Court Opinion

ID: 9540110
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:12:54.08292+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:36.594717
License: Public Domain

Justice McCAFFERY,
dissenting.
I must respectfully dissent.
*294My initial and most fundamental disagreement with the majority’s opinion is in its characterization of the arbitrator’s sanction as a constitutional matter rather than as a basic evidentiary one. Contrary to the majority, I would hold that the Act 111 arbitrator simply imposed a sanction within his discretionary authority, after having weighed the evidence before him regarding the City’s present and past failures to honor duly issued subpoenas, and after having made factual findings that are beyond any court’s review. Pursuant to the clear dictates and intent of Act 111, such discretionary sanction is a final, non-appealable determination of the arbitrator and not reviewable under our narrow certiorari scope of review.
Due process, for our purposes, simply requires “an opportunity ... granted at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner for a hearing appropriate to the nature of the case.” Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U.S. 422, 437, 102 S.Ct. 1148, 71 L.Ed.2d 265 (1982) (emphasis in original; citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Logan, a case relied upon by the majority, held that a litigant’s due process rights were violated when his administrative hearing was terminated for reasons completely beyond his control. In the instant case, no comparable situation occurred. Rather, the City clearly had an opportunity “granted at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner for a hearing appropriate to the nature of the case.” Id. However, the City forfeited that opportunity by its behavior. As Logan also observed: “And the State certainly accords due process when it terminates a claim for failure to comply with a reasonable procedural or evidentiary rule.” Id. (emphasis in original). That is all that transpired before the Act 111 arbitrator in this case; thus, the City did receive the process that was constitutionally due. Significantly, there is no allegation or argument that the sanction the arbitrator imposed was not directly related to the misbehavior of the City in this case and in others.
Further, “where a court imposes a judgment by default against a defendant as a sanction for failure to respond adequately to discovery requests, it is acting well within its *295discretion and the latitude given it by our Rules of Civil Procedure to enter ‘a judgment by default against the disobedient party.’ ” Fox v. Gabler, 534 Pa. 185, 626 A.2d 1141, 1143 (1993) (quoting Pa. R.C.P. 4019(c)(3); emphasis added). In Fox, this Court noted that, in the initial stages of the case, the Superior Court had affirmed a judgment by default entered as a sanction and this Court had declined to accept further review.1 Id. Yet here, we are entertaining this appeal, despite the fact that (1) the legislature has specifically forbidden appeals from Act 111 awards; (2) the arbitrator’s decision resided in his discretion and is of a type sanctioned by the Rules of Civil Procedure; and (3) the arbitrator’s sanction did not actually rise to the level of a default judgment.2
Further, although the majority professes to conduct its appellate review after having determined that such review is permissible under the narrow certiorari scope of review, the line drawn by the majority between its determination of whether we may review this case in the first instance and its actual “appellate review” is at best unclear, and in my opinion, inappropriately blurred. The majority’s opinion reads as if it is justifying its power to conduct a review based on the fruits of that review. See op. at 282, 985 A.2d at 1268. Although *296the majority correctly notes that appellate courts have a plenary standard of review when determining the applicability of the narrow certiorari scope of review to Act 111 appeals, such plenary standard must nevertheless yield in deference to the arbitrator’s findings of fact. See, e.g., Town of McCandless v. McCandless Police Officers Association, 587 Pa. 525, 901 A.2d 991, 1000 (2006). The majority cannot ignore these factual findings and substitute its own factual “findings.” However, as discussed infra, the majority did just that, apparently believing that it can actually set aside the arbitrator’s factual findings based, apparently, on its misinterpretation of what constitutes a de novo review of the record. Indeed, regarding the majority’s review as to whether the arbitrator appropriately imposed the sanction, the majority acts as if it were the “trial court.” The negative consequences of the majority’s approach here are potentially endless, and not just in the realm of Act 111 cases.
I believe that the majority has strayed in this matter in part because it has erroneously taken an evidentiary sanction, a measure that even the majority concedes rests in the tribunal’s discretion, and conflated it with general considerations of deprivation of due process. See op. at 281-83, 985 A.2d at 1268-69. However, as Logan, supra observed, the two are very different. The majority’s apparent confusion on this point may also explain why the essential due process case law the majority cites in its opinion is completely and wholly inapposite to the facts of this case and has nothing to do with discovery sanctions.3 Id. at 283, 985 A.2d at 1269. This *297confusion, I respectfully submit, leads to serious error on several fronts.
First, in the context of Act 111, the majority is now opening the door for appellate courts to review discretionary evidentiary decisions based on claims of a constitutional violation, when appellate courts are not even permitted to review arbitration decisions on error of law grounds. See Pennsylvania State Police v. Pennsylvania State Troopers’ Ass’n (Betancourt), 540 Pa. 66, 656 A.2d 83, 90 (1995) (“An error of law alone will not warrant reversal under the narrow certiorari scope of review.”). It cannot be emphasized too strongly that because the “interests of labor and management, as well as those of the general public” are served by swift non-appeal-able resolution of labor disputes concerning police and firefighters, the explicit “restraint on judicial activism is the linchpin of’ Act 111. Id. at 89 (emphasis added). Therefore, this Court may not and must not interpret Act 111 in a manner that expands, or indeed even continues, the already too-prevalent practice of appellate review of “non-appealable” arbitration awards.
