State Bd. of Labor Relations v. Freedom of Information Com'n

• Decision Date: 07 November 1996
• Docket Number: Nos. 14410,14411,s. 14410
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals
• Parties: , 153 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3020 STATE BOARD OF LABOR RELATIONS v. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION COMMISSION et al. STATE BOARD OF MEDIATION AND ARBITRATION v. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION COMMISSION et al.

Page 1068

682 A.2d 1068

43 Conn.App. 133, 153 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3020

STATE BOARD OF LABOR RELATIONS v. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION COMMISSION et al.

STATE BOARD OF MEDIATION AND ARBITRATION v. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION COMMISSION et al.

Nos. 14410, 14411.

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued April 1, 1996.

Decided Sept. 17, 1996.

Certification Granted Limited to the

Following Issue Nov. 7, 1996.

Mitchell W. Pearlman, General Counsel, with whom, on the brief, was Cynthia A. Christ, law student intern, for appellant (named defendant in each case).

Joseph M. Celentano, General Counsel, for appellee (named plaintiff in the first case).

Laurie Adler, Assistant Attorney General, with whom, on the brief, were Richard Blumenthal, Attorney General, and Charles A. Overend, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee (named plaintiff in the second case).

Jason W. Cohen, with whom, on the brief, was J. William Gagne, Jr., Wethersfield, for appellee (Council 4, AFSCME, AFL-CIO, defendant in the second case).

M. Jeffry Spahr, Norwalk Deputy Corporation Counsel, pro se, appellee (defendant in the first case).

Before FOTI, LANDAU and SCHALLER, JJ.

LANDAU, Judge.

The defendant freedom of information commission (FOIC) ¹ appeals from the judgments ² of the trial court sustaining the administrative appeals of the plaintiffs from a decision by the FOIC. On appeal, ³ the FOIC claims that the trial court improperly found that (1) grievance arbitration hearings before the board of mediation and arbitration are not meetings within the meaning of GENERAL STATUTES § 1-18A(B) AND (2)⁴ parties to a grievance arbitration hearing do not have the right, pursuant to General Statutes § 1-21a(a), ⁵ to tape-record the proceedings. The FOIC also claims that, in so finding, the trial court based its conclusion on facts not contained in the record and substituted its judgment for that of the FOIC. We disagree and affirm the judgments of the trial court.

The record discloses the following factual and procedural history. On January 28, 1991, M. Jeffrey Spahr, deputy corporation counsel for the city of Norwalk (city), requested an advisory opinion, pursuant to General Statutes § 4-176(a), ⁶ from the FOIC regarding the propriety of the mediation board's policy of refusing to permit the parties to an arbitration proceeding to tape-record such proceedings. Spahr's request was precipitated by the ruling of an arbitrator who presided over a grievance arbitration proceeding between the city and the police union, and would not permit Spahr to tape-record the proceedings.

In his letter to the FOIC, Spahr contended that, because the board of mediation and arbitration was a public agency within the meaning of § 1-18a(a), ⁷ and because arbitration hearings are public meetings within the meaning of General Statutes § 1-21(a), ⁸ the "clear and unambiguous provisions" of § 1-21a(a) apply to grievance arbitration hearings and thereby renders illegal the board's policy of refusing to permit the parties to a mediation board hearing to tape-record the proceedings. The FOIC granted Spahr's request and conducted a hearing on July 30, 1991. At the hearing, the state board of labor relations appeared and was granted permission by the FOIC to intervene as an interested party. Both boards contended that grievance arbitration proceedings are not subject to the recording provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (act), General Statutes § 1-15 et seq.

Subsequently, on February 19, 1992, the FOIC issued a ruling in which it concluded that "arbitration hearings are neither strategy nor negotiation sessions" with respect to collective bargaining and that "the Board's policies prohibiting the tape recording of its arbitration hearings violate, and are superseded by, the provisions of the [act]." The FOIC also concluded that, although arbitration hearings are public meetings within the meaning of the act, the board "may certainly convene in executive session in those instances permitted under [the act]." The FOIC decided that the request for an advisory opinion did not necessitate a finding as to "whether a tape recording of an arbitration hearing, kept by the Board, is subject to public disclosure under [the act]."

Although the board of mediation and arbitration and the board of labor relations appealed separately to the Superior Court, the trial court consolidated the appeals because they involved the same administrative proceeding. On January 6, 1995, the court issued separate memoranda of decision sustaining the boards' appeals. In the mediation board's appeal, the court concluded, inter alia, that "arbitration hearings are not meetings within the purview of § 1-18a(b)" and ordered the defendant's advisory opinion "set aside, vacated and rescinded." The trial court sustained the appeal of the board of labor relations "for the reasons recited" in the related appeal.

