DC Circuit Vacates Arbitration Award on Public Policy Grounds
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In National Railroad Passenger Corporation v. Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 189, No. 16-7004 (DC Cir., April 28, 2017), the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed a trial court’s order vacating an arbitration award based on public policy grounds. The 2-1 decision involves a collective bargaining agreement and particular jurisprudence under the U.S. Railway Labor Act that permits vacatur of arbitration awards if a contract provision “is contrary to ‘law or public policy.’”
In the dispute, a union, the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 189, brought arbitration on behalf of a National Railroad Passenger Corporation (“Amtrak”) police employee who was fired for her purported misconduct. An arbitrator held Amtrak’s dismissal of the employee must be overturned because the company’s investigation of the employee’s conduct failed to comply with the investigative procedures set out in Rule 50 of the collective bargaining agreement. The arbitrator also ruled that Amtrak must reinstate the police employee with backpay and lost seniority.
The issue in the case, as set forth by the Court of Appeals, was whether “procedural limitations on the conduct of internal investigations contained in a collective bargaining agreement between Amtrak and the FOP” bind the Amtrak Office of Inspector General. According to the majority opinion that was filed by Senior Circuit Judge Randolph:
Read original articleOn her behalf, the FOP claimed that she had been fired without just cause. Without reaching that claim, the arbitrator determined that Bryant should be reinstated because the Inspector General’s investigator, when interviewing her, had not fully complied with the contract’s Rule 50 procedures. Although this provision of the collective bargaining agreement does not mention the Amtrak Office of the Inspector General, and although the Amtrak Inspector General did not participate in the Amtrak-FOP contract negotiations and did not sign the agreement, the arbitrator concluded that Rule 50 bound the Inspector General. Rule 50, the arbitrator wrote, applies to “all bargaining unit member interrogations” and “does not exempt” the Inspector General.
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