choice but to refuse enforcement of the award.” 363 U.S. at 597, 80 S. Ct. at 1361, 4 L. Ed. 2d at 1428 (emphasis added).
In spite of language indicating that an arbitrator may not dispense his own brand of industrial justice, the federal courts have refused to disturb arbitration awards even in situations where one might argue that the arbitrator had exceeded his powers or that the results required an amendment of the contract. For example, in Amoco Oil Co. v. Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers International Union, Local 7-1, Inc., 548 F.2d 1288 (7th Cir. 1977), the court of appeals declined to overturn an arbitrator’s award under circumstances which might be termed extreme.
In that case, when a fireman responded to an emergency at the employee’s home, they discovered $30,000 worth of company equipment in his basement. As a result, he was discharged under a contract provision which required “just cause.” The employee’s sole defense was an assertion that some unidentified persons had brought this equipment to his premises in order to “frame him.” No substantial evidence was produced in support of this assertion. The arbitrator found that the company had just cause to discharge the employee as of the time the discharge was effectuated, but further found that as of the end of the arbitration, the arbitrator had sufficient doubts so that discharge was not justified. Although he absolved the company from any possible connection with the unproved conspiracy, he ordered the reinstatement of the employee without back pay but with no *920forfeiture of seniority. The court of appeals rejected a challenge that his award was arbitrary, capricious and without foundation in reason or fact. Relying on United Steelworkers of America v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., supra, the court held that the correctness of the arbitrator’s conclusion and the propriety of his reasoning were not relevant to a reviewing court in the light of the general principles enunciated in Enterprise. Judge Moore in his dissent in Amoco pointed out that the arbitrator’s conclusion that the company had acted properly as of the date of discharge completely expended his mandate and suggested that in overruling management, in effect he began to “ ‘dispense his own brand of industrial justice,’ ” something he was prohibited from doing even under the theory of Mr. Justice Douglas.
My brother cites United Steelworkers of America v. United States Gypsum Co., 492 F.2d 713 (5th Cir. 1974). This case is indeed worthy of close analysis. There a successor employer purchased substantially all of the assets and property of its predecessor company. The successor employer refused to accept the union contract but was found to be bound by certain arbitration provisions. Although the union was ultimately decertified, an arbitration was held and, among other things, the arbitrator determined that the employer was wrong in failing to bargain under a wage reopener clause. The arbitrator thereupon determined what agreement would have been reached concerning increases in wages had the bargaining taken place. He further found that the successor employer was in error in not deducting union dues under the checkoff provision, and he required that this sum be paid to the union without deducting it from the wages of any employees. The district court refused to enforce the arbitrator’s determination as to a wage increase since in effect it made an agreement between the parties and violated the principles enunciated in H.K. Porter Co. v. NLRB, 397 U.S. 99, 90 S. Ct. 821, 25 L. Ed. 2d 146 (1970), which held that the National Labor Relations Board could require a successor employer to bargain with the union but not to observe the *921substantive terms of the collective bargaining agreement to which it had in no way agreed. The district court further modified the award in respect to checkoff of dues to the extent that employees still with the company were required to pay the dues from future wages, while amounts due from those no longer employed were to be paid by the company.
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the district court and affirmed the arbitration award in all respects, holding that the rationale of H.K. Porter was not applicable and that the nexus between the breach of the re-opener clause and the method selected to remedy that breach was sufficient to support the conclusion that the remedy “draws its essence” from the contract. Similar assertions were made in respect to the checkoff provision. There the court contented itself with the observation that it could not say the arbitrator’s decision was not within his remedial authority. Thus, an arbitrator could do, in part, what the National Labor Relations Board was specifically forbidden to do and could require a company to do something not contemplated by a contract to which it had never agreed in the first place. I consider this to be strong medicine indeed.
A few cases have recognized that a court may review and set aside an award if the arbitrator exceeds his contractual authority. Cannon v. Consolidated Freightways Corp., 524 F.2d 290 (7th Cir. 1975); Torrington Co. v. Metal Products Workers Union Local 1645, 362 F.2d 677 (2d Cir. 1966). The weight of authority has been in support of the proposition that an arbitrator’s determination will not be reviewed for error of law on the theory that for all practical purposes, save for utterly irrational conduct, the arbitrator’s determination is completely insulated from review. Safeway Stores v. American Bakery & Confectionery Workers International Union, Local 111, 390 F.2d 79 (5th Cir. 1968). The rationale of these cases has been rather succinctly expressed by Professor Bernard Dunau in Three Problems in Labor Arbitration, 55 Va. L. Rev. 427, 461, as follows:
*922“The ordinary judge has ordinarily nothing to teach the ordinary arbitrator in the adjudication of an ordinary grievance under an ordinary collective bargaining agreement.”
The theory seems to be that the arbitrator’s normal expertise is so great, and a judge’s lack of expertise is so dangerous to the whole process, that it is better to suffer an occasional egregious error than to submit the outcome of arbitration to the dangers even of limited judicial review.
