Wash. Teachers' Union v. Dist. of Columbia Pub. Sch.
| Decision Date | 16 May 2019 |
| Docket Number | No. 17-CV-1156,17-CV-1156 |
| Citation | 207 A.3d 1143 |
| Parties | WASHINGTON TEACHERS' UNION, Appellant, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS, Appellee. |
| Court | D.C. Court of Appeals |
Daniel M. Rosenthal, with whom Lee W. Jackson, Washington and Alice C. Hwang were on the brief, for appellant.
Mark J. Murphy, Washington, was on the brief for Teamsters Local Union No. 639 Amicus Curiae, in support of Washington Teachers' Union, appellant.
Holly M. Johnson, Assistant Attorney General, with whom Karl A. Racine, Attorney General for the District of Columbia, Loren L. AliKhan, Solicitor General, and Stacy L. Anderson, Acting Deputy Solicitor General, were on the brief, for appellee District of Columbia.
Before Fisher and Beckwith, Associate Judges, and Ferren, Senior Judge.
This case tees up, for the first time, the question whether the court, or an arbitrator, has the initial responsibility to determine whether a "class action/group grievance" filed by a union against a public employer is arbitrable. In September 2015, the Washington Teachers' Union (WTU) filed such a grievance under its collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS). In pursuing the group grievance, WTU was purporting to represent "over 180" teachers who had "received less than Effective ratings" under the "IMPACT" evaluation process. These teachers were placed on different levels of probation, and some even lost their jobs. Thus, the union — citing thirty-two examples of "unfair, arbitrary and capricious implementation and application" of IMPACT — sought arbitration from the American Arbitration Association (AAA) to rescind the "negative consequences" of those evaluations, including "restoration of all lost salaries, benefits[,] and privileges of employment." Upon motion by DCPS, the trial court permanently stayed arbitration, concluding that: (1) CBA Article 6.4.3.7 authorizes the filing of a "group grievance"; (2) the requested scope of arbitration, however, was too broad, even for a "group grievance"; (3) the union had not obtained the required "consent of the individual grievants" in the group "before proceeding on their behalf"; (4) the union, in effect, was challenging individual "evaluation judgments under the IMPACT process" which WTU 1 ,1 a controlling decision of this court, forbids; and (5) WTU's challenge reflected "a lack of good faith."
We agree with the trial court that the CBA authorizes a "group grievance" under CBA Article 6.4.3.7,2 and that the scope of the requested arbitration was too broad for "a matter of general application" under that Article — a decision for the court, not the arbitrator, to make. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court's order staying arbitration. Our ruling, however, is without prejudice to WTU's reformulating its group grievance, consistent with this opinion, for submission to arbitration under the CBA. All other issues raised in this case would be for an arbitrator to decide, as arbitrators have broad discretion to address the merits of an issue pursuant to the parties' agreement and to craft remedies.3
The CBA covers a universe of topics, including the opportunity for teachers to seek redress for alleged grievances.4 The grievance process is organized into three steps. Step 15 authorizes a teacher to file a grievance on a form developed by WTU, followed by a meeting between teacher and principal. If that meeting fails to resolve the grievance, the parties will meet with the Instructional Superintendent and, if necessary, with the DCPS Office of Labor Management and Employee Relations, followed, if desired, by mediation.
If Step 1 fails, Step 26 commences with a hearing before a neutral hearing officer at which the parties have the opportunity to present evidence, including witnesses. The hearing officer's decision is binding unless a party requests arbitration — Step 37 — by filing a notice with the AAA. The CBA specifies the types of issues that may be submitted to arbitration, including issues with the IMPACT evaluation process.8 According to CBA Article 15.3, "DCPS's compliance with the evaluation process, and not the evaluation judgment, shall be subject to the grievance and arbitration procedure."9 In other words, the evaluator's particular actions, or failures to act, in rating a teacher can be challenged, but not the evaluator's rating or "judgment" at the end of that process. By analogy, the teacher's final "score" cannot be removed or adjusted by the arbitrator.
