Court Opinion

ID: 9757668
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:53:04.026062+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:42.461170
License: Public Domain

Brown, C. J.
(dissenting). With the conclusion of the majority that it was the function of the court to interpret this arbitration agreement I am in full accord for the reasons stated in the opinion. I am un*310able, however, to agree with the further conclusion that in its interpretation of the contract the trial court erred in deciding that the plaintiff’s grievance does not fall within the arbitration provision thereof.
The contract constitutes the plaintiff the exclusive representative of the employees in the bargaining unit for purposes of collective bargaining and provides that the term “employee” therein shall exclude supervisory employees. Such employees are outside of the unit and have no seniority status.- When the agreement was negotiated in 1948, the defendant rejected the plaintiff’s demand for inclusion of a provision that “no supervisory employee shall perform the work of employees in the bargaining unit,” so that this is not contained in it. The agreement does provide for a seniority system by which under certain conditions the seniority status of an employee governs transfers of the employee from job to job and from division to division, the order in which employees may be laid off either temporarily or permanently, and the order in which they shall be recalled to work. It makes no provision as to what conditions will justify the defendant in laying off any of its employees either permanently or temporarily.
It is apparent therefore that, in so far as the express terms of the contract are concerned, the defendant has the right to assign additional work to its working supervisors even though that may result in the layoff of a member of the bargaining unit. The contrary conclusion can only be sustained upon the theory that the terms of the contract by implication are effective to preclude this right. It is my conclusion that no such implication is warranted. There is no ambiguity in the language used. If there were, particularly since the parties were dealing at arm’s length, the fact that the plaintiff acquiesced in the defendant’s *311refection of the very clause which the plaintiff had proposed would afford well-nigh conclusive evidence that the contract could not be construed as open to this interpretation. Maltby, Inc. v. Associated Realty Co., 114 Conn. 283, 289, 158 A. 548.
By their agreement, the parties provided how the seniority of “employees” should affect their rights to work for the defendant as related to the rights of other of its “employees,” but in no other respect did they impose any limitation upon or prescribe the manner in which the defendant should conduct its business, even though its conduct of it might affect the amount of available work. A dispute as to the defendant’s conduct affecting the seniority provision would involve the application of the terms of the agreement and be arbitrable under it. A dispute as to defendant’s conduct of its business in other respects would not. As the plaintiff succinctly states in its brief, “the function of the court is to pass upon the terms of the agreement to arbitrate for the sole purpose of determining whether the issue in dispute is encompassed by those terms.” This the trial court did here, and in my opinion, for the reasons I have stated, correctly concluded that it is not.
It is my conclusion that there was no error.