Missoula County High School Educ. Ass'n v. Board of Trustees, Missoula County High Schools

• Decision Date: 28 July 1993
• Docket Number: No. 92-572,92-572
• Parties: , 145 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2808, 85 Ed. Law Rep. 290 MISSOULA COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. BOARD OF TRUSTEES, MISSOULA COUNTY HIGH SCHOOLS, Defendant and Respondent.
• Court: Montana Supreme Court

Page 696

857 P.2d 696

259 Mont. 438, 145 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2808,

85 Ed. Law Rep. 290

MISSOULA COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. BOARD OF TRUSTEES, MISSOULA COUNTY HIGH SCHOOLS, Defendant

and Respondent.

No. 92-572.

Supreme Court of Montana.

Submitted on Briefs March 11, 1993.

Decided July 28, 1993.

Emilie Loring, Missoula, for plaintiff and appellant.

Molly Shepherd, Worden, Thane & Haines, Missoula, for defendant and respondent.

GRAY, Justice.

The Missoula County High School Education Association appeals from an order of the Fourth Judicial District Court, Missoula County, granting summary judgment in favor of the Missoula County High School Board of Trustees. We affirm.

The sole issue on appeal is whether the District Court erred in concluding that the Missoula County High School Board of Trustees was not required to arbitrate the elimination of a lay reader program.

Prior to the 1991-92 school year, the Missoula County High School District operated a lay reader program in the Missoula County high schools. Under the program, lay readers assisted high school teachers in reading and correcting student papers. In August of 1991, the Missoula County High School Board of Trustees (the Board) informed the teachers that it was eliminating the program.

The teachers' employment was governed by the Master Agreement (the Agreement), a collective bargaining agreement entered into by the Board and the Missoula County High School Education Association (the Association), the teachers' collective bargaining representative. The Agreement sets forth a procedure for resolving grievances. Level Four of the grievance procedure allows the Association to submit a grievance to arbitration if attempts to resolve the dispute pursuant to Levels One through Three are unsuccessful.

On September 10, 1991, the Association filed a grievance with Dennis Kraft, the Missoula County High School Superintendent. The Association asserted that the Board's unilateral elimination of the lay reader program violated Article 1.1 of the Agreement. According to the Association, the elimination of the program constituted a change in working conditions requiring collective bargaining under Article 1.1. The grievance requested that the lay reader program be reinstated. Kraft determined that the elimination of the program was not grievable.

The Association then filed a grievance with the Board. After a hearing, the Board concurred with Kraft and determined that elimination of the program was not grievable under the Agreement.

The Association then notified the Board that it wished to submit the grievance to arbitration. The Board refused to arbitrate elimination of the lay reader program, reasoning that if the matter was not grievable, it could not be arbitrated under the grievance procedures of the Agreement.

On December 12, 1991, the Association filed a complaint requesting the District Court to compel the Board to arbitrate elimination of the program under §§ 27-5-113 and 27-5-115, MCA. Based on stipulated facts, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. On August 24, 1992, the District Court granted summary judgment in favor of the Board and subsequently denied the Association's application to compel arbitration. This appeal follows.

Did the District Court err in concluding that the Missoula County High School Board of Trustees was not required to arbitrate the elimination of the lay reader program?

The District Court concluded that elimination of the lay reader program did not constitute a grievance under the terms of the Agreement and, on that basis, that the Board was not required to arbitrate the matter under the Agreement's grievance procedures. Accordingly, the court granted summary judgment in favor of the Board and denied the Association's application to compel arbitration.

Summary judgment is proper when no genuine issues of material fact exist and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Rule 56(c), M.R.Civ.P. No genuine issues of material fact exist in the case before us; the District Court entered summary judgment based on stipulated facts. Therefore, we review the District Court's conclusion of law regarding arbitrability to determine whether it is correct. See Steer, Inc. v. Dep't of Revenue (1990), 245 Mont. 470, 474, 803 P.2d 601, 603.

