State, Dept. of Mental Health, Retardation, and Hospitals v. Rhode Island Council 94, A.F.S.C.M.E., AFL-CIO

• Decision Date: 04 April 1997
• Docket Number: AFL-CIO,No. 95-535-APPEAL,95-535-APPEAL
• Citation: 692 A.2d 318
• Parties: 155 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2071 STATE of Rhode Island, DEPARTMENT OF MENTAL HEALTH, RETARDATION, AND HOSPITALS v. RHODE ISLAND COUNCIL 94, A.F.S.C.M.E.,RHODE ISLAND COUNCIL 94, A.F.S.C.M.E.,v. STATE of Rhode Island, DEPARTMENT OF MENTAL HEALTH, RETARDATION, AND HOSPITALS.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 318

692 A.2d 318

155 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2071

STATE of Rhode Island, DEPARTMENT OF MENTAL HEALTH, RETARDATION, AND HOSPITALS v. RHODE ISLAND COUNCIL 94, A.F.S.C.M.E., AFL-CIO

RHODE ISLAND COUNCIL 94, A.F.S.C.M.E., AFL-CIO v. STATE of Rhode Island, DEPARTMENT OF MENTAL HEALTH, RETARDATION, AND HOSPITALS.

No. 95-535-APPEAL.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

April 4, 1997.

Gerard P. Cobleigh, Warwick, for Plaintiff.

John Breguet, Cranston, for Defendant.

Before LEDERBERG, BOURCIER and FLANDERS, JJ.

OPINION

FLANDERS, Justice.

Can a department of state government bargain away its statutory responsibility to provide for the health and safety of its disabled, custodial patients by agreeing to arbitrate whether certain of its health-care employees (who are paid to look after these patients) can decide for themselves how many consecutive hours they will work when the state needs overtime help? In the circumstances of these consolidated cases, we answer this question in the negative and therefore reverse a Superior Court order confirming an arbitration award striking down a sixteen-consecutive-work-hours cap established by the state for these health-care employees.

The Rhode Island Department of Mental Health, Retardation, and Hospitals (variously the state or the department), appeals from two Superior Court orders that collectively confirmed an arbitrator's award rejecting the state's attempt to limit the consecutive hours that the department's public-health-care employees may work without taking time off from their jobs when the state needs overtime help. One order denied the state's motion to vacate the award in favor of Rhode Island Council 94, A.F.S.C.M.E., AFL-CIO (the union), and the other order granted the union's motion to confirm the award. The arbitrator found that the state violated the parties' collective-bargaining agreement (CBA) when it instituted a rule limiting public-health-care employees at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) and the State's General Hospital (hospital) ¹ to working no more than two consecutive eight-hour shifts.

Because we believe that the decision striking down the department's sixteen-consecutive-work-hours cap exceeded the arbitrator's powers, we reverse the Superior Court's orders and vacate the award. We hold that the department's power to establish a maximum-consecutive-work-hours cap for those health-care employees who work with its custodial patients was not properly arbitrable because it conflicts with the nondelegable managerial duties of the department and its director to provide for the safety and the welfare of these disabled, custodial patients and for the protection of the public's health. ²

A panel of the Supreme Court heard this matter pursuant to an order directing both parties to appear and show cause why the issues raised in this appeal should not be summarily decided. After reviewing the record, considering the legal memoranda submitted by the parties, and listening to their counsel at oral argument, we determine that cause has not been shown. Accordingly, we shall proceed to decide this appeal without further briefing or argument.

Facts and Travel

The union represents state employees in two separate bargaining units at the IMH and at the hospital. All employees work under constant supervision and provide direct care to patients who are elderly and/or physically or mentally disabled. Intermittently, when it is "necessary for the efficient conduct of the business of the [s]tate," the CBA provides that "an appointing authority [of the state] * * * direct[s] or authorize[s] overtime work." ³ The state offered overtime assignments to employees on a rotational basis, but under the CBA it could only require these employees to work overtime if it could not muster sufficient volunteers. However, the CBA also provides that the department's health-care employees cannot be compelled to work more than sixteen consecutive hours, the equivalent of two consecutive shifts, except in a state emergency. Conversely, there was no express contractual limit on the number of consecutive hours for which these employees could volunteer to work when the department needed overtime help. Accordingly, on various occasions in the past, employees would volunteer to work three consecutive shifts, or twenty-four straight hours. Moreover, it was at least theoretically possible that an employee could work additional consecutive shifts.

