North Syracuse Cent. School Dist. v. North Syracuse Ed. Ass'n
| Decision Date | 13 July 1978 |
| Parties | , 379 N.E.2d 1193, 99 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2873 NORTH SYRACUSE CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT, Respondent, v. NORTH SYRACUSE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, Appellant. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
The petitioner in this proceeding, brought pursuant to CPLR 7511, seeks vacatur of an arbitration award which, as part of the relief it grants, directs the reinstatement of certain teaching employees found to have been discharged in violation of a job security clause contained in a public sector collective bargaining agreement. The main issue on the present appeal is whether the arbitrator, in the absence of any express limitation on his powers, lacked authority to order the employees restored to their former positions at a time subsequent to the expiration date of the contract under which the dispute arose.
It was on September 9, 1974 that the petitioner, North Syracuse Central School District, and the respondent, North Syracuse Education Association, the duly recognized bargaining agent for the teachers, entered into the agreement. The period it covered was from July 1, 1974 to June 30, 1976. The asserted security clause, numbered section 75 and entitled "Adequate Number of Specialists", reads: .
In March, 1975, when the agreement still had more than a year to run, the district's superintendent, apparently fearing rejection of its projected budget upon presentation to the district's voters, recommended to the board of education that certain cost-cutting measures be instituted during the ensuing school year, i. e., the second year of this contract. Among the cuts he proposed was the elimination of the positions of 20 employees who fit the contract definition of "specialists" (four driver education teachers, 13 school nurse-teachers, two guidance counselors, and a part-time reading teacher). In due course, his recommendations were adopted and the employment of the 20 teachers was terminated.
Not unexpectedly, respondent's opposition to the abolition was strenuous. It took two paths. One was the contract's grievance machinery, the final stage of which was to be final and binding arbitration. The other might be termed political. Pursuing procedures under article 41 of the Education Law, it attempted to persuade the district's electors to exercise their franchise by voting for ballot propositions whose adoption would have restored the appropriation to cover the specialist teachers' continued employment; this effort met defeat at the polls in June, 1975.
The arbitration route was to prove more fruitful. However, it did not get under way until after November 5, 1975, when the Supreme Court in Onondaga County denied a motion the district made for a stay of arbitration under CPLR 7503; in doing so, the court found that the asserted grievance was within the scope of the contract's arbitration clause and that there was no merit to the district's insistence that the security clause on which the teachers relied so impermissibly trespassed on the board's managerial powers that its commitment to an arbitrator offended public policy. * In the ensuing arbitration, the hearings began on February 5, 1976, the arbitrator's partial decisions (on all but the remedy, on which a separate hearing was ordered to take place within 30 days) was handed down on April 26, 1976, hearings as to remedy were held on May 21 and 27, 1976, briefs and statements were submitted on June 17, 1976 and the final award was handed down on July 13, 1976.
Pertinently, the arbitrator held that section 75 constituted a "job security" clause and that it had been breached by the discharge of all but the part-time reading teacher. Remedially, he ordered that these employees be reimbursed for their lost wages for the 1975-1976 school year (less other earnings and unemployment compensation) and that those of the specialists who had not retired in the interim be restored to their positions "effective at the opening of the 1976-1977 school year".
The district then commenced the present proceeding in which Special Term was of the opinion that the arbitrator had gone beyond the scope of his powers in requiring the grievants' return to their former positions as of a time subsequent to the expiration of the agreement. It ordered modification of the award to the extent of deleting the direction for reinstatement for the 1976-1977 school year. On cross appeals by both parties, the Appellate Division unanimously affirmed (57 A.D.2d 1056, 395 N.Y.S.2d 844). Leave to appeal having been granted by this court only to the teachers' association (43 N.Y.2d 642; 42 N.Y.2d 811), this is the only aspect of the arbitrator's decision before us. For reasons which follow, we believe the award should have been confirmed in its entirety.
It is well settled that, when a dispute has moved to arbitration, a party seeking to vacate the ultimate award must meet a heavy burden, "for once the issue is properly before the arbitrator, questions of law and fact are merged in the award and are not within the power of the judiciary to resolve" (Matter of Binghamton Civ. Serv Forum v. City of Binghamton, 44 N.Y.2d 23, 28, 403 N.Y.S.2d 482, 484, 374 N.E.2d 380, 382). Needless to say, the same thing holds true when an arbitrator elects to disregard technicalities to achieve a just result (Rochester City School Dist. v. Rochester Teachers Ass'n, 41 N.Y.2d 578, 394 N.Y.S.2d 179, 362 N.E.2d 977; Lentine v. Fundaro, 29 N.Y.2d 382, 328 N.Y.S.2d 418, 278 N.E.2d 633). However, in the present case when the courts below concluded that the arbitrator had "exceeded his power" by ordering reinstatements to begin at a time when the termination date of the labor contract to which he owed his commission had passed, they posited their decision on a ground expressly sanctioned by CPLR 7511 (subd. (b), par. (1), cl. (iii)).
Directly confronting that issue, we observe that it has long been recognized that, though an arbitrator's authority stems from the contract in force at the time the grievance arose, the range of the exercise of that authority is not so limited. Thus, "(t)he mere circumstances * * * that a contract has been terminated does not foreclose the arbitration of issues which arise out of and relate to it" ...
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