Court Opinion

ID: 9727616
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:45:09.590529+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:40.768404
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice,
concurring.
I join the majority opinion. I wish to emphasize that, as the majority observes, judicial intervention in labor arbitration awards is and should be the rare exception. So long as the arbitrator “essentially” (i.e., reasonably) derives the award from the collective bargaining agreement, the award will not be disturbed.
Here, however, as in Philadelphia Housing Authority v. Union of Security Officers # 1, 500 Pa. 213, 455 A.2d 625 (1983), the union did not bargain for and the employer did not bargain away the right and responsibility of the employer to discharge an employee who is guilty of the atrocious criminal conduct that we witness in these cases. In the instant case, the sustained physical abuse, humiliation and torture of the victim-inmate (which is undisputed) in the guards’ “care” (e.g., handcuffing and shackling, forced enemas, shaving of hair, exposing private areas, inflicting pain to and offensive touching of the genitals and buttocks, etc.), clearly violated the criminal laws of this Commonwealth prohibiting, inter alia, rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and assault. A public employer cannot bargain away its right and responsibility to discharge an employee for such egregious criminal behavior occuring in the performance of the employee’s duties; such a bargain would violate public policy. The Centre County Prison Board did not attempt to bargain away that right and responsibility, and the arbitrator in this case, without a doubt, roved far beyond the collective bargaining agreement to dispense his own notion of justice. This award cannot be permitted to stand.
PAPADAKOS, J., joins in this concurring opinion.