Town of Bloomfield v. United Elec.

• Decision Date: 29 January 2008
• Docket Number: No. 17862.,17862.
• Citation: 285 Conn. 278,939 A.2d 561
• Parties: TOWN OF BLOOMFIELD v. UNITED ELECTRICAL, Radio and Machine Workers of America, Connecticut Independent Police Union, Local 14.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

939 A.2d 561

285 Conn. 278

TOWN OF BLOOMFIELD v. UNITED ELECTRICAL, Radio and Machine Workers of America, Connecticut Independent Police Union, Local 14.

No. 17862.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued October 24, 2007.

Decided January 29, 2008.

Stephen F. McEleney, Hartford, for the appellant (defendant).

Elliot B. Spector, for the appellee (plaintiff).

ROGERS, C.J., and NORCOTT, VERTEFEUILLE, ZARELLA and SCHALLER, Js.

NORCOTT, J.

The dispositive issue in this appeal is whether the thirty day limitations period of General Statutes § 52-420(b)¹ applies to an application to vacate an arbitration award based solely on the common-law ground that the award violates public policy. The defendant, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, Connecticut Independent Police Union, Local 14, appeals² from the judgment of the trial court granting the application of the plaintiff, the town of Bloomfield, to vacate an arbitration award that had reinstated the employment of Donald Rajtar, a police officer, on the ground that the award violated this state's public policy requiring law enforcement officers to be honest. We agree with the defendant's contention that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the plaintiff's application because it was not filed within the thirty day limitations period of § 52-420(b).³ Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the trial court.

The record reveals the following undisputed facts and procedural history. The defendant is the exclusive bargaining agent for all of the plaintiff's police officers below the rank of captain, including Rajtar, and the parties are signatories to a collective bargaining agreement (agreement). In March, 2004, Betsy Hard, the plaintiff's chief of police, notified Rajtar of her intent to terminate his employment for failing to perform a complete investigation and fabricating false witness statements with respect to a February, 2004 incident at Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken Restaurant (restaurant), as well as lying during the subsequent departmental internal affairs inquiry. In June, 2004, Louie Chapman, Jr., the plaintiff's town manager, sustained Hard's recommendation to terminate Rajtar's employment. After exhaustion of the grievance procedures set forth by the agreement, the defendant subsequently filed a demand for arbitration, pursuant to General Statutes § 31-97 et seq., with the state board of mediation and arbitration (board) to challenge Rajtar's termination.

Following several days of hearings, on December 28, 2005, a three member panel of the board issued a written award that concluded that Rajtar "was not terminated for cause consistent with the collective bargaining agreement and applicable [p]ersonnel [r]ules and [r]egulations." The board stated that it agreed with the plaintiff that Rajtar's conduct with respect to the investigation was "so detrimental [that] it justified immediate termination," but nevertheless reduced the penalty to a suspension of 200 workdays because termination was inconsistent with disciplinary actions that the plaintiff previously had imposed on two other officers. The plaintiff received notice of the award on December 30, 2005.

Subsequently, the plaintiff brought this application to vacate the award pursuant to General Statutes § 52-418. The plaintiff claimed that the award violated: (1) the "clear public policy regarding the necessity of truthfulness and honesty in law enforcement as enunciated by the United States Supreme Court and the Connecticut [s]tate [l]egislature"; and (2) § 52-418(a)(4)⁴ because the board had "exceeded its powers or so imperfectly executed them that a mutual, final and definite award upon the subject matter was not made," since the award was internally inconsistent due to the panel's finding that Rajtar had lied both to the plaintiff and the panel. The plaintiff served the defendant with the application to vacate the award on January 27, 2006, and filed it with the trial court on February 2, 2006.

The defendant moved to dismiss the application to vacate the award, claiming that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to consider it because the plaintiff had failed to file the application within thirty days of the issuance of the award in accordance with § 52-420(b). The trial court, Keller, J., granted the motion to dismiss, in part, following the plaintiff's concession that its § 52-418(a)(4) claim was untimely under § 52-420(b) because the plaintiff did not file the application within thirty days from receiving notice of the award. Judge Keller concluded, however, that despite the untimeliness of the § 52-418(a)(4) claim, the plaintiff's claim that the award violated public policy was a separate common-law action existing independently of "any specific statutory authority," and was not, therefore, governed by the arbitration statutes. Judge Keller then followed another trial court decision, Shrader v. Zeldes, Needle & Cooper, 45 Conn.Supp. 130, 702 A.2d 1214 (1997),⁵ concluding that "courts are required to review claims that an arbitration decision should not be confirmed because the award violates public policy even when these claims are not asserted within the thirty day time limitation period or other procedural requirements of §§ 52-418 and 52-420(b)." Accordingly, the trial court denied the defendant's motion to dismiss with respect to the plaintiff's public policy claim.

