Opinion
No. 90-499
Submitted January 16, 1991 —
Decided May 15, 1991.
Public employment — Labor relations — Pursuant to R.C. 4117.10(A), court of common pleas is without jurisdiction to render declaratory judgment determining rights established by R.C. 4117.11, when.
O.Jur 3d Employment Relations §§ 442.7, 442.8
Pursuant to R.C. 4117.10(A), a court of common pleas is without jurisdiction to render a declaratory judgment determining rights that are established or limited by R.C. 4117.11, where the State Employment Relations Board is asked to make the same determination in the context of an unfair labor practice charge.
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Franklin County, No. 89AP-498.
Plaintiff-appellee, Franklin County Sheriff's Department ("sheriff" or "sheriff's department"), the Franklin County Board of Commissioners, and defendant-appellant, Fraternal Order of Police, Capital City Lodge No. 9 ("FOP"), were parties to two collective bargaining agreements which expired on November 15, 1987. Subsequently, successor agreements were entered into between the FOP, the board of commissioners and the sheriff's department which were to expire November 11, 1990. These successor agreements set forth, inter alia, arbitration as a means to rectify grievances of persons subject to the agreements. Between December 1987 and July 1988, the FOP submitted seven grievances to the sheriff which largely concerned promotions of employees within the sheriff's department. On September 12, 1988, the sheriff filed this action in the court of common pleas seeking, inter alia, a declaration that four grievances filed by the FOP were outside the scope of the collective bargaining agreements. On September 29, 1988, the sheriff filed an amended complaint requesting essentially the same relief with respect to a total of seven grievance-arbitration requests submitted by the FOP.
On October 13, 1988, the FOP filed an unfair labor practice charge with the State Employment Relations Board ("SERB") alleging that the sheriff committed an unfair labor practice in violation of R.C. 4117.11(A), in that the sheriff refused to timely process the FOP's requests for arbitration of grievances — the same requests that were addressed in the sheriff's complaint in the court of common pleas.
On October 24, 1988, the sheriff filed another amended complaint deleting and modifying certain of the allegations. Subsequently, the FOP filed a motion with the trial court to dismiss the sheriff's complaint on the grounds that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the complaint, that the complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, and that SERB's previous determination of the issues raised in the complaint was res judicata.
In a decision rendered on February 10, 1989, the trial court rejected the res judicata argument, but agreed with the FOP that it lacked jurisdiction over the subject matter of the complaint. In so holding, the court opined that "[a] review of the seven grievances clearly show[s] that the grievances are filed under the collective bargaining agreement, specifically reference the collective bargaining agreement code sections that have been violated, and therefore are the exclusive jurisdiction of SERB to review and arbitrate." In so holding, the court specifically found AT T Technologies, Inc. v. Communications Workers of America (1986), 475 U.S. 643, to be factually inapposite to the instant case.
Upon appeal, the court of appeals reversed and remanded the cause, in spite of the fact that the FOP had asserted that SERB formally issued a complaint against the sheriff on the unfair labor practice charge filed by the FOP pursuant to R.C. 4117.12(B). The appellate court held that SERB's authority to determine an unfair labor practice charge does not deprive the courts of common pleas of the general declaratory judgment jurisdiction and capacity to determine arbitrability pursuant to R.C. Chapter 2721.
The cause is now before this court pursuant to the allowance of a motion to certify the record.
Downes Hurst and Jonathan J. Downes, for appellee.
Cloppert, Portman, Sauter, Latanick Foley, Robert W. Sauter and Grant D. Shoub, for appellant.
The determinative issue in this appeal is whether a common pleas court has jurisdiction to render a declaratory judgment with regard to matters brought before SERB in the context of an unfair labor practice charge. For the reasons that follow, we answer such inquiry in the negative, thereby reversing the decision of the court of appeals below.
In State, ex rel. Dayton Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 44, v. State Emp. Relations Bd. (1986), 22 Ohio St.3d 1, 22 OBR 1, 488 N.E.2d 181, this court noted:
"With the enactment of the Public Employees Collective Bargaining Act, Ohio adopted a comprehensive law to govern labor relations between public employees and their employers. * * *
"* * *
"The new Act is a positive step forward. It sets forth firmly defined legal guidelines that minimize the possibility of public-sector labor disputes and provides for the orderly resolution of any disputes that occur. This law brings stability and clarity to an area where there had been none and will facilitate the determination of the rights and obligations of government employees and employers * * *." Id. at 4-5, 22 OBR at 3-4, 488 N.E.2d at 184-185.
This court held in Franklin Cty. Law Enforcement Assn. v. Fraternal Order of Police, Capital City Lodge No. 9 (1991), 59 Ohio St.3d 167, 572 N.E.2d 87, decided this day, at paragraph one of the syllabus:
"The State Employment Relations Board has exclusive jurisdiction to decide matters committed to it pursuant to R.C. Chapter 4117."
Thus, with respect to the cause sub judice, we note that R.C. 4117.10(A) provides in relevant part:
"* * * Except for sections 306.08, 306.12, 306.35, and 4981.22 of the Revised Code and arrangements entered into thereunder, and section 4981.21 of the Revised Code as necessary to comply with section 13(c) of the `Urban Mass. Transportation Act of 1964,' 87 Stat. 295, 49 U.S.C.A. 1609(c), as amended, and arrangements entered into thereunder, Chapter 4117. of the Revised Code prevails over any and all other conflicting laws, resolutions, provisions, present or future, except as otherwise specified in Chapter 4117. of the Revised Code or as otherwise specified by the general assembly. * * *" (Emphasis added.)