I

The FOIC first claims that the trial court improperly determined that grievance arbitration proceedings conducted by the board of mediation and arbitration, pursuant to General Statutes § 31-91 et seq., are not public meetings within the meaning of the act and are, therefore, not governed by the act. The FOIC argues that grievance arbitration proceedings fall within the definition of a public meeting pursuant to § 1-18a(b) because they are not "strategy or negotiations with respect to collective bargaining." ⁹ In contrast, the boards contend that grievance arbitration proceedings are labor disputes that necessarily involve negotiations and strategy discussions related to the collective bargaining process and, as such, do not constitute public meetings. They argue, therefore, that grievance arbitration proceedings are not subject to the recording provisions of the act.

We begin by setting forth our standard of review. "Judicial review of [an administrative agency's] action is governed by the Uniform Administrative Procedure Act (General Statutes, c. 54, §§ 4-166 through 4-189), and the scope of that review is very restricted.... Neither this court nor the trial court may retry the case or substitute its own judgment for that of the defendant." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) New Haven v. Freedom of Information Commission, 205 Conn. 767, 773, 535 A.2d 1297 (1988). "Even as to questions of law, [t]he court's ultimate duty is only to decide whether, in light of the evidence, the [agency] has acted unreasonably, arbitrarily, illegally, or in abuse of its discretion.... Conclusions of law reached by the administrative agency must stand if the court determines that they resulted from a correct application of the law to the facts found and could reasonably and logically follow from such facts.... [Id., at 774, 535 A.2d 1297.] Although the interpretation of statutes is ultimately a question of law ... it is the well established practice of this court to accord great deference to the construction given [a] statute by the agency charged with its enforcement.... Griffin Hospital v. Commission on Hospitals & Health Care, 200 Conn. 489, 496, 512 A.2d 199, appeal dismissed, 479 U.S. 1023, 107 S.Ct. 781, 93 L.Ed.2d 819 (1986); see also New Haven v. Freedom of Information Commission, supra, at 773-74 ; Wilson v. Freedom of Information Commission, 181 Conn. 324, 342-43, 435 A.2d 353 (1980).... Perkins v. Freedom of Information Commission, [228 Conn. 158, 164-65, 635 A.2d 783 (1993) ].... Connecticut Alcohol & Drug Abuse Commission v. Freedom of Information Commission, 233 Conn. 28, 39, 657 A.2d 630 (1995)." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) City of Hartford v. Freedom of Information Commission, 41 Conn.App. 67, 72-73, 674 A.2d 462 (1996).

With these principles in mind, we now consider whether the trial court properly vacated the FOIC's ruling. The trial court relied on this court's holding in Glastonbury Education Assn. v. Freedom of Information Commission, 35 Conn.App. 111, 118-19, 643 A.2d 1320 (1994), aff'd, 234 Conn. 704, 663 A.2d 349 (1995), to support its finding that "the current appellate law is that arbitration hearings are not meetings within the meaning of § 1-18a(b) ... that arbitration hearings are 'continued negotiations' and therefore not subject to the [act]." In Glastonbury, we were called on to determine whether binding arbitration proceedings, conducted pursuant to General Statutes § 10-153a et seq., are subject to the open meeting provisions of the act. Id. In doing so, we interpreted the language of § 1-18a(b) and held that, given the legislative history of the act, "the legislature intended the term meeting [as found in § 1-18a(b) ] not to apply to any part of the collective bargaining process." Id., at 118, 643 A.2d 1320.

Nevertheless, the FOIC argues that Glastonbury does not control here. Rather, the FOIC contends that Glastonbury is a narrow holding, limited to its facts, because there is a distinction between binding arbitration proceedings, which involve the negotiation process aimed at the settlement of labor contracts, and the grievance arbitration proceedings at issue here, which involve disciplinary actions with "hearings for the formal presentation of evidence and argument before an empowered decision maker." The FOIC concedes that while, in the former instance binding arbitration proceedings are strategy or negotiation sessions that are properly part of collective bargaining and are, thus, exempt under § 1-18a(b), in the latter instance, grievance arbitration proceedings are "quasi-judicial" in nature and, although part of the collective bargaining process, do not involve strategy or negotiations and should, therefore, be open to the public. The FOIC relies on Bloomfield Education Assn. v. Frahm, 35 Conn.App. 384, 391, 646 A.2d 247, cert. denied, 231 Conn. 926, 648 A.2d 161 (1994), for the proposition that § 1-18a(b) does not exclude collective bargaining in general from the definition of meeting, but rather only those sessions that exclusively...