Again, in the present case there is no allegation that the arbitrator’s sanction is unrelated to the City’s behavior. We would be faced with a different situation — one that certainly could have serious due process implications — if the arbitrator had precluded the City from presenting evidence unrelated to its failure to obey a subpoena, thereby in actuality depriving the City of an opportunity to present its remaining evidence. That is not this case. Thus, where the case on appeal establishes that a party before the Act 111 arbitrator fully had an opportunity for a hearing, but forfeited its opportunity through its own action, I conclude that the Act 111 arbitrator’s discretionary sanction ruling is beyond appellate review under the narrow certiorari scope of review. If appellate courts may not review allegations of legal error purportedly committed by Act 111 arbitrators4 or review the arbitrator’s factual findings,5 they certainly cannot review allegations that an Act *298Ill arbitrator abused his or her discretion in making an evidentiary ruling, including a ruling that imposes a serious and potentially crippling sanction.
Second, I believe that in contexts beyond Act 111, the majority’s decision will serve to interject chaos into the interpretation and application of Pa. R.C.P. 4019. The essence of the majority’s position is that despite the fact that tribunals may impose even the severest of sanctions for discovery violations under our Rule 4019, because we “disfavor” sanctions that ostensibly dismiss an action,6 such sanctions must therefore always implicate due process. Although it is undisputable that where appellate review is permitted, a severe sanction imposed under Rule 4019 should be given appropriate scrutiny, the majority here seems to signal that a trial judge’s discretion to impose severe and crippling sanctions will be subject to a new constitutional test. Most troubling, the majority justifies its position by citation to cases that have absolutely nothing to do with the procedural posture involved in this case, or in any case involving the discretionary application of Rule 4019 sanctions, but rather involve basic principles of due process where the opportunity for a hearing has been allegedly denied. The majority now runs the risk that its decision will be interpreted by the practicing bar and tribunals below to equate the forfeiture of an opportunity to a hearing with a deprivation of such opportunity in the first instance. In Logan, supra, the United States Supreme Court held that a litigant’s due process rights were violated when his administrative hearing was terminated for reasons completely beyond his control. Now, with its holding here, the majority embraces equating circumstances, such as the one addressed in Logan, with sanctions imposed under our Rules of Civil Procedure. I believe that the majority’s decision will thereby potentially cause havoc, as the majority has now effectively modified Pa. R.C.P. 4019 and our holding in Fox, supra, without any serious explanation as to why.
*299Even if there were some basis for appellate courts to review the arbitrator’s evidentiary ruling in this case — and I strongly maintain that there is not — I must also register my dissent to the scope and approach of the majority’s actual appellate review of the record here. Essentially, my disagreement is with the majority’s apparently equating a de novo review of the record standard with an implied authority to now act as the trial court. This is an extraordinary leap. Indeed, the case relied upon by the majority for such “proposition” simply provides that due process claims “are best reviewed as errors of law,” and, hence, are reviewed under a de novo standard. Pocono Manor Investors, L.P. v. Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, 592 Pa. 625, 927 A.2d 209, 219 (2007). Nothing in our jurisprudence permits an appellate court to substitute its “factual findings” for those of the statutorily designated fact-finder because there happen to be allegations of errors of law, especially not in Act 111 cases. Moreover, in Pocono Manor, we were careful to note that, regarding the constitutional claims being made, the agency had failed to argue that it was acting within its discretion. Id. In the present case, by clear contrast, because the arbitrator imposed a sanction for a discovery violation, the appropriate standard is, and has always been in living memory, whether the arbitrator abused his or her discretion. Fox, supra at 1143. That is the standard that should be applied in this case, were review permissible within the scope of narrow certiorari.
We have described the abuse of discretion standard as “significantly deferential,” defining it more fully as follows:
[I]t is important to emphasize that an abuse of discretion may not be found simply because an appellate court may have reached a different conclusion.... That is not the judicial function here. An abuse of discretion is not simply an error of judgment. It requires much more. If in reaching a conclusion the law is overridden or misapplied, or the judgment exercised is manifestly unreasonable, or the result of partiality, prejudice, bias, or ill-will, as shown by the evidence or the record, discretion is abused.
*300Bedford, Downs Mgt. Corp. v. State Harness Racing Com’n, 592 Pa. 475, 926 A.2d 908, 916 (2007) (quotation marks and citations omitted). Unfortunately, the majority ignores this appropriate standard and proceeds to review the evidence as if it were the trial court, substituting its judgment for that of the arbitrator seemingly at every turn.
First, the majority discredits the arbitrator’s finding that the grievant suffered prejudice. Op. at 284, 985 A.2d at 1270-71. Established law prohibits appellate courts from reviewing, and thus potentially altering, the factual findings of Act 111 arbitrators. McCandless, supra at 1000. Aside from the circumstance that the majority ignores this law, the majority also appears to disregard the fact that the impact of the delay was not on the FOP lawyers but on the police officer who was then out of a job. The arbitrator did not abuse his discretion by concluding that the grievant suffered some prejudice in this instance, particularly when the officer had already been out of a job for some years.7 The majority’s conclusion of lack of prejudice is simply an impermissible substitution of its judgment for that of the arbitrator. Indeed, the majority ignores or dismisses without reason the arbitrator’s findings that the City had the documentary evidence in question in its possession for three years during the pendency of the arbitration proceedings, but had refused to surrender it without the FOP formally demanding it by subpoena. Arbitration Opinion, dated October 2, 2006, at 5-6.
