Court Opinion

ID: 9499426
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:48:15.993114+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:30.106821
License: Public Domain

JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge,
with whom BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge, joins concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in parts I and II.A of the majority opinion. The separation of instances of “procedural aberration” from substantive review of the merits and the recognition that in rare and egregious cases the courts must find that arbitral merits decisions depart so far from the contract language as not to amount to contract construction provide useful guid-*761anee for consideration of awards. I thus do not understand the majority opinion to limit review to “procedural aberration,” as the dissent seems to indicate. I also agree with many of the majority’s observations about the arbitrator’s decision in Part II.B. In particular, I believe that the majority correctly characterizes the issue with respect to this award as one of substance* not procedure. I disagree, however, that application of the analytical framework outlined by the majority for reviewing the substantive merits of arbitration awards results in enforcement of this award. While certainly the text of the decision reads like the arbitrator is attempting to construe or interpret the contract, what the arbitrator in fact does is ignore the plain language of the contract limiting the parity requirement to increases funded by the federal funding source and bind the parties to past practice despite the contract’s clear language to the contrary. In my view, the window dressing of nice opinion language should not obscure the absence of underpinnings for the decision. And, unlike the majority, I find it difficult to characterize silence as ambiguity. I would place this decision in the category of those so “ignor[ant]” of the contract’s “plain language,” Misco, 484 U.S. at 38, 108 S.Ct. 364, “as to make implausible any contention that the arbitrator was construing the contract.” (Maj. Op. at 753.) For this reason, I would affirm the district court.