A federal appeals court, ruling on a case arising from an arbitrator’s decision involving a dispute over representation of postal employees, has underscored the high level of deference that courts must give to arbitrators’ rulings even when, as in this case, the court believes the arbitrator was wrong.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in case No. 08-5467was considering a dispute focusing on work assignment in a postal facility. Management assigned the work to the Mail Handlers Union, and the American Postal Workers Union then brought the matter to arbitration and won the work. MHU appealed into federal district court but the judge affirmed the arbitrator even though finding that the arbitrator’s decision was “probably erroneous.”
MHU then appealed to the circuit court, which said that under U.S. Supreme Court decisions, courts are not allowed to review an arbitrator’s decision on the merits, even if factual errors are alleged, and that courts must affirm an arbitrator who is “even arguably construing or applying the contract and acting within the scope of his authority.” It said the present case met that standard and affirmed the award of the work to APWU even though it said it believed the work should go to MHU.
A dissenting judge said that regardless of the level of deference courts must give to arbitrators, the dispute at hand should have been ruled not even to be arbitrable in the first place due to contract provisions designed to prevent similar complaints at the local level.