On September 3, 2015, WTU notified DCPS with a letter to the DCPS Chancellor invoking a Step 2 "class action/group grievance"10 on behalf of "all ET-15 and EG-09 educators who received less than Effective ratings" derived from at least thirty-two violations of the IMPACT process during the 2014-15 school year (set forth verbatim in the Appendix to this opinion). In its grievance letter, WTU also alleged, without further specificity, violations of CBA Articles 2, 7, 10, 11, 15, 23, 24, as well as due process and No Child Left Behind Act violations. As to remedy, the union "requested that the rating11 and any subsequent termination or negative consequences be rescinded and all related documents be expunged[,]" coupled with "restoration of all lost salaries, benefits and privileges of employment" so that union members are "made whole."
On October 8, 2015, DCPS denied WTU's grievance. The principal reasons for denying what DCPS referred to as a "kitchen sink approach" were: (1) WTU's failure "to allege a single fact applicable to the entire group of over 180 named grievants";12 (2) WTU's failure "to obtain each named individual's consent before filing the instant grievance";13 and (3) WTU's inclusion of claims that "were not subject to the grievance or arbitration process," in particular its effort to "challenge evaluator judgments[,] which are not subject to the grievance procedure."14
On June 13, 2016, following DCPS's denial of its grievance, WTU submitted its demand for arbitration to the AAA. For relief, WTU sought to reverse "all negative employment consequences" for the employees affected,15 without rescission of teacher "ratings" or "evaluation judgments."16
On October 31, 2016, DCPS demanded that WTU withdraw its demand for arbitration. Because AAA rules require arbitration to proceed absent a court order staying the arbitration, DCPS filed a motion in Superior Court on March 29, 2017, for a permanent stay. It argued, first, that the CBA does not permit arbitration regarding "IMPACT evaluation judgments."17 DCPS emphasized this court's ruling in WTU 1 that CBA "Section 15.3 plainly states that the ‘evaluation judgment’ is not ‘subject to arbitration," although an arbitrator may address grievances challenging the "evaluation process." Second, DCPS asserted that DCPS and WTU had not agreed to submit this dispute to arbitration. It stressed that, contrary to CBA Article 6.4.3.7 limiting a group grievance to "a matter of general application,"18 WTU had "failed to allege a single fact applicable to the entire group of over 180 named grievants."
On April 28, 2017, WTU filed its Opposition to the stay motion. WTU averred that its grievance focused exclusively on the IMPACT process and thus was subject to arbitration. In seeking to eliminate negative consequences associated with IMPACT ratings, WTU argued that it was not attempting to arbitrate the ratings themselves. WTU also asserted, more fundamentally, that the arbitrator, not the court, should decide whether any of the grievance issues was "inarbitrable." WTU explained that it viewed compliance with the CBA grievance process as entirely a "procedural issue,"19 and thus that the arbitrator was entitled to address it.
The trial court held a hearing on July 5, 2017, to address the DCPS stay motion. At the hearing, the court said:
[I]t seems to me that everybody agrees in principle that if these are process violations those are arbitrable. But why is the union allowed to [ ] do a "kitchen sink" grievance and force the [c]ourt and the arbitrator to try to pick and choose what is arbitrable and what is not? Why wouldn't the proper remedy be to stay the whole thing and you've got to file a grievance that complies with the collective bargaining agreement?
In elaborating on this "kitchen sink" concern, the court added, "I don't see that the [ ] District of Columbia Public Schools agreed that class matters that don't have a common thread can go to the arbitrator." WTU then reiterated that it thought "there's been ... process violations for all of them and that's why we're grieving them together." In response, the court explained:
In its order issued on September 5, 2017, the trial court granted DCPS's motion to permanently stay the arbitration. The court was Even though the remedy that WTU was seeking was not phrased as a challenge to the evaluation judgments themselves, the court concluded that WTU's "carefully worded" phrasing was nonetheless "aimed" at challenging such judgments, as forbidden by WTU 1 : 20 ...
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