The principal cases which follow this theory have dealt with grievances in the private sector. Only in Belanger v. Matteson, supra, did we touch upon a grievance relating to a public employee. We must now decide whether the rigors of the rule suggested in the plethora of federal and state cases should be applied to arbitration of grievances in the public sector. The School Teachers’ Arbitration Act, G.L. 1956 (1968 Reenactment) chapter 9.3 of title 28, adopted in 1966, was superimposed upon a very extensive statutory scheme which had previously governed the operation and management of the public school system. This statutory scheme purported to define the rights and responsibilities of teachers from the inception of their service to their benefits in retirement, as well as the responsibilities and authority of school committees. See G.L. 1956 (1969 Reenactment) chapters 1 to 38 of title 16. Many of the collective bargaining agreements which are entered into between teachers’ unions and school committees in the various cities and towns make specific or implicit references to one or more of these statutory contexts.
Thus, it may be necessary for an arbitrator in determining a grievance and in supplementing the contract with past practice to consider and interpret the contract in the light of Rhode Island educational law.
If this court should choose to abdicate from any meaningful function in the review of such determinations, the practical enforcement of a large body of public law would be *923left to the untrammeled and unreviewable discretion of arbitrators. I think that the interest of the people of this state in the enforcement and application of laws relating to education and the rights and responsibilities of those who carry out the educational function is far too compelling in nature to warrant such abstention on our part. Even the most rudimentary demands of consistency and consonance would be set at nought by such a system, since arbitrators have no obligation even to provide reasons for their determinations.1
In the private sector, to a great extent, it was thought by Mr. Justice Douglas and his colleagues in United Steelworkers of America v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., supra, that industrial peace and the giving up of the right to strike would best be served by making an arbitrator’s decision to all intents and purposes final. In the public sector in Rhode Island there is no right to strike.
I would respectfully suggest that the appropriate rule to follow in respect to enforcement or review of an arbitrator’s decision might be derived from a literal reading of the statute. The statute now provides that an award may be vacated “[w]here the arbitrator or arbitrators exceeded their powers.” Section 28-9-18(b).2 I would also suggest that we *924should enforce contract provisions which preclude an arbitrator from making any decision amending, modifying, adding to or subtracting from the provisions of the agreement, as in the case at bar. I would urge that such cases as Torrington Co. v. Metal Products Workers Union Local 1645, supra, provide a much more workable rule in respect to arbitration in the public sector than do the majority of private employment arbitration cases which in effect furnish no review at all. Perhaps it would not be wholly inappropriate to limit arbitrators to the agreement or submission of the parties as was the rule of the earlier cases. This point of view was expressed in the dissent of Mr. Justice Whittaker in United Steelworkers of America v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., supra at 585-87, 80 S. Ct. at 1354-55, 4 L. Ed. 2d at 1419-20. In addition to citing a number of cases, he quotes the language of then Chief Judge Cardozo in Marchant v. Mead-Morrison Manufacturing Co., 252 N.Y. 284, 299, 169 N.E. 386, 391 (1929): “The question is one of intention, to be ascertained by the same tests that are applied to contracts generally. * * * No one is under a duty to resort to these conventional tribunals, however helpful their processes, except to the extent that he has signified his willingness.” (Emphasis added.)
I submit that when dealing with the sovereign power of the state and its subdivisions, clear expression of willingness should be essential to the submission of matters of magnitude to a third party for determination. Indeed, the Supreme Court of New Hampshire observed in Tremblay v. Berlin Police Union, 108 N.H. 416, 237 A.2d 668 (1968), that a requirement for arbitration in a labor contract to be subordinated to the provisions of state law might well be constitutionally required. For a number of useful concepts see Note, Legality and Propriety of Agreements to Arbitrate Major and Minor Disputes in Public Employment, 54 Cornell L. Rev. 129 (1968).
As public sector bargaining grows apace in our nation, new techniques must be devised to meet the ever increasing *925problems. See Anderson, The Impact of Public Sector Bargain ing, 1973 Wis. L. Rev. 986.
Manning, West, Santaniello ó- Pari, V. James Santaniello, for plaintiffs.
Urso and Adamo, Natale L. Urso, for defendants.
In the instant case, I am of the opinion that the arbitrator exceeded his contractual authority by adding a dimension to the contract in an area where the parties had set forth comprehensive terms governing all types of leaves of absence. I would therefore affirm the judgment as rendered in the Superior Court.

The instant controversy involves a school teacher. However, extensive statutory provisions may also be found governing state employees, see G.L. 1956 (1969 Reenactment) chapters 3 to 11 of title 36, and special legislation may be found relating to policemen and firemen, including methods of discipline and discharge. See G.L. 1956 (1970 Reenactment) chapter 20 of title 45, in respect to police officers, and G.L. 1956 (1968 Reenactment) chapter 9.1 of title 28, in respect to firefighters. Interpretation of these statutes may be of great importance to our governmental structure.

My Brother Kelleher suggests that the foregoing statute would not allow the type of judicial review which is advocated here. I submit that this statute is most adequate to support such judicial review. To quote a statement of Mr. Justice Frankfurter, “Words being symbols do not speak without a gloss.” Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 169, 72 S. Ct. 205, 208, 96 L. Ed. 183, 188 (1952). In this instance, the gloss placed upon the statutory language is judicial, not legislative. This court has ample authority to modify or limit the gloss which it has adopted to suit a different context.