AFSCME, Council 4, Local 2663 v. Dept. of Children & Families, 317 Conn. 238

AFSCME, Council 4, Local 2663 sued to vacate a labour-arbitration award denying reinstatement of Suzanne Listro from the Department of Children & Families.
The arbitrator held Listro negligent by allowing a child in her care to die, despite medical evidence that the death was due to shaken baby syndrome.
Medical evidence showed M died from blunt traumatic head injury; autopsy indicated homicide, not an accidental fall.
The arbitrator credited SBS findings yet concluded a fall caused death, constructing a speculative theory not grounded in record evidence.
The trial court vacated the award for exceeding authority; the appellate court reversed, and the matter returned to arbitration for rehearing.
The dissent argues the arbitrator manifestly disregarded the law by applying negligence proximate-causation without support in the record.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Arbitrator's manifest disregard of proximate causation	M died SBS; proximate cause not established.	Arbitrator properly applied a negligence theory to the record.	Vacatur for manifest disregard of law

Garrity v. McCaskey, 223 Conn. 1 (Conn. 1992) (two-part test for manifest disregard of the law; requires obvious error and explicit disregard)
Westerbeke Corp. v. Daihatsu Motor Co., Ltd., 304 F.3d 200 (2d Cir. 2002) (two-prong test for manifest disregard of law; combines explicit law and arbitral knowledge)
McCann v. Dept. of Environmental Protection, 288 Conn. 203 (Conn. 2008) (standard for relieving arbitral awards when egregiously misconstrued law)
Hardy v. Walsh Manning Securities, LLC, 341 F.3d 126 (2d Cir. 2003) (manifest disregard framework applied to financial arbiter decisions)