Barnesville Exempted Village School Dist. Bd. of Edn. v. Barnesville Assn. of Classified Employees

• Decision Date: 15 October 1997
• Docket Number: No. 96,96
• Citation: 123 Ohio App.3d 272,704 N.E.2d 36
• Parties: , 158 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2382, 131 Ed. Law Rep. 500 BARNESVILLE EXEMPTED VILLAGE SCHOOL DISTRICT BOARD OF EDUCATION, Appellee, v. BARNESVILLE ASSOCIATION OF CLASSIFIED EMPLOYEES et al., Appellants. * BA 38.
• Court: Ohio Court of Appeals

Page 272

123 Ohio App.3d 272

704 N.E.2d 36, 158 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2382, 131 Ed. Law Rep. 500

BARNESVILLE EXEMPTED VILLAGE SCHOOL DISTRICT BOARD OF EDUCATION, Appellee, v. BARNESVILLE ASSOCIATION OF CLASSIFIED EMPLOYEES et al., Appellants. ^*

No. 96 BA 38.

Court of Appeals of Ohio,

Seventh District, Belmont County.

Decided Oct. 15, 1997.

Robert W. Sauter and Brenda J. Redmond, Columbus, for appellant.

Frank A. Fregiato, Bridgeport, for appellees.

WAITE, Judge.

This matter comes on appeal from the Belmont County Common Pleas Court, which reversed and vacated a labor arbitration award. For the following reasons, we must reverse the lower court and reinstate the arbitrator's award in this matter.

Appellant Dennis Martin is a member of the appellant Barnesville Association of Classified Employees, OEA/NEA (hereinafter "Union"). As such, he is employed by the appellee, Barnesville Exempted Village School District Board of Education (hereinafter "Board"). At the time the dispute arose, Martin was classified as a custodian but had been performing the duties of a "Substitute Maintenance Assistant." As an "SMA," Martin was inspecting and maintaining a school building's boilers and its wiring.

The Union and the Board had in existence a collective bargaining agreement which provided at Paragraph C, Section 4, Article 20, for final and binding arbitration of grievances.

Article 32.5 of the agreement also provided a job-bidding scheme. Martin applied for two part-time positions posted for bid by the Board. One position was bus garage worker; one was bus driver. Without completely restating the bid section, it is sufficient to note that all parties agreed that based on Article 32.5 alone, Martin was entitled to the positions.

The Board gave the positions to other people, basing its decision to pass up Martin on Article 18 of the agreement, which contains a safety provision. This section requires the Board to maintain for the Union a safe workplace and allows Union employees the right to refuse to work under conditions which that employee "reasonably believes present an imminent danger of death or serious physical harm to the employee." The Board argued that Martin had once confessed to having "a drinking problem" and in settlement of a disciplinary action agreed to enroll in a twenty-eight-day rehabilitation program and to submit to a period of drug and alcohol testing upon reasonable suspicion of use. Around the time of the job posting, all parties agreed that Martin had admitted to the Board's superintendent that he continued to drink an occasional beer in his home. Thus, the Board considered Martin unfit to perform the safety-sensitive positions of bus driver and bus garage worker.

The Union filed a grievance over the issue and eventually took the matter on Martin's behalf to arbitration. In a twenty-page arbitration award, in which the arguments of both the Union and Board were thoroughly discussed, the arbitrator ruled that Martin was entitled to the posted positions.

The Board filed for review by the Common Pleas Court under R.C. 2711.10. The lower court found that the award had no rational relationship to the contract and that it was irrational and arbitrary, and held that the award should be vacated.

On appeal, it appears that this court undertakes the same review as the common pleas court. Lynch v. Halcomb (1984), 16 Ohio App.3d 223, 16 OBR 238, 475 N.E.2d 181. The lower court is governed by R.C. 2711.10. This section states that a court may vacate an arbitration award for one of only four reasons. The first three statutory subsections deal essentially with wrongdoing on the part of the arbitrator. The last, R.C. 2711.10(D), states that the award will be vacated if "[t]he arbitrators exceeded their powers or, so imperfectly executed them that a mutual, final, and definite award upon the subject matter submitted was not made." R.C. 2711.15 allows a further appeal from an order vacating an arbitration award, but this further review is based on the standard set in R.C. 2711.10. Findlay City School Dist. Bd. of Edn. v. Findlay Edn. Assn. (1990), 49 Ohio St.3d 129, 551 N.E.2d 186.

As the lower court noted, this standard is extremely high, and we are limited in scope upon review of such an award. The arbitrator's award must be presumed valid. Findlay City School Dist. Bd. of Edn., supra, at 132, 551 N.E.2d at 189-190. Even when an arbitrator's opinion contains an ambiguity which might raise an inference that the arbitrator exceeded his powers, so long as the award "draws its essence" from the labor contract it must be upheld. Goodyear v. Local Union No. 200 (1975), 42 Ohio St.2d 516, 71 O.O.2d 509, 330 N.E.2d 703. In Hillsboro v. Fraternal Order of Police, Ohio Labor Council, Inc. (1990), 52 Ohio St.3d 174, 556 N.E.2d 1186, the court revisited its holding in Findlay, expressly discussing, upholding and relying on Findlay's imposition of "judicial restraint" in the review of an arbitration award. The court explained:

"Our holding in Findlay was meant to foster the arbitration system of dispute resolution which ' " * * * provides the parties with a relatively speedy and inexpensive method of conflict resolution and has the additional advantage of unburdening crowded court dockets." ' Id. at 131, 551 N.E.2d at 189. The only way to give effect to the purposes of the arbitration system of conflict resolution is to give lasting effect to the decisions rendered by an arbitrator whenever that is possible. If a motion to vacate an arbitrator's award is granted, the arbitration method of conflict resolution becomes less speedy and more expensive and the advantage of unburdening crowded court dockets becomes less of an advantage (or no advantage at all). Hence, judicial inquiry for purposes of vacating an arbitrator's award is limited by Findlay and where...