2 Conn. App. 230 | Conn. App. Ct. | 1984
This is a combined appeal of two cases. Both cases involve a collective bargaining agreement between the Newington Teachers Association (NTA) and the board of education of the town of Newington (board) and relate to a claim of a retired teacher, John Flynn, for medical expenses incurred by his wife, Margaret Flynn, after he had retired. In the first case, Flynn v. Newington, the teacher and his wife sought reimbursement for those expenses from the town and the board claiming a breach of the collective bargaining agreement between the board and the NTA.1 That action was instituted in November of 1978. A motion to stay court proceedings pending arbitration of the plaintiff's claim was made in May of 1980 by the defendant town. Its motion was allegedly filed pursuant to General Statutes
At the arbitration proceeding held, the parties were the board and the NTA. The arbitrator concluded that the issue of whether the teacher's family members were covered by the major medical insurance policy provided in the collective bargaining agreement was not arbitrable3 because the grievance was not timely filed.4 The plaintiffs then filed an application to vacate the arbitration award, a motion to terminate the stay and to allow a trial on the merits, and a motion for contempt for failure to arbitrate the merits of the case. The court rendered judgment granting the application and the motions. The defendant town appeals from that judgment.
In the second case, Board of Education v. Newington Teachers Assn., the board brought an action to confirm the arbitration award entered in the first case. The action was instituted in September of 1982, after the plaintiffs had filed their motions for contempt and for a vacation of the arbitration award. The trial court heard all of the motions in both cases simultaneously and rendered judgment denying the board's motion to confirm the award. That judgment is also appealed.
The issues contained in the preliminary statement of issues and the subsidiary questions relating thereto, as discussed in the briefs of the parties, are many. Those issues, however, may be distilled into two main issues. They are whether the trial court erred (1) in concluding that the town and the board could not raise the arbitrability of the plaintiffs' claim for the first time before the arbitrator, after the town had represented to the court that it was ready and willing to proceed *234 with arbitration; and (2) in concluding that the arbitration process was expanded to include the town and the retired teacher when admittedly neither was a party to the collective bargaining agreement.5
The trial court determined that it was within its province to decide whether arbitration was a condition precedent to court action and that the parties could not submit the question of the arbitrability of the issue to the arbitrator. The court's memorandum of decision makes it clear that it ordered arbitration with the expectation that arbitration would proceed on the merits of the Flynns' claim. It did so because of the representation of the town that it was ready and willing to proceed with arbitration. The defendant town did not raise the issue of timeliness at the hearing on its motion for a stay of the court proceedings but agreed to arbitrate the dispute if the stay was granted. The Flynns objected to the stay and, in fact, appealed to the Supreme Court from the granting of the stay.6 At the time of the granting of the stay and the motion to proceed with arbitration, the NTA was not a party to any proceeding pending in court.
The trial court was correct in concluding that, on the facts of this case, the timeliness of the Flynns' grievance or the arbitrability of the grievance could not be considered by the arbitrator, and that the town had foregone or waived the arbitrability issue when it sought the stay. It is settled law in this state that the arbitrability *235
of a dispute is a legal question for the court unless the parties have clearly agreed to submit the arbitrability question to arbitration. Bridgeport v. Bridgeport Police Local 1159,
The town's motion to stay proceedings in order to proceed with arbitration and the words of the agreement itself precluded the submission of arbitrability as an issue to the arbitrator.
A failure to follow the prerequisite procedure for arbitration as provided in a collective bargaining agreement may result in a waiver of the right to arbitrate. Gary Excavating, Inc. v. North Haven,
The appropriate procedure to follow in instances where arbitrability is an issue is discussed in Waterbury Board of Education v. Waterbury Teachers Assn.,
The trial court correctly concluded that arbitration was not a condition precedent to the plaintiffs' action for reimbursement for medical expenses. No language in the collective bargaining agreement of this case provides that arbitration is such a condition precedent and there is no language in it from which the necessary implication arises that arbitration must first be had. Multi-Service Contractors, Inc. v. Vernon,
The second issue of this appeal, whether the arbitration process was expanded to include the plaintiffs, is an attack on the standing of the plaintiffs to move to vacate the arbitration award and to terminate the stay of proceedings in their action against the defendants. The plaintiffs were not parties to the collective bargaining agreement and, therefore, ordinarily would lack the requisite standing to seek confirmation or vacation of an arbitration award. Housing Authority v. Local 1161,
John Flynn retired as an employee of the board in 1974. The medical expenses of his wife were incurred in August of 1977 and thereafter. As of March, 1983, her bills totalled $150,611.31. Mr. and Mrs. Flynn are now 71 years old, still bereft of a decision on the relatively simple question of whether Mrs. Flynn was entitled to payment of her medical expenses under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement. The case is a study in procedural gymnastics. It ground its way *239 to this court via a tortuous route of contested motions including motions to dismiss, to strike from the jury list, to strike, for summary judgment, to consolidate, to stay proceedings, to vacate and to confirm an arbitration award, and for contempt. It has been on the motion calendars of the Supreme Court and this court. The time for a substantive decision is overdue. In the case of Flynn v. Newington, the court properly granted the plaintiffs' application to vacate the arbitration award, their motion to terminate the stay and to allow a trial, and their motion for contempt.8 An immediate trial on the merits is ordered. In the case of Board of Education v. Newington Teachers Assn., the court was correct in denying the motion of the board to confirm the arbitration award.
There is no error in either case.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.