School Committee v. Crouch

• Decision Date: 08 November 2002
• Docket Number: No. 2001-213-A.,2001-213-A.
• Citation: 808 A.2d 1074
• Parties: School Committee of the Town of North Kingstown v. John Crouch et al.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

808 A.2d 1074

School Committee of the Town of North Kingstown v. John Crouch et al.

No. 2001-213-A.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

November 8, 2002.

Present: WILLIAMS, C.J., LEDERBERG, FLANDERS, and GOLDBERG, JJ.

Peter Olsen, Wickford, for plaintiff.

Stephen Robinson, Providence, for defendant.

OPINION

PER CURIAM.

This case considers whether various arbitration and grievance provisions in a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) apply to a school committee's dismissal for cause of a tenured teacher. It also addresses the election-of-remedies doctrine. The defendants, John Crouch (Crouch), a former public school principal and tenured teacher, and his union, National Education Association of Rhode Island (union), appeal from a preliminary injunction¹ that barred them from arbitrating Crouch's termination from employment as a tenured teacher in the Town of North Kingstown (town). They contend that a Superior Court hearing justice erred in finding that the arbitration provisions in a CBA between the town and the union did not cover grievances arising out of for-cause dismissals of tenured teachers, such as Crouch. Because the CBA did not clearly provide for the arbitration of for-cause terminations involving tenured teachers and because Crouch elected to pursue his statutory remedy, we conclude that the hearing justice did not abuse his discretion when he preliminarily enjoined Crouch and his union from pursuing arbitration.

Facts and Travel

Before losing his job, Crouch served as a tenured teacher and then, most recently, as a school principal in the town. But in 2000 he confessed to stealing the prescription drug Ritalin from students at the school where he worked. After the state initiated criminal proceedings against him, Crouch entered a plea of nolo contendere on June 15, 2000, to one charge of Ritalin possession and one misdemeanor charge of property embezzlement. He received a deferred sentence on one count and the court filed the other charge. In addition, the court ordered him to do community service and to receive counseling.

After Crouch's dismissal as a school principal, the town superintendent of schools recommended that plaintiff, School Committee of the Town of North Kingstown (school committee) also terminate him from his position as a tenured teacher.² Pursuant to G.L.1956 § 16-13-4(a), Crouch requested a hearing on this recommendation. In response, the school committee held a series of hearings from June through October 2000 to consider whether Crouch should be dismissed from his position as a tenured teacher. On October 25, 2000, the committee voted to dismiss Crouch as a teacher on the basis of his admitted theft of Ritalin from the students in his charge. Thereafter, on November 2, 2000, the union filed a grievance on Crouch's behalf. The grievance letter stated that "this action violates specifically, but not exclusively, Article XXIV of the [CBA]" (governing terminations "for other than job related performance"). On November 6, 2000, Crouch appealed the decision of the school committee to the commissioner of education pursuant to § 16-13-4(a).³ In a cover letter, Crouch's attorney said that Crouch had filed a grievance under the CBA, and he asked the commissioner to hold the appeal in abeyance pending resolution of that grievance.

On January 29, 2001, the school committee filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief in Superior Court. In count 1, it asserted that the CBA did not provide for arbitration of disputes arising from the non-renewal, dismissal, or suspension of tenured teachers for cause, and therefore, it urged, Crouch's termination was not arbitrable. The school committee requested an injunction barring the union and Crouch from proceeding to arbitrate his dismissal. In count 2, the committee also averred that the election-of-remedies doctrine barred Crouch from seeking both arbitration of a grievance under the CBA and a statutory appeal pursuant to § 16-13-4(a). It asked the Superior Court to declare that he could not pursue both remedies, and to issue an injunction against his attempt to arbitrate his dismissal. "[F]inding nothing in the CBA which clearly indicates that arbitration in this matter is agreed to by the parties," the hearing justice preliminarily enjoined Crouch and the union from pursuing arbitration.

Standard of Review

On appeal, we limit our review of a preliminary injunction to whether the hearing justice abused his or her discretion in granting such relief. Iggys's Doughboys, Inc. v. Giroux, 729 A.2d 701, 705 (R.I.1999) (per curiam). To do so, we consider (1) whether the moving party established a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits; (2) whether the moving party will suffer irreparable harm without the requested injunctive relief; (3) whether the balance of the equities, including the public interest, weighed in favor of the moving party; and (4) whether the issuance of a preliminary injunction served to preserve the status quo ante. Id. (citing The Fund For Community Progress v. United Way of Southeastern New England, 695 A.2d 517, 521 (R.I. 1997)). See also Higham v. Affleck, 504 A.2d 1013, 1015 (R.I.1986) (review limited to whether trial justice granted appropriate temporary relief after applying correct legal standards).

