Town applied to vacate, and former town employee applied to confirm, an arbitration award that reinstated employee who had been terminated for swapping emergency medical technicians in his ambulance while transporting a patient. The Superior Court denied town’s application to vacate and granted employee’s motion to confirm. Town appealed.
The Appellate Court held that:
- Former employee’s conduct in swapping emergency medical technicians while transporting a patient did not constitute a detrimental act and thus arbitration award did not violate public policy;
- Arbitration award did not limit town’s legal right to manage contractual and disciplinary actions with regard to its employees;
- Town did not present sufficient evidence to establish partiality on the part of arbitrators; and
- Town failed to establish that arbitration panel did not provide a full and fair hearing by refusing to consider certain evidence.
Former town employee’s conduct in swapping emergency medical technicians in his ambulance while transporting a patient did not constitute a detrimental act and thus arbitration award reinstating his employment did not violate public policy, where patient was not put in harm’s way due to swap, patient was being transported to a hospital farther away at the request of family, the swap took no more than four minutes to complete, and such crew swaps took place routinely and were encouraged by town to avoid employee overtime.