R.C. 4117.09 provides in pertinent part:
"(A) The parties to any collective bargaining agreement shall reduce the agreement to writing and both execute it.
"(B) The agreement shall contain a provision that:
"(1) Provides for a grievance procedure which may culminate with final and binding arbitration of unresolved grievances, and disputed interpretations of agreements, and which is valid and enforceable under its terms when entered into in accordance with this chapter. * * *" (Emphasis added.)
The collective bargaining agreements in issue set forth a framework for resolving grievances among the parties which could result in an arbitration decision by a mutually selected arbitrator.
On October 13, 1988, the FOP filed an unfair labor practice charge, in part pursuant to R.C. 4117.11(A)(6), claiming that the sheriff refused to follow the grievance procedure set forth in the collective bargaining agreements. The FOP asserts that it was not until the sheriff filed his complaint in the trial court that it became aware that its requests for arbitration of grievances would not be timely processed. The sheriff's department contends that R.C. Chapter 4117 does not remove from courts of common pleas the jurisdiction to grant declaratory relief pursuant to R.C. Chapter 2721. We disagree, and find that based on the foregoing statutory provisions and case law, it is clear given the facts of this case that R.C. Chapter 2721, under which the sheriff brought his claim for declaratory relief, is in conflict with R.C. Chapter 4117. Since the aforementioned provisions of R.C. Chapter 4117 contemplate the exclusive jurisdiction of SERB over the matters specifically raised in the sheriff's complaint before the court of common pleas, see Franklin Cty. Law Enforcement Assn., supra, the court of appeals erred in finding that SERB's authority to determine an unfair labor practice did not deprive courts of common pleas of the general declaratory judgment jurisdiction and capacity to determine arbitrability pursuant to R.C. Chapter 2721. In our view, a contrary holding would merely create inordinate delays in resolving certain collective bargaining agreement disputes such as the arbitrability of grievances, and would most certainly undermine the express will of the General Assembly which elevated R.C. Chapter 4117 over all other statutory provisions not specifically excepted within its terms.
R.C. 4117.11 provides in relevant part:
"(A) It is an unfair labor practice for a public employer, its agents, or representatives to:
"* * *
"(6) Establish a pattern or practice of repeated failures to timely process grievances and requests for arbitration of grievances[.]"
Therefore, we hold that pursuant to R.C. 4117.10(A), a court of common pleas is without jurisdiction to render a declaratory judgment determining rights that are established or limited by R.C. 4117.11, where the State Employment Relations Board is asked to make the same determination in the context of an unfair labor practice charge.
Accordingly, the judgment of the court of appeals is hereby reversed.
Judgment reversed.
DOUGLAS, H. BROWN and RESNICK, JJ., concur.
WRIGHT, J., concurs in judgment only.
MOYER, C.J., dissents without opinion.
HOLMES, J., dissents.
After reviewing the facts in the case sub judice, I conclude that a court of common pleas has jurisdiction to render a declaratory judgment with regard to matters brought before the State Employment Relations Board ("SERB") in the context of an unfair labor practice charge. Accordingly, I dissent from today's majority opinion.
In its opinion, the majority construes appellee's complaint to conflict with the provisions found within R.C. Chapter 4117. After so construing the complaint, the majority concludes that the provisions of R.C. Chapter 4117 were intended to confer SERB with exclusive jurisdiction and therefore a court of common pleas lacked jurisdiction to enter a declaratory judgment. Such conclusion, however, is incorrect for it misconstrues the nature of appellee's action.
The appellee in this case was not seeking a determination as to whether an unfair labor practice had been committed. The issue raised by the appellee was the arbitrability of the defendant's grievances. Since this issue does not call for a judicial determination of the merits of the grievances filed against the employer, but rather a threshold determination of whether the grievances are subject to arbitration under the collective bargaining agreement, I believe that the common pleas court has jurisdiction to render a declaratory judgment on such claim.
In addition, the majority warns that "inordinate delays" in the resolution of collective bargaining disputes will result from declaratory judgments in cases involving R.C. Chapter 4117. Had the majority properly analyzed the practical implications of its decision, however, it would have concluded that the denial of declaratory judgments in such cases results in the very evil it warns against.
As a result of today's majority opinion, an employer who may not be subject to SERB review on the merits of the grievances filed against it would be required to await a SERB determination before it could appeal. Consequently, if no probable cause is found, the employer must repeatedly be subjected to SERB investigations on grievances where it might not otherwise have had to comply if its rights were properly determined in a declaratory judgment action in common pleas court. Such result would unnecessarily waste the resources of both SERB and our judicial system. See Ohio Historical Society v. State Emp. Relations Bd. (1990), 48 Ohio St.3d 45, 48, 549 N.E.2d 157, 160 (Holmes, J., dissenting); Franklin Cty. Law Enforcement Assn. v. Fraternal Order of Police, Capital City Lodge No. 9 (1991), 59 Ohio St.3d 167, 172, 572 N.E.2d 87, 92-93 (Holmes, J., dissenting).
Since I believe that the decision handed down by today's majority improperly deprives the appellee of its declaratory judgment action and results in judicial inefficiency, I dissent.