Next, the majority begins its fact-finding in earnest: “Thus, we find no willful misconduct on the City’s part.” Op. at 288, 985 A.2d at 1272. This “finding” of the majority is based on its reading of the record, which it believes shows that the FOP “conceded” that the City’s failure to honor the subpoena was inadvertent. Id. In my opinion, the record cited by the majority simply reflects that the FOP, without making any concession, understood that the City’s position was that its failure to honor the subpoena was a “clerical error.” See Notes of Testimony (“N.T.”), 7/25/06, at 11 and 23. However, *301the fact that the FOP had strenuously argued below that the City has demonstrated a disturbing pattern of failing to respond to FOP discovery requests in order to delay and derail the arbitration of grievances indicates to me that the FOP was not “conceding” that the City’s failure to respond to the subpoena was innocent. More importantly, the arbitrator did not find that the FOP had made this concession, and it is beyond our standard of review to characterize the evidence to our liking. Further, although the arbitrator did not find that the City had acted in bad faith in this particular grievance arbitration matter, the arbitrator did determine that in his experience, the FOP has had significant compliance problems with the City in the past, and, thus, the City should simply no longer be permitted to ignore subpoenas. N.T., 7/25/06, at 30.
I believe that the majority fails to appreciate that the Act 111 arbitrator, with personal knowledge of the City’s history of misbehavior in Act 111 grievance arbitrations, could reasonably take the position that the City must be disciplined because of its ongoing disregard of FOP subpoenas, and act accordingly within his discretion. Although there was no specific evidence of the City’s “bad intent” with respect to the subpoena in this particular grievance, as all such evidence was solely within the City’s possession, the arbitrator could, without making a specific finding of “bad intent” regarding the instant subpoena, nevertheless view the City’s behavior with suspicion because of the arbitrator’s knowledge of the City’s past behavior. Again, an appellate court’s job is not to review the record anew to arrive at an independent judgment, but to review the record to determine whether there are reasonable grounds for the discretionary rulings at issue.
The majority then continues its fact-finding by determining that the arbitrator’s sanction precluded the City from presenting any evidence, despite the absolute absence of such factual finding by the arbitrator, and despite the FOP’s actual concession that the City could have called the IAD investigator and the grievant himself to testify. Again, the majority apparently believes the FOP is being disingenuous and that it would have actually opposed the City had it attempted to call *302these witnesses. It is not this Court’s job on appeal to make such a “finding” or leap to such conclusions. If the FOP were being disingenuous, the opportunity to show this was foreclosed by the City’s refusing to proceed with the hearing, opting instead for an appeal. Under the “significantly deferential” standard of appellate review that we must apply, the majority’s failure to consider the consequences of the City’s refusal to proceed is, I believe, troubling at best.
Then, the majority proceeds to “analyze the number of discovery violations by the City.” Op. at 289, 985 A.2d at 1272. Once again, I must register my distress that the majority deems it appropriate to act as “trial court.” The General Assembly did not intend that Act 111 arbitrators be so dismissed as insignificant trifles by appellate courts. Indeed, Act 111 grants rather extraordinary powers to its arbitrators, albeit within the narrow confines of their jurisdiction. Section 7 of Act 111, for example, not only provides that the Act 111 arbitrator’s decision is “final” and “non-appealable,” but it also provides that the final arbitrator’s award serves as a mandate to the public employer to enact required legislation or take such other action as is necessary to implement the award in a time-specific fashion.8 43 P.S. § 217.7; see also Township of Moon v. Police Officers of the Township of Moon, 508 Pa. 495, 498 A.2d 1305, 1309 n. 7 (1985). To my knowledge, no other tribunal in this Commonwealth has such vast power. More importantly, Act 111 makes the arbitrator the effective trial court whose decisions are intended not to be reviewable except under the narrowest of circumstances. If justifiably under the narrow certiorari scope of review, we have the extremely rare occasion to review an Act 111 arbitrator’s evidentiary rulings, then I believe we must accord the arbitrator at least the same *303level of deference as we would any trial judge, and probably greater deference. See McCandless, supra at 1000.
With respect to the issue of the City’s alleged past transgressions in failing to honor subpoena requests, the majority utterly fails to accord the arbitrator the deference due. Here, the majority simply dismisses the institutional and actual knowledge of the arbitrator concerning the City’s past transgressions, not to mention the arbitrator’s apparent finding that “six prior arbitrators have at least expressed their displeasure or have ruled against the City.” Arbitration Opinion at 4. We would not dismiss the institutional knowledge or findings of any other trial court in this manner. Where there is evidence and institutional knowledge that one party in a narrow series of cases involving only one other party, and related by subject matter, has, for years, behaved improperly in discovery matters, it is simply beyond my comprehension that the majority would dismiss such evidence and knowledge as irrelevant. Among other things, in taking this position, the majority glosses over the City’s apparent transgressions and thereby simply encourages the City to disregard discovery requests and abuse the system until stopped in some manner by a future case. I find this deeply troubling.