In January 1992, concerned about the length of time its health-care employees could volunteer to work in one stretch without creating adverse health risks for the patients in its care, the department implemented a rule limiting these employees to two consecutive eight-hour shifts except in a state emergency. The union responded by filing grievances ⁴ protesting the state's new policy. These grievances were not settled, and the parties ultimately submitted the matter to arbitration. ⁵

The union claimed that the department had a long-standing practice of allowing employees to work more than two consecutive shifts on a voluntary basis and that the CBA's past-practices clause ⁶ insulated this custom from the state's attempt to bypass the collective-bargaining process and thereby unilaterally change the status quo. The state claimed that the grievances were "not arbitrable" because two prior awards involving the parties, one issued in 1979 and the other in 1991, each of which was "final and binding" upon the parties, precluded litigation of these same issues under the principles of res judicata and collateral estoppel. ⁷ According to the state, those awards allowed the department to limit the amount of overtime an employee could work. The state further argued that even if the grievances over the consecutive-work-hours cap were arbitrable, they should be denied because such a directive was a valid exercise of a contractual managerial right ⁸ and was consistent with the state's obligation under the CBA to provide and maintain safe working conditions. ⁹ As for the union's past-practice argument, the state asserted that although employees were permitted to work in excess of two consecutive shifts prior to 1992, it did not thereby forfeit its inherent managerial right to limit such overtime in the future merely by not having chosen to exercise that authority in the past.

The arbitrator distinguished the two prior awards and found that the grievances were arbitrable. On the merits the arbitrator concluded that the past practice of allowing employees to work voluntarily more than two consecutive shifts was a protected privilege and an employee benefit that limited the state's inherent managerial rights. He therefore decided that the state violated the CBA when it instituted the rule limiting the number of consecutive shifts employees could work. Consequently he ordered that "[t]he limitation * * * be removed immediately."

Each party filed motions in separate proceedings in the Superior Court: the state requested an order vacating the award, and the union requested an order confirming the award. The Superior Court, after consolidating the proceedings, found that the award was rational and that it drew its essence from the CBA; therefore, it granted the union's motion to confirm and denied the state's motion to vacate.

The state now seeks reversal of the Superior Court's confirmation of the award on several grounds. According to the state, the award resulted from the arbitrator's determination of a "nonarbitrable" issue in that it conflicts with the statutory authority of the director of the department. The state also claims that the award does not derive its essence from the CBA and contravenes public policy. Finally, the state contends that the arbitrator usurped the state's contractually protected managerial right "to set reasonable limits as to how many hours one [employee] can work." The union argues that the Superior Court's orders must be affirmed under settled Rhode Island law limiting the scope of this court's review of the Superior Court's confirmation of an arbitrator's award.

Analysis

General Laws 1956 § 28-9-13(1) provides that "[a] party who has participated in any of the proceedings before [an] arbitrator * * * may object to the confirmation of the award only on one or more of the grounds hereinafter specified." The specified ground that is applicable to this matter is provided at § 28-9-18(a)(2): a "court must make an order vacating the award * * * [w]here the arbitrator * * * exceeded [his or her] powers." See Pawtucket School Committee v. Pawtucket Teachers' Alliance, Local No. 930, American Federation of Teachers, 652 A.2d 970, 972 (R.I.1995) (affirming Superior Court's enjoining of arbitration award because "requirements of state law * * * cannot be submitted to arbitration"); Rhode Island Laborers' District Council v. State, 592 A.2d 144, 146 (R.I.1991) (in affirming Superior Court's vacating of arbitrator's award, court noted that an "arbitrator may not substitute his or her judgment for that of appointing authority" who had been statutorily given power and duty to supervise operations of District Court); see also Jacinto v. Egan, 120 R.I. 907, 923, 391 A.2d 1173, 1181 (1978) (Weisberger, J., dissenting) ("the appropriate rule to follow in respect to enforcement or review of an arbitrator's decision might be derived from a literal reading" of the " 'exceeded their powers' " language of what is now § 28-9-18(a)(2)).

We are of the opinion not only that the arbitrator exceeded his powers in this case because the dispute at issue was nonarbitrable but also that the submission of such a dispute to arbitration constituted a usurpation of the exclusive statutory authority of the department and its director "to insure the comfort and promote the welfare of the patients." Section 40.1-5-3(7). ¹⁰ Cf. Pawtucket School Committee, 652 A.2d at 972 ("[w]e have stated clearly that while the school committee can negotiate many items with the...