The Ohio Bell Tel. Co. v. Local 4340 Commc'ns Workers of Am.

THE OHIO BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY, Plaintiff, v. LOCAL 4340, COMMUNICATIONS WORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO, Defendant.

No. 1:21-cv-00635

United States District Court, N.D. Ohio

November 17, 2021

OPINION & ORDER [RESOLVING DOCS. 15 &amp 16]

JAMES S. GWIN, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT JUDGE:

In this case, the Ohio Bell Telephone Company (“Ohio Bell”) seeks to vacate a collective bargaining agreement arbitration award that found Ohio Bell did not have just cause to fire a long-term field service employee. The employee, Daniel Fortney, had a long and problem-free employment but was involved in a fatal accident when Fortney's truck struck a pedestrian mother and child in a driveway alongside the road Fortney was travelling.

The Defendant Union seeks to confirm the arbitration award reinstating Daniel Fortney's employment.

At the time of the accident, Fortney was not impaired, was travelling near the speed limit and had not been texting. As he drove the Ohio Bell truck, Fortney apparently simply failed to see the victim mother and child alongside the road.

This Court's review of arbitration awards is limited. Finding none of the justifications that would allow this federal court to overturn the arbitration award, the Court confirms the arbitration award.

I. Background

On September 25, 2017, Ohio Bell Customer Service Specialist Daniel Fortney was involved in a fatal automobile accident.^[1] Fortney's Ohio Bell service vehicle struck and killed a child and injured the child's mother.^[2]

Police investigated the accident. Fortney was initially charged with vehicular homicide.^[3] Fortney later pled guilty to a lesser third-degree misdemeanor charge under Ohio R.C. § 4511.20.^[4] He received a 60-day jail sentence.^[5]

After Fortney served the sentence, Ohio Bell fired Fortney on November 25, 2019.^[6]

Representing Fortney, Local 4340, Communications Workers of America AFL-CIO (“the Union”) filed a grievance. Eventually, Fortney's grievance went to arbitration. With the grievance, the Union argued that Fortney's termination violated the Union's collective bargaining agreement because Fortney was fired without just cause.^[7]

After a hearing, the arbitrator held that Ohio Bell terminated Fortney without just cause but determined that a 60-day suspension was nonetheless appropriate. The arbitrator ordered Ohio Bell reinstate Fortney and otherwise make him whole.^[8] Relevant to this case, the arbitrator rejected Ohio Bell's argument that Fortney's guilty plea was preclusive in the arbitral forum.^[9] In some support for that conclusion, the arbitrator cited a letter written by the presiding state judge to Fortney's Ohio National Guard commander.^[10] The state court judge wrote the National Guard commander that the negotiated plea was unsupported but was Fortney's effort to satisfy the victim's family. The arbitrator also relied on character references related to Fortney's military experience that were created after Ohio Bell terminated him.^[11]

In this action, Ohio Bell seeks to vacate the award. The Union seeks an order confirming the award. The Union also seeks prejudgment interest.

II. Discussion

Federal court review of arbitration awards is limited.^[12] The Supreme Court has long recognized that “[t]he federal policy of settling labor disputes by arbitration would be undermined if courts had the final say on the merits of the awards.”^[13]

In particular, federal courts find that arbitrators have considerable discretion to determine just cause for dismissals. In Hartco Flooring Co. v. United Paperworkers of Am., Loc. 14597, ^[14] the Sixth Circuit said that it had “no authority to second guess” an arbitrator's determination that an employee involved in a forklift accident was discharged without just cause.^[15] More recently, the Sixth Circuit again declined to disturb an arbitration award finding that an employer “lacked just cause to terminate [an employee] based entirely on [the employee's] positive drug test.”^[16]

It is against this background that Ohio Bell argues that there are three different grounds which allow the Court to overturn the arbitration award. Ohio Bell says that the Court can overturn the award because the arbitrator acted in “manifest disregard of the law.”^[17] Separately, Ohio Bell says that the Court can overturn the award because the award did not “draw[] its essence from the collective bargaining agreement” and the arbitrator imposed his “own brand of industrial justice.”^[18] And, Ohio Bell says the award is unenforceable because it “is contrary to public policy.”^[19]

A. Manifest Disregard of the Law

For the Court to find that the arbitrator manifestly disregarded the law, “[a] mere error in interpretation or application of the law is insufficient. Rather, the decision must fly in the face of clearly established legal precedent.”^[20] To meet that standard, Ohio Bell must show: “(1) the applicable legal principle is clearly defined and not subject to reasonable debate; and (2) the arbitrators refused to heed that legal principle.”^[21]

Ohio Bell says that the arbitrator manifestly disregarded the law by “ignoring the collateral effect of Fortney's guilty plea.”^[22] In Ohio Bell's view, the plea establishes that Fortney recklessly operated the vehicle and therefore that it had just cause to terminate his employment.

