Participating in an arbitration may bar extrication from the process

Participating in an arbitration may bar extrication from the process
Suffolk County v Faculty Asso. of SCCC, App. Div., 247 A.D.2d 472

Suppose a party appears at a grievance arbitration but later decides that it didn’t have to. May it ask to have the arbitration award vacated?

This was the significant issue in the Suffolk County case. The Appellate Division indicated that once a party has appeared in an arbitration and a decision had been rendered, it may be too late for the party to extricate itself the process.

Suffolk County participated in a grievance arbitration proceeding involving the Faculty Association of Suffolk County Community College. The county challenged the arbitration and won a court order vacating the award made by the arbitrator after persuading a New York State Supreme Court justice that “there was no agreement to arbitrate the grievance in question” between the parties.

The Faculty Association appealed and the Appellate Division reversed the lower court’s ruling, reinstating the award. The Court said, “the absence of an agreement to arbitrate is not a basis upon which a party who participated in the arbitration may seek to have the resulting award vacated.”

The Court also rejected the County’s alternative argument, in which it contended that the arbitration award violated public policy, on a technical ground. Why? Because, said the Court, the County did not raise the “public policy” argument in its motion to vacate the arbitration award at the Supreme Court level. Accordingly, the County’s “public policy” theory was not properly before it on appeal.