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State2/25/2005
jority's reliance on it is misplaced.
In Riel, the correctional officer was charged and convicted of driving while intoxicated in Massachusetts, and subsequently sentenced to a period of confinement. The grievant in that case failed to give notice of her arrest until after her conviction, in direct contravention of the departmental code of ethics. In denying the union's appeal from a Superior Court judgment vacating the award of an arbitrator reducing a termination to a thirty-day suspension, this Court cited the security implications involved in operating a prison and held that it was the director, not an arbitrator, who was responsible for the "'consequences of a previously convicted and incarcerated officer filling a security post at the adult correctional institutions.'" Riel, 725 A.2d at 298.
We believe that Riel should be restricted to its somewhat unusual facts, which differ substantially from the factual pattern present here. In this case, the department was well aware of the charges filed against its employee even before the employee was presented to the Superior Court, eliminating any risk to security that may be engendered by an inmate learning of the incident and compromising the employee. More importantly, Riel involved a conviction, not present here because all charges against Algasso arising from the 1993 raid were dismissed.
Finally, Riel involved an acknowledgment by the arbitrator that discipline was warranted, even as the arbitrator lessened the penalty from termination to suspension. Under the circumstances presented in that case, this Court determined the reduction impermissible, balancing the language present in the collective bargaining agreement with the director's responsibility under G.L. 1956 § 42-56-10.
In this case, however, the arbitrator did not lessen the penalty, but ruled that there was no just cause for discipline in the first place, the very issues submitted to arbitration by the parties. We do not believe that he was "completely irrational" in doing so and respectfully submit that the majority has simply substituted its judgment for his.
Conclusion
For those reasons, we would affirm the order of the Superior Court.
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