Ohio Bell's position regarding the plea's impact contradicts well-established Ohio law. Dating back to the Ohio Supreme Court's 1839 decision in Clark v. Irvin, ^[23] Ohio courts have determined that: “In Ohio, [even] guilty pleas are not generally given preclusive effects in subsequent civil actions.”^[24]

The criminal cases Ohio Bell cites do not supplant this Ohio rule. For example, while certain statements from the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Broce^[25] may appear to support Ohio Bell's position, that case was decided in the specific posture of a criminal defendant's collateral attack of his guilty plea. Given the differences between the nature of criminal and civil law, Ohio Bell's argument that the arbitrator defied legal precedent by failing to extend these criminal law cases in the civil preclusion context misses the mark.

More importantly, Fortney's criminal conviction does not, itself, necessarily establish just cause for firing. In judging the just cause standard, the arbitrator was free to give the criminal conviction the weight he deemed appropriate. The Third Circuit's decision in Loc. 863 Int'l Bhd. of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen & Helpers of Am. v. Jersey Coast Egg Producers, Inc.^[29] makes this point clear. In that case, the Court said that even if a criminal conviction had preclusive effect in arbitration, “it remains within the arbitrator's purview to interpret the impact of such a finding in the context of the [just cause standard].”^[30] And a recent Sixth Circuit case upholding an arbitration award that reinstated an employee who served a thirty-day jail sentence for felony battery underscores a similar point.^[31] The Sixth Circuit found that the criminal conviction was not conclusive regarding whether the employer had just cause to fire the employee. To the contrary, that court found the arbitrator could consider the grievant's testimony explaining the felony circumstances.^[33]

Since Ohio Bell points to no law establishing that a criminal conviction conclusively gives an employer just cause to terminate an employee, its claim that the award manifestly violated the law fails.

B. Essence from the Collective Bargaining Agreement

Federal court review of an arbitrator's interpretation of contract terms is especially deferential.^[38] While an award must draw its essence from the contract, “as long as the arbitrator is even arguably construing or applying the contract and acting within the scope of his authority, that a court is convinced he committed serious error does not suffice to overturn his decision.”^[39]

Ohio Bell argues that the just cause standard only allows a review of the grounds available to the employer at the time of termination. Because the arbitrator considered materials both unrelated to the dismissal and not available to Ohio Bell at the time of the dismissal, Ohio Bell says that the arbitrator exceeded his authority in interpreting the collective bargaining agreement. But again, Ohio Bell fails to show that the arbitrator made an error, let alone a sufficiently serious one to vacate the award.

Ohio Bell's reliance on the Supreme Court's United Paperworkers Int'l Union, AFL-CIO v. Misco, Inc. decision ultimately undermines its own argument. While the Misco Court described an arbitrator's “past-tense review, ”^[40] the Court did not establish that arbitrators must consider only information known to the employer at the time of the discharge, when evaluating just cause. In fact, the Court's opinion suggests the opposite, noting that such evidentiary determinations “are to be left to the arbitrator.”^[41]

And the Fifth Circuit decision in Gulf Coast Indus. Workers Union v. Exxon Co., U.S.A. also does not help Ohio Bell. It is true that the Exxon court overturned an arbitration award where the arbitrator relied on post-discharge facts. But the Exxon court also endorsed a Third Circuit decision that upheld an arbitration decision where “the arbitrator considered only later-discovered evidence which established the situation at the time of discharge, ” as opposed to “evidence of later changes in the situation.”^[42] Applied here, that rule would allow the arbitrator to consider the two principal documents that Ohio Bell says should have been excluded: the judge's letter about the state proceedings and Fortney's military-related character references. Accordingly, the Fifth Circuit case does not establish...