Analysis

The hearing justice in this case did not make extensive findings; nor did he elaborate on the factors he considered in granting a preliminary injunction. Nevertheless, in light of his conclusion that the CBA did not clearly provide for arbitration of a tenured teacher's dismissal for cause, he evidently focused on the school committee's likelihood of success on the merits of its claims as the lynchpin for granting a preliminary injunction. Given the centrality of that issue to this case, we conclude he did not err in doing so.

Tenured teachers such as Crouch enjoy statutory procedural protections related to their employment. Thus, "[n]o tenured teacher * * * shall be dismissed except for good and just cause." Section 16-13-3(a). This same section requires that when an employer proposes to dismiss a tenured teacher, he or she shall be furnished with a complete statement of the cause for dismissal, and shall be entitled to a hearing and an appeal pursuant to § 16-13-4. Section 16-13-4(a) provides that a teacher dismissed for cause may request a hearing before the school board, and that "[a]ny teacher aggrieved by the decision of the school board shall have [a] right ofappeal to the department of elementary and secondary education and shall have the right of further appeal to the superior court."

But these statutes also indicate that a tenured teacher's statutory remedy is not necessarily exclusive. Section 16-13-4(b) states that:

"Nothing contained in this section shall be construed to prohibit or at any time to have prohibited a school committee from agreeing, in a collective bargaining agreement, to the arbitration of disputes arising out of the nonrenewal, dismissal, and/or suspension of a teacher pursuant to §§ 16-13-2, 16-13-3, and/or 16-13-5."

Section 16-13-3(b) has a similar, although slightly narrower, provision, indicating that school committees may contractually agree to the arbitration of disputes "arising out of the dismissal of a tenured teacher." The critical questions in this case are whether the school committee entered into such an agreement, and whether, in any event, Crouch elected to pursue his statutory remedy when he asked the school committee and then the department of education to hear and determine his recommended dismissal.

We begin our analysis by revisiting some basic principles. "[A]rbitration is a matter of contract and a party cannot be required to submit to arbitration any dispute which he has not agreed so to submit." AT & T Technologies, Inc. v. Communications Workers of America, 475 U.S. 643, 648, 106 S.Ct. 1415, 1418, 89 L.Ed.2d 648, 655 (1986) (quoting United Steelworkers of America v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U.S. 574, 582, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 1353, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409, 1417 (1960)). When uncertainty exists about whether a dispute is arbitrable, this Court, like the United States Supreme Court, "has enunciated a policy in favor of resolving any doubt in favor of arbitration." Brown v. Amaral, 460 A.2d 7, 10 (R.I.1983) (citing School Committee of Pawtucket v. Pawtucket Teachers Alliance, 120 R.I. 810, 815, 390 A.2d 386, 389 (1978)). Nevertheless, "[n]o one is under a duty to arbitrate unless with clear language he [orshe] has agreed to do so." Stanley-Bostitch, Inc. v. Regenerative Environmental Equipment Co., 697 A.2d 323, 326 (R.I.1997) (quoting Bush v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., 448 A.2d 782, 784 (R.I.1982)). Thus, "an arbitrator is `powerless to arbitrate that which is not arbitrable in the first place.'" State Department of Children, Youth and Families v. Rhode Island Council 94, AFSCME, AFL-CIO, 713 A.2d 1250, 1253-54 (R.I.1998) (quoting Rhode Island Brotherhood of Correctional Officers v. State Department of Corrections, 707 A.2d 1229, 1234 (R.I.1998)).

Whether a particular collective bargaining agreement contains clear language creating a duty to arbitrate a particular dispute is a matter for judicial determination. Local Union 1393 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO v. Utilities District of Western Indiana Rural Electric Membership Cooperative, 167 F.3d 1181, 1183 (7th Cir.1999) (citing AT & T Technologies, Inc., 475 U.S. at 649, 106 S.Ct. at 1418, 89 L.Ed.2d at 656). Because arbitrability is a question of law, we review such determinations de novo. See State v. Rhode Island Alliance of Social Services Employees, Local 580 SEIU, 747 A.2d 465, 468 (R.I.2000) (citing Rhode Island Council 94, AFSCME, AFL-CIO v. State, 714 A.2d 584, 588 n. 2 (R.I. 1998)).

In contrast to the statutory remedy for a tenured teacher's dismissal for cause, which "is as much a part of the contract as if the statute had been actually...