Further, and just as incomprehensibly, the majority posits that the City could not have been “on notice” in this case regarding its past transgressions. The majority bases this determination on a footnote discussion in City of Philadelphia v. Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge No. 5, 564 Pa. 290, 768 A.2d 291, 295 n. 3 (2001). However, in that case, we were discussing whether the City was on notice regarding a rather specific “out-of-class pay claim” because the FOP had raised similar claims in earlier, unrelated arbitrations. By contrast, the issue in the case sub judice concerned ongoing behavior by the City across a full spectrum of grievance arbitrations regarding not a substantive matter, but a procedural practice and repeated pattern concerning the FOP’s discovery requests.9
*304In sum, because the majority’s “appellate review,” in my respectful opinion, is nothing less than an impermissible substitution of the majority’s judgment and fact-finding for that of the arbitrator, I cannot be a party to it. Moreover, because the majority has also failed to discern the existence of an overriding or misapplication of the law, a manifestly unreasonable decision, or evidence of the arbitrator’s partiality, prejudice, bias, or ill-will, we are obliged to let the arbitrator’s decision stand.
Finally, I take issue with the majority’s assertion that we need not address the question of whether Act 111 arbitrators may, in the first instance, impose discovery sanctions. Op. at 287 n. 15, 985 A.2d at 1271 n. 15. One cannot read the majority’s opinion without reasonably concluding that the majority has already determined, sub silentio, that Act 111 arbitrators have the power to impose discovery sanctions. Certainly, if Act 111 arbitrators lack such authority, there is no need to determine whether the arbitrator’s decision in this case violated a constitutional right. The seminal issue in this case is whether the arbitrator has, in the first instance, the power to impose sanctions.10 Thus, I respectfully submit that the majority has approached this case backwards. Further, in my opinion, there is no doubt that Act 111 arbitrators have the authority to impose evidentiary and discovery sanctions.11
First, as I have already observed, Act 111 arbitrators are temporary bodies of exceedingly limited jurisdiction, but with broad power within that jurisdiction. As we stated:
*305An arbitration panel is a temporary ‘one shot’ institution, convened to respond to a specific conflict. Once it reaches a decision it is disbanded and its members disperse. Its resolution of the dispute must be sure and swift, and much of its effectiveness would be lost if the mandate of its decision could be delayed indefinitely through protracted litigation.
City of Washington v. Police Department of City of Washington, 436 Pa. 168, 259 A.2d 437, 440 (1969) (emphasis added). Further, as I have mentioned supra, the powers of Act 111 arbitrators are rather extraordinary within the confínes of their narrow jurisdiction.
Even the majority concedes the power of Act 111 arbitrators to make and enforce evidentiary rulings, as Act 111 arbitrators could not carry out their mandate without such power. More importantly, Act 111 arbitrators are specifically granted the power to issue subpoenas to “compel the attendance of witnesses and physical evidence.” 43 P.S. § 217.6 (emphasis added). I believe that inherent in the power to issue subpoenas is the power to enforce them.
Further, I believe that Act 111 subpoenas must be enforced by the arbitrators rather than the courts of common pleas because of the critical legislative purposes behind Act 111 and the Act’s very explicit “no appeal” mandate. In several opinions, this Court has discussed the origins of Act 111, the critical goals the legislature hoped to achieve with its enactment, and the specific pathways the legislature laid out for achieving these goals. Briefly, these matters have been characterized by this Court as follows:
Act 111 altered the landscape of employer-employee relations. While the legislature maintained the prohibition on striking by police and fire personnel, 43 P.S. § 217.5, it granted to the workers the right to collectively bargain as well as the right to an arbitration of their disputes. These arbitration provisions were one of the key aspects of the legislature’s plan to ensure stability within the police and firefighting forces. The legislature designed Act 111 arbitration to be swift and final; it allowed judicial intervention *306in the Act 111 context in only the rarest of circumstances. Betancourt, 656 A.2d at 89. The legislature feared that if resolution were to be forestalled by years of litigation, the illegal strikes that had rocked police and firefighting forces across the Commonwealth in the 1960s could very well reoccur.
City of Philadelphia, 768 A.2d at 294. Again, because the “interests of labor and management, as well as those of the general public” are served by swift non-appealable resolution of labor disputes concerning police and firefighters, the explicit “restraint on judicial activism is the linchpin of’ Act 111. Betancourt, supra at 89 (emphasis added).
I believe that we would be removing that linchpin by forcing parties to Act 111 arbitrations to file actions in the courts of common pleas in order to enforce their discovery requests. Such a position would critically endanger the legislature’s goal of “sure and swift” arbitration decisions. City of Washington, supra at 440. The “protracted litigation” caused by this approach would make a mockery of the “no appeal” mandate of Act 111. Id. The majority refuses to take a position as to the extent of the severity of the misbehavior alleged against the City in this case. However, the specter of the severity of such misbehavior serves to illustrate the damage that one party could inflict upon the legislative goal of “sure and swift” and “non-appealable” Act 111 arbitration awards, if such misbehavior could be corrected only in the courts of common pleas. Therefore, I believe it is incompatible with the text and spirit of Act 111 for Act 111 discovery requests to be enforced in the courts of common pleas. They must be enforced by the arbitrators.
For the above reasons, I respectfully dissent, particularly as I believe strongly that the consequences of the majority’s approach to several matters in this case are potentially disastrous.