The Association's first contention is that Title 39, Chapter 31, MCA, entitled Collective Bargaining for Public Employees, requires arbitration of the elimination of the lay reader program. The Association asserts that it entered into a collective bargaining agreement containing a grievance procedure culminating in final and binding arbitration, as allowed by § 39-31-306, MCA. The Association then contends that if the Board is not required to submit a grievance to arbitration, Montana's policy of encouraging collective bargaining to arrive at "friendly adjustment" of disputes between public employers and their employees, codified in § 39-31-101, MCA, will be negated.

The statutes governing collective bargaining for public employees do not provide a basis for requiring arbitration of the program elimination. Although the Agreement contains a grievance procedure culminating in arbitration, as allowed in § 39-31-306(2), MCA, the mere existence of this provision does not require all controversies to be arbitrated. By entering into a collective bargaining agreement that provides for arbitration, the parties to the agreement do not consent to submitting all disputes to arbitration. Indeed, § 39-31-306(3), MCA, expressly provides that a collective bargaining agreement shall be enforced "under its terms." Thus, the terms of the agreement determine the arbitrability of a dispute. See Local 1334 v. City of Great Falls (1988), 233 Mont. 432, 760 P.2d 99.

The Association also contends that the District Court was required to order arbitration under Montana's Uniform Arbitration Act, §§ 27-5-111 through 27-5-324, MCA. The Association correctly states that, pursuant to § 27-5-113, MCA, the Uniform Arbitration Act generally applies to collective bargaining agreements. Asserting that the Board has not raised any legal or equitable grounds that would preclude enforcement of a written agreement to arbitrate under § 27-5-114(2), MCA, the Association contends that § 27-5-115, MCA, requires the District Court to order arbitration upon the showing of a written agreement containing an arbitration provision.

The flaw in the Association's reliance on the Uniform Arbitration Act is underscored by the Association's reliance on the initial language of § 27-5-115(1), MCA, rather than the entirety of the subsection. Section 27-5-115(1), MCA, provides:

On the application of a party showing an agreement described in 27-5-114 and the opposing party's refusal to arbitrate, the district court shall order the parties to proceed with arbitration; but if the opposing party denies the existence of the agreement to arbitrate, the court shall proceed summarily to the determination of that issue raised and shall order arbitration if it finds for the applying party or deny the application if it finds for the opposing party.

The Association interprets this subsection to require arbitration, at a party's request, of any and all disputes arising between parties to a collective bargaining agreement containing an arbitration provision. On this basis, it contends that, as a matter of law, the District Court could not refuse to compel arbitration.

The Association's interpretation ignores the specific language contained in § 27-5-115(1), MCA, requiring the District Court to determine the arbitrability of a controversy when one party to the agreement denies that it requires arbitration. Additionally, § 27-5-115(1), MCA, requires the court to deny an application for arbitration if it determines that an agreement to arbitrate the controversy does not exist.

We conclude that the District Court properly followed the procedures set forth in § 27-5-115(1), MCA. The Association sought to compel arbitration and the Board asserted that no agreement to arbitrate elimination of the lay reader program existed. The court reviewed the Agreement, determined that it did not contain an agreement to arbitrate the dispute at issue and, as a result, denied the Association's application for arbitration.

We turn our attention, then, to the terms of the Agreement to ascertain whether the District Court erred in concluding that the Board's elimination of the program was not arbitrable. Article 4.4 of the Agreement allows the Association to submit a "grievance" to arbitration if prior levels of the grievance procedure have not resolved it. Article 1.3 defines grievance as "[a]n alleged violation or misinterpretation of a specific provision of this Agreement." Thus, because the ultimate question of arbitrability depends on whether the dispute constitutes a grievance, we focus on determining whether the Association has alleged a violation or misinterpretation of a specific provision of the Agreement.

The Association contends that the Board violated Article...