Stamford Education Association v. Stamford Board of Education (2010)

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION RE DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR ATTORNEYS FEES (113.00)

On October 23, 2009 this court, in a thirteen-page opinion, denied the application of the Stamford Education Association (the bargaining unit for Stamford public school teachers) to vacate an arbitration award rendered under the provisions of the Teacher Negotiation Act (TNA) specifically General Statutes § 10-153f(c).  The arbitration award found in favor of the defendant Stamford Board of Education's (Board) “last best offer.”   The issue arose from Westhill High School's selection to receive a substantial grant from Project Opening Doors' (POD) Advanced Placement Teaching Training Incentive Program (APTTIP) which, inter alia, included incentive payments from outside sources to teachers whose students do well on Advance Placements tests in English, science and mathematics.

The Board now seeks an award of its attorneys fees pursuant to General Statutes § 10-153(e)(8) and SEA opposes this motion.   The above cited statute does not provide any standards for awarding fees, although the legislative history of the provision suggests it was inserted into the statute to dissuade “abuse” of the statutory provisions for judicial review of TNA arbitration awards.   The Board has pointed two Connecticut Appellate Court decisions holding that where the statute authorizing an award of attorneys fees includes no standards for imposing them it is in “the sole discretion of the trial court to determine if the fees should be awarded and the amount.”  Oakley v. Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, 38 Conn.App. 506, 521 (1995) (quoting Staehl v. Micheal's Garage, Inc., 35 Conn.App. 455, 459 (1994).   Based on the foregoing, this court will apply a standard that attorneys fees will be awarded pursuant to General Statutes § 10-153f(c)(8) if the losing party in the judicial review process has made blatantly frivolous arguments or has obviously abused the arbitration and judicial review process.

In seeking the award of fees, the Board emphasizes the limited scope of judicial review of arbitration awards set out in Section 10-153f(c)(a), and the fact that SEA sought to vacate the award pursuant all six available grounds contained in the statute.   This is a logical contention, and indeed much of SEA effort to vacate the award was to make essentially the same argument six different ways.   As a result, the Board was forced to refute this argument in all of its manifestations.   Indeed, this court gave quite short shrift to some of SEA's efforts.

The issue in arbitration was an important and contentious one, coming down essentially to whether it was appropriate for the Board to accept and endorse a program (and the attendant half-million dollar grant) which was keyed to paying cash incentives out of the grant money to teachers whose students did well on Advance Placement tests.   The Board accepted the program knowing that the grant money would disappear if the incentive payments were not accepted.   SEA strongly opposed the program based on its long standing opposition to paying teachers based on test results.   SEA also objected that the Board accepted the program without negotiating with SEA.

These were difficult issues for both sides, and both the arbitration award and a dissent contain lengthy and thoughtful statements and analyses.   The statement of dissent (adopting SEA's position) provided some basis for arguing that the award violated all six grounds set out in the statute as a basis for vacating the award.   As noted, this court subsequently found that some of the arguments for vacating the award were repetitive and/or were weaker than others.   Nevertheless, the court does not find it to be a blatant abuse of the process for SEA to offer arguments based on contentions that at least one (of three) arbitrators found persuasive.

The Board also contends that SEA's attempt to vacate the award omitted crucial facts about the extent of negotiations between the parties before the arbitration.   The court finds that this omission was a noticeable gap in the SEA briefing.   There were, as noted in this court's earlier decision, substantial negotiations between the parties about APTTI leading to arbitration.   Nevertheless, it was recognized by both parties that the issue of incentive payments per se were not seriously negotiated because the availability of the grant under the POD program and APTTI was dependent on them.   From SEA's perspective, the lack of negotiation on that subject was far more important than the existence of negotiations on other subjects.   Therefore, the court determines that the virtual omission from SEA's papers about the negotiations that did take place does not warrant the imposition of fees.

Conclusion

The application for fees is denied.

TAGGART D. ADAMS

SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE

Adams, Taggart D., J.