Court Opinion

ID: 7846556
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-08 17:11:40.093244+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:25:23.627440
License: Public Domain

BORDEN, J.,
dissenting. I disagree with the majority that the arbitral award in this case did not violate public policy. Applying the appropriate scope of review, upon which I agree with the majority, I conclude that, based upon the undisputed facts of the case, the award violated the clear public policy against embezzlement. In *528my view, that policy includes the policy that an employer should not be required to reinstate the employment of an employee who has been convicted of embezzlement of his employer’s funds, whether that conviction follows a trial, a guilty plea, or a plea of nolo contendere. I therefore dissent.
I agree with the arbitrator, and neither the defendant union, United Steelworkers of America, nor the majority disputes, that if the employee’s conviction for embezzlement of his employer’s funds had followed either a guilty plea or a trial, the plaintiff employer, the town of Groton, would have been justified in imposing appropriate discipline, including termination, and an arbitral award requiring his reinstatement to employment would have violated clear public policy.1 See, e.g., Board of Education v. Local 566, Council 4, AFSCME, 43 Conn. App. 499, 501, 683 A.2d 1036 (1996), cert. denied, 239 Conn. 957, 688 A.2d 327 (1997) (where grievant had pleaded guilty to and been convicted of fraudulently diverting union funds, award reinstating him to job with responsibility for publicly owned property violated public policy); see also State v. Council 4, AFSCME, 27 Conn. App. 635, 641, 608 A.2d 718 (1992) (where grievant admittedly had misused state funds by cashing falsely generated public assistance checks, award of reinstatement to employment violated public policy). In either instance, the record would be sufficient to *529establish that the employee had in fact stolen from his employer. The guilty plea would constitute an admission of guilt; see Lawrence v. Kozlowski, 171 Conn. 705, 711 n.4, 372 A.2d 110 (1976), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 969, 97 S. Ct. 2930, 53 L. Ed. 2d 1066 (1977); and the conviction after trial would be sufficient to establish the fact of the theft, under established principles of issue preclusion. See Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. v. Jones, 220 Conn. 285, 296-307, 596 A.2d 414 (1991). In either of those instances, the public policy against theft also would include the policy that an employer should not be required to retain in a position of financial trust an employee who has been established to have stolen.
The question posed by this appeal is whether that calculus is altered by the fact that the conviction is based, not upon a plea of guilty or a trial, but upon a plea of nolo contendere. I conclude that an arbitral award that requires the employer to reinstate an employee who has been terminated following his conviction, upon the basis of such a plea, of embezzling the employer’s funds, violates public policy.
I agree with the plaintiff that the public policy against embezzlement encompasses the policy that an employer should not be compelled to reinstate an employee who has been convicted of embezzling the employer’s funds, irrespective of whether the conviction followed a trial, a guilty plea or a nolo contendere plea.2 The employment context ordinarily involves a number of legitimate expectations on the part of the *530employer that such a conviction is likely to undermine, irrespective of the legal underpinning of the conviction. For example, the employer is entitled to expect that he be able to trust any employee who is in a position of financial responsibility. The employer is also entitled to expect that his other employees will be able to trust their coemployees, and that those other employees will feel sufficiently deterred from engaging in embezzlement. Finally, the employer is entitled to expect that members of the public who are required to deal with his employees will feel that they are being served in an honest and trustworthy manner. All of these legitimate expectations are severely threatened by a requirement that the employer reinstate an employee who has been convicted of embezzling the employer’s funds. That severe threat, moreover, is not removed or significantly ameliorated by the fact that the conviction rests upon a plea of nolo contendere, as opposed to a plea of guilty or a trial.
Although we have stated in the context of litigation and administrative rulings that a prior conviction based upon a nolo contendere plea may have no currency beyond the case in which it was rendered; Lawrence v. Kozlowski, supra, 171 Conn. 711-12 n.4; such a conviction does have the weight of a final adjudication of guilt and does share at least some characteristics of a guilty plea. “A plea of nolo contendere has the same legal effect as a plea of guilty on all further proceedings within the indictment. North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 35-36 n.8, 91 S. Ct. 160, 27 L. Ed. 2d 162 (1970); Lawrence v. Kozlowski, [supra, 705]; see State v. Godek, 182 Conn. 353, 363-64, 438 A.2d 114 (1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 1031, 101 S. Ct. 1741, 68 L. Ed. 2d 226 (1981). The only practical difference is that the plea of nolo contendere may not be used against the defendant as an admission in a subsequent criminal or civil case. 4 Wigmore, Evidence (Chadboum Rev. 1972) § 1066 (2), *531p. 81; Lenvin & Meyers, ‘Nolo Contendere: Its Nature and Implications,’ 51 Yale L.J. 1255 (1942). State v. Martin, 197 Conn. 17, 20-21 n.7, 495 A.2d 1028 (1985). It is clear, however, that a nolo contendere plea also constitutes a waiver of all nonjurisdictional defects in a manner equivalent to a guilty plea. Lott v. United States, 367 U.S. 421, 81 S. Ct. 1563, 6 L. Ed. 2d 940 (1961); United States v. DePoli, 628 F.2d 779, 781 (2d Cir. 1980).” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Madera, 198 Conn. 92, 97 n.5, 503 A.2d 136 (1985). Thus, it is simply too much to expect of the employer that it be required to set aside its legitimate expectations, solely because of the differences, which the law recognizes in contexts other than that of employment, between a conviction based upon a guilty plea or trial and a conviction based upon a nolo contendere plea.
Lawrence v. Kozlowski, supra, 171 Conn. 705, upon which the defendant and the majority rely, does not require a different conclusion. In Lawrence, the plaintiff challenged, by way of an appeal under the Uniform Administrative Procedure Act, the suspension of his driver’s license by the defendant commissioner, who had admitted into evidence at the administrative hearing a certified record of the plaintiffs prior plea of nolo contendere to and ensuing conviction of negligent homicide. Id., 710. In concluding that the commissioner should not have admitted that record, we reiterated that “in a judicial proceeding the plaintiffs nolo contendere plea and arrest would be inadmissible. Furthermore, despite the broad latitude given the commissioner with respect to the admission of evidence, we are also of the opinion that the nolo contendere plea should have been excluded from the administrative hearing as well, not only because it was of marginal probative value, but also because such pleas are often entered with the expectation that they will not be used against an accused in subsequent proceedings. See McCormick, *532[supra] § 265.” Lawrence v. Kozlowski, supra, 711-12. In an explanatory footnote regarding the differences between a guilty plea and a nolo contendere plea, with respect to the latter, we stated: “Nor is it admissible ... as res judicata establishing that the plaintiff was engaged in a criminal act.” Id., 711 n.4. For this proposition, we cited Krowka v. Colt Patent Fire Arm Mfg. Co., 125 Conn. 705, 714, 8 A.2d 5 (1939), in which, in the context of an action for damages, we had held that the record of a prior police court conviction of the plaintiff for breach of peace, based upon a nolo conten-dere plea, “was not admissible as res judicata.”
As these authorities state, under our law a prior plea of nolo contendere and a conviction based thereon may not be admitted into evidence in a subsequent civil action or administrative proceeding to establish either an admission of guilt or the fact of criminal conduct.3 Civil actions and administrative proceedings, however, ordinarily do not involve the kind of legitimate expectations of the employer that are inherent in the employment context and that would be severely undermined by requiring the reinstatement of an employee convicted of embezzling his employer’s funds. The absence of these considerations in the ordinary civil or administrative context, and the compelling nature of their presence in the employment context, differentiate these authorities from the present case.
I would, therefore, affirm the judgment of the trial court.

