City of Waterbury v. Waterbury Police Union, Local 1237

• Citation: 407 A.2d 1013,176 Conn. 401
• Court: Supreme Court of Connecticut
• Decision Date: 02 January 1979
• Parties: , 103 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3079 The CITY OF WATERBURY v. WATERBURY POLICE UNION, LOCAL 1237, et al.

Page 1013

407 A.2d 1013

176 Conn. 401, 103 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3079

The CITY OF WATERBURY v. WATERBURY POLICE UNION, LOCAL 1237, et al.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Nov. 13, 1978.

Decided Jan. 2, 1979.

John F. Phelan, Waterbury, for appellant (plaintiff).

W. Paul Flynn, New Haven, with whom, on the brief, was Frank J. Raccio, New Haven, for appellees (defendants).

Before COTTER, C. J., and LOISELLE, BOGDANSKI, LONGO and PETERS, JJ.

BOGDANSKI, Associate Justice.

In September of 1976, the city of Waterbury and the Waterbury police union submitted to arbitration a dispute which had arisen as a result of the transfer of two employees from the detective division to the patrol division. The decision and award of the arbitration panel was released in October. The city then brought an application in Superior Court to vacate the award on the ground that the arbitrators had exceeded their powers. The defendants, in turn, moved to confirm the award and also requested an award of reasonable attorney's fees plus costs, pursuant to § 31-72 of the General Statutes. After a hearing, the court denied the motion to vacate and granted the motion to confirm. In addition, the court granted attorney's fees and costs to the defendants, citing as authority § 31-72 of the General Statutes. ¹

From that judgment the plaintiff has appealed, alleging that the arbitrators improperly interpreted the provisions of the collective bargaining agreement and that the court erred in granting attorney's fees.

Arbitration is a creature of contract and the parties themselves, by the terms of their submission, define the powers of the arbitrators. Moreover, it is well settled that courts should view with suspicion any attempt to persuade them to entangle themselves in the construction and interpretation of the substantive provisions of collective bargaining agreements. United Steelworkers of America v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U.S. 574, 585, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409. Therefore, in deciding whether arbitrators have "exceeded their powers," as that phrase is used in § 52-418(d), a court need only examine the submission and the award and determine whether the award conforms to the submission. Board of Education v. Bridgeport Education Assn., 173 Conn. 287, 291, 377 A.2d 323; Norwich Roman Catholic Diocesan Corporation v. Southern New England Contracting Co., 164 Conn. 472, 477, 325 A.2d 274.

Where the submission does not otherwise state, the arbitrators are empowered to decide factual and legal questions and an award cannot be vacated on the grounds that the construction placed upon the facts or the interpretation of the agreement by the arbitrators was erroneous. Courts will not review the evidence nor, where the submission is unrestricted, will they review the arbitrators' decision of the legal questions involved. Meyers v. Lakeridge Development Co., 173 Conn. 133, 135, 376 A.2d 1105.

The parties in this case agreed upon the following submission: "Whether the City's transfer of grievants from the Detective Division to the Patrol Division of the Waterbury Police Department was valid under the Collective Bargaining Agreement. If not, what should the remedy be?"

The decision and award of the arbitrators was as follows: "It is the decision of the arbitrators that grievant DeMaria be returned to the Detective Division effective June 20, 1975, and that he receive the difference between patrolman's pay and detective's pay, retroactive to that date, together with any clothing allowance payments that he would have received as a detective. It is the further decision of the arbitrators that the grievance of James Deeley be denied."

The trial court found, and we agree, that the submission in this case was unrestricted. The trial court therefore properly limited its inquiry to the question of whether the award conformed to the submission and found that it did. Having examined the record before us, we conclude that the trial court did not err in confirming the arbitration award.

As previously noted, the trial court, in addition to confirming the award, also ordered that the defendants recover attorney's fees in the amount of $1000, pursuant to the provisions of § 31-72 of the General Statutes. In its assignment of errors, the plaintiff claims that § 31-72 has no application to statutory proceedings having to do with the confirmation of arbitration awards and that the court erred in awarding attorney's fees.

The defendants, in turn, argue that § 31-72 is applicable to such proceedings in view of § 52-421, ² which provides that a judgment of a court confirming, modifying or correcting an award "shall have the same force and effect in all respects as, and be subject to all the provisions of law relating to, a judgment or decree in a civil action . . . in the court in which it is entered."

Section 52-421 provides that the "judgment or decree (upon an application for an order confirming, modifying or correcting an award) shall be docketed as if it were rendered in a civil action." This section then provides that the "judgment or decree so entered shall have the same force and effect . . . as . . . a judgment or decree in a civil action; and (that) it may be enforced as if it had been rendered in a civil action.

Section 31-72 provides that where an employee or a labor organization institutes an action To enforce an arbitration award, such employee or labor organization may recover, In a civil action, the full amount due, with costs and reasonable attorney's fees as may be allowed by the court.

The question is thus whether a proceeding to confirm, modify or vacate an arbitration award, brought pursuant to §§ 52-417, 52-418 or 52-419, is a Civil action such that § 31.72 will be applicable. We note first that applications brought to confirm, modify or vacate arbitration awards are special statutory proceedings. Boltuch v. Rainaud, 137 Conn. 298, 301, 77 A.2d 94. It has long been established by the courts of this state that certain statutory proceedings are not "civil actions" within the meaning of title 52 of the General Statutes. In Slattery v. Woodin, 90 Conn. 48, 50, 96 A. 178, for example, this court held that controversies in the Probate Court were not civil actions because these controversies did not fit within the definition of civil action as that term has traditionally been defined. In Slattery, the court observed (p. 50, 96 A. p. 179): "The accepted meaning of the term 'civil action' in this State is very well illustrated by the provision of our Practice Act (General Statutes, § 607) (now § 52-91) that 'there shall be but one form of civil action, and the pleadings therein shall be as follows: The first pleading on the part of the plaintiff shall be (known as the) complaint.' " In view of the above, it is significant that proceedings to confirm, modify or vacate arbitration awards are initiated, not by the filing of a complaint, but by the filing of an application or of a rule to show cause. General Statutes §§ 52-417, 52-418 and 52-419.

In Chieppo v. Robert E. McMichael, Inc., 169 Conn. 646, 363 A.2d 1085, this court rejected a claim that an appeal from an award by a compensation commissioner was a "civil action." In that case the court examined the language of the Workmen's Compensation Act and concluded (p. 653, 363 A.2d p. 1089) that the legislature had intended to establish "a speedy, effective and inexpensive method for determining claims" and that this objective would be frustrated by applying to such cases the procedural requirements and delays attendant upon an ordinary civil action. The court in Chieppo held that appeals in workmen's compensation cases were not ordinary civil actions and therefore that the provisions of § 52-32 governing the transfer of civil actions were not...