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Arbitrator relied on document "extraneous" to CBA
November 28, 2005 by Ross Runkel at LawMemo

Can an arbitrator's award "draw its essence from the collective bargaining agreement" when she relies on a document that is neither contained in the collective agreement nor referred to in the collective agreement?

Yes, says the Ohio Court of Appeals. Cincinnati v. Queen City Lodge (Ohio Ct App 11/23/2005).

The City discharged a police officer, who grieved the matter to arbitration under the collective bargaining agreement. The discharge was for the cumulative effect of six charges against the officer. The arbitrator dismissed three charges and sustained three others, and issued an award reducing the discharge to a 40 hours suspension.

The City sought to have the award vacated on the ground that the arbitrator relied on "The Matrix," a table of discipline contained in the departmental Rules Manual. The trial court found for the City, but the Court of Appeals reversed - upholding the arbitrator's award.

The court held that it was proper for the arbitrator to use the disciplinary matrix in order to bring the officer's discipline into line with the discipline that the City imposed on other officers involved in the same incident.

The court noted that the "no-extraneous-source rule" would lead to ludicrous results in disciplinary-arbitration cases because an arbitrator could never compare the severity of discipline in similar offenses.

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