Court Opinion

ID: 9511944
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:09:55.813585+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:05:15.164712
License: Public Domain

CHIEF JUSTICE GRAY,
specially concurring.
¶41 I join in the results reached by the Court and in much of its analysis. I write separately to set forth a more direct approach to whether Klein was required to exhaust the CBA grievance procedures to and through arbitration with regard to her claims of deceit and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
¶42 Article 17, Section 2, of the parties’ negotiated CBA contains a grievance procedure which may culminate in final and binding arbitration. Section 39-31-306(2), MCA, expressly permits such a provision. CBA Article 17, Section 3, captioned Rules of Grievance Processing, contains six subsections, most of which relate directly to the procedure set forth in Section 2.
¶43 Subsection E of Section 3, however, is decidedly different. It provides that “[e]mployees desiring to contest an employment action through alternative statutory or civil procedures may not contest the same employment action under the provisions of this Agreement’s grievance procedure.” The inclusion of this portion of Article 17 makes it clear that the Section 2 grievance procedure is not exclusive. Indeed, Section 3E clearly provides that an employee can contest one employment action through the Section 2 grievance procedure and *537another, different employment action, via civil litigation.
¶44 Here, Klein’s collective bargaining unit successfully pursued her discharge and resulting damages through binding arbitration. It is my view that the DOC’s alleged willful misrepresentations to Klein about the nature of its dealings with her, which resulted in a criminal prosecution, are an employment action separate and apart from the later termination of her employment. In my view, this employment action was not part of the grievance ultimately processed to-and through-binding arbitration and, therefore, Article 17, Section 3E, expressly authorized Klein to raise this employment action in a civil lawsuit. To hold otherwise would be to ignore a CBA provision the parties negotiated in good faith.
¶45 For these reasons, I join the Court in reversing the District Court on the deceit and emotional distress claims asserted by Klein.