In Seneca County Sheriff's Office, 133 LA 1113 (Harlan, 2014) the arbitrator held that there was just cause to discharge a corrections officer (officer) for falsifying records relating to his job duties. The arbitrator found that the Officer had falsified records to hide the fact that he did not actually perform walkthroughs of jail cells.
In Mariano v. Borough of Dickson City, the Court held that the Borough may have violated an officer’s right to due process when the police chief removed him from the work schedule without a proper hearing. The Court disagreed with the City’s assertion that since the Officer was a part time employee he did not have a protected interest in his employment. The Officer had raised questions about his contract rights which was then followed by a meeting with the Police Chief in which the officer was accused of misconduct and then told he was being removed from the schedule.
In State of Alaska, 133 LA 1436 (DiFalco 2014) an arbitrator ruled that the State properly paid Correction Officers who voluntarily demoted themselves back to a lower classification, even though the result was that they were paid less than if they had not been promoted in the first place. The arbitrator conceded that while the results of this were unfair to several Corrections Officers, he stressed that it was not his job to do what was fair but to interpret the contract language as it appeared in the CBA.
In City of Oakland Park, the arbitrator held that there was not just cause to discharge a Florida firefighter for using marijuana while off-duty. The arbitrator cited the firefighter's excellent work history and other mitigating circumstances.
In Sube v. City of Allentown, the Court denied the Defendant City’s motion for summary judgment and permitted the employee's disability discrimination claims under the ADA to proceed to trial. As the City was aware of Sube’s injury and later terminated him soon after he sought to bring discrimination charges with the EEOC.
In City of Rockford, 133 LA 572 (Simon, 2012) and City of Rockford, 133 LA 587 (Simon, 2013), the Arbitrator denied the police union’s grievance alleging a procedural violation of the CBA, but held that the City did not have just cause to terminate a ten-year veteran police officer based on two conflicting psychological fitness for duty reports.
The Arbitrator held in City of Memphis, 133 LA 612 (Skulina 2014) that a police officer’s discharge for “inciting officers to strike” should be reduced to a 10-day suspension since the discussion with another officer was about a past and not a current strike.
In Dep’t of Homeland Security,133 LA 419 (Nicholas 2014) the Arbitrator, citing the memorandum of understanding, denied a Border Patrol Agent’s grievance for being placed on administrative duty, following a DWI arrest, for “too long.”
In Dep’t of the Navy,133 LA 1469 (Halter 2014), an Arbitrator Patrick Halter held that there was just cause for the suspension of a Department of the Navy police officer who used excessive force to subdue a civilian off-base.
In City of Butler, an arbitrator held that the City did not violate its CBA when it paid a police sergeant time and a half in overtime pay for working during a holiday parade, rather than providing both overtime pay and holiday pay premium.