. Fox came before this Court at a later stage where the issue was whether it is appropriate to disregard the finality of a judgment in a subsequent damages proceeding.

. With respect to this last factor, the majority views the arbitrator's evidentiary ruling as equivalent to the entry of a default judgment because of its perception that the City was effectively precluded from offering any evidence. See op. at 280-81 n. 7 and 287-88, 985 A.2d at 1267 n. 7 and 1271-72. However, the FOP argued that the City could have called as witnesses the Police Department Internal Affairs Division ("IAD”) investigator and the grievant. The majority asserts that this could not be so, but by so determining, the majority effectively takes the position that the FOP is being disingenuous to this Court and that had the City attempted to call these witnesses, the FOP would have objected to these witnesses because of the evidentiary sanction imposed by the arbitrator. There is simply no basis for the majority to have come to this disturbing conclusion. Now, the majority has essentially endorsed the City's strategy of refusing to proceed to a hearing on the case it could have brought, albeit with much less evidence than it would have wished to bring, on the gamble that the City would fare better on appeal. Respectfully, I believe that the majority errs significantly by *296elevating to a constitutional level what may be a strategic choice made by the City.

. Among this case law is Logan, supra, which, as I have observed, bears no resemblance to the present case, but, in fact, by its language supports the conclusion that no constitutional violation is here implicated. Other cases cited by the majority include Butler Bros. v. McColgan, 315 U.S. 501, 62 S.Ct. 701, 86 L.Ed. 991 (1942); Nixon v. Commonwealth, 576 Pa. 385, 839 A.2d 277 (2003), and Pennsylvania Game Com'n v. Marich, 542 Pa. 226, 666 A.2d 253 (1995). Butler Bros. simply involved whether the California Bank and Corporation Franchise Tax Act, as construed and applied to the appellant, violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Nixon involved whether the criminal records chapter of the Adults Protective Services Act, 35 P.S. §§ 10225.101-10225.5102, was unconstitutional as applied to the appellees. Marich involved whether a revocation of hunting and trapping licenses is subject to procedural due process.