The plaintiff thereafter filed an amended application to vacate the award that alleged only the common-law public policy claim. In deciding the application, the trial court, Hon. Richard M. Rittenband, judge trial referee, called the logic of the board's decision "absurd" because "[i]f the [plaintiff] were to be held to this conclusion, all police officers in the future could lie with impunity. The termination of Rajtar may be disparate in view of precedent, but the lying by a police officer has to stop here." Judge Rittenband then concluded that Rajtar had "violate[d] a public policy based upon a statute and/or case law,"⁶ and that "there is a clear public policy in Connecticut ... that it is against public policy for a police officer to lie. The statute and case law aforementioned is the clearly discernable public source of the public policy. . . .

"This court also concludes that the record substantiates by substantial evidence that Rajtar did lie in the performance of his duties, and therefore, violated public policy. Further, [the board], in reinstating ... Rajtar violated this public policy prohibiting police officers from lying." (Citation omitted.) Accordingly, the trial court rendered judgment granting the plaintiff's application to vacate the award. This appeal followed.

On appeal, the defendant claims that: (1) Judge Keller improperly concluded that the plaintiff's public policy claim was not time barred by the thirty day limitations period of § 52-420(b); and (2) Judge Rittenband improperly concluded that the board's award reducing Rajtar's termination to a 200 day suspension violated the clearly expressed public policy of this state. With respect to the second claim, the defendant also raises the related arguments that the trial court improperly found facts beyond those found by the panel, and that the plaintiff was estopped from arguing against the reinstatement of Rajtar. Because we agree with the defendant's first claim on appeal, we do not reach the second claim.

We begin with the defendant's timeliness claim under § 52-420(b) because it implicates the court's subject matter jurisdiction over the plaintiff's application to vacate the award. See, e.g., Middlesex Ins. Co. v. Castellano, 225 Conn. 339, 344, 623 A.2d 55 (1993). Specifically, the defendant relies on Wu v. Chang, 264 Conn. 307, 823 A.2d 1197 (2003), and contends that § 52-420(b) encompasses all applications to vacate arbitration awards, not just those based on the grounds enumerated in § 52-418(a). The defendant argues that acceptance of the plaintiff's position, namely, that the thirty day time limitation is inapplicable to applications that are based on public policy grounds because they are "independent actions," is "illogical and inconsistent with the legislature's desire to support expeditious resolution of disputes through arbitration. . . ." Finally, the defendant relies on Bennett v. Meader, 208 Conn. 352, 545 A.2d 553 (1988), and contends that, because the trial court's decision under the common law is inconsistent with the arbitration statutes, the "legislation will govern, because it is the latest expression of the law."

In response, the plaintiff cites this court's decision in Garrity v. McCaskey, 223 Conn. 1, 612 A.2d 742 (1992), and argues that § 52-420(b) does not apply to common-law remedies, such as public policy claims, which existed prior to the enactment of the arbitration statutes in 1929, because "[c]ase law is clear that the provisions of § 52-418 are in addition to the common law causes of action to vacate an arbitration award." The plaintiff further contends that, because the "legislature added statutory provisions to modify arbitration awards but did not displace the non-contradictory portions of the existing common-law scheme," the procedural requirements of the arbitration act do not apply to actions to vacate arbitration awards on public policy grounds. The plaintiff also emphasizes that objections to the enforcement of arbitration awards on public policy grounds would not be without time limits, as such objections still would be subject to the one year period that General Statutes § 52-417⁷ provides for the filing of an application to confirm an award.⁸ We agree with the defendant, and conclude that the thirty day limitations period of § 52-420(b) applies to applications to vacate arbitration awards on public policy grounds.

"As a threshold matter, we address our standard of review. We have long held that because [a] determination regarding a trial court's...