 I emphasize that I would not hold that, in imposing discipline on an employee who has been established to have embezzled his employer’s funds, the employer is required by law to terminate the employee. The degree of discipline that the employer imposes is, in the first instance, up to the employer, subject to those standards set forth in the applicable personnel rules, collective bargaining agreement, and any other relevant materials. Indeed, in Board of Education v. Local 566, Council 4, AFSCME, 43 Conn. App. 499, 501, 683 A.2d 1036 (1996), cert. denied, 239 Conn. 957, 688 A.2d 327 (1997), in which the employee had pleaded guilty to stealing union funds, the discipline imposed was not termination but demotion to a lesser position. The arbitral award that was held to violate public policy was to reinstate him to his prior position. Id., 504.

 I acknowledge that, there may be circumstances attending such a plea that are so extreme that a conviction based upon it should be given no credence whatsoever for purposes of an employment discipline decision. Suffice it to say that, although in the present case the circumstances attending the employee’s plea generate understanding of his dilemma in deciding whether to plead nolo contendere or go to trial, they are not so extreme as to require that his conviction be wholly disregarded in the subsequent employment discipline decision.

 As the plaintiff suggests, however, this is not the universally held view. See, e.g., Sokoloff v. Saxbe, 501 F.2d 571, 574-75 (2d Cir. 1974), in which the court sustained the revocation of a physician’s license pursuant to a federal statute providing for such revocation upon the conviction of a drag related felony, where the physician had been convicted of such a felony upon the basis of his nolo contendere plea. The court stated that “[wjhere ... a statute (or judicial rule) attaches legal consequences to the fact of a conviction, the majority of courts have held that there is no valid distinction between a conviction upon a plea of nolo contendere and a conviction after a guilty plea or trial.” Id., 574.