. Betancourt, supra at 90.

. McCandless, supra at 1000.

. Again, the arbitrator did not dismiss the City’s case here; the City simply rested after being sanctioned.

. The grievant was terminated in December 2002, and the arbitrator's hearing was in July 2006.

. However, it is as yet unexplored whether the arbitrator's power to compel the enactment of legislation or the promulgation of regulations involves only interest as opposed to grievance arbitration. As grievance arbitration is essentially confined to the arbitrator's interpretation and application of a collective bargaining agreement, one might conclude that there could be no reason for a grievance arbitrator’s decision to compel the enactment of legislation or the promulgation of a regulation.

. The majority suggests that the FOP file a separate grievance and arbitrate the matter in order to place the City "on notice.” I strongly *304urge this Court to take the position that, by this decision, the City is now “on notice” that its past behavior in grievance arbitrations shall be at issue when there is any future failure to honor discovery requests by the FOP in Act 111 grievance arbitrations.

. In fact, we sua sponte informed the parties that this was an essential issue on appeal. City of Philadelphia v. Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 5 (Jason Breary), 595 Pa. 403, 938 A.2d 986 (2007) (per curiam ).

. In expressing my opinion, I disagree with the conclusion of the Commonwealth Court below that Act 111 arbitrators lack such authority, and most strenuously disagree with that court's conclusion that the forum for the FOP to enforce discoveiy requests is with the court of common pleas. See City of Philadelphia v. Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 5 (Breary), 932 A.2d 274, 286 (Pa.Cmwlth.2007).