Opinion
1D21-32
03-23-2022
The City of Gainesville, Florida, Appellant, v. Communications Workers of America, Local No. 3170, Appellee.
Michele F. Martin, City of Gainesville, Office of the City Attorney, Gainesville; Steven L. Brannock, and Sarah C. Pellenbarg of Brannock Humphries & Berman, Tampa, for Appellant. Nicholas M. Stanojevich of Quinn, Connor, Weaver, Davies & Rouco LLP, Birmingham, Alabama, for Appellee.
Not final until disposition of any timely and authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or 9.331.
On appeal from the Circuit Court for Alachua County. Monica J. Brasington, Judge.
Michele F. Martin, City of Gainesville, Office of the City Attorney, Gainesville; Steven L. Brannock, and Sarah C. Pellenbarg of Brannock Humphries & Berman, Tampa, for Appellant.
Nicholas M. Stanojevich of Quinn, Connor, Weaver, Davies & Rouco LLP, Birmingham, Alabama, for Appellee.
Nordby, J.
This typical employment contract dispute has an atypical procedural history. Joseph DiTomaso worked for the City of Gainesville for roughly a decade before he was fired. DiTomaso's local union filed grievances on his behalf, and the parties soon found themselves in arbitration. The initial hearing concluded without consensus on anything, and the arbitrator told the parties to submit briefs "[a]s to what the issue is." After reviewing the briefs, the arbitrator denied the grievance and entered an award for the City without warning.
The Union then moved to vacate the award under section 682.13, Florida Statutes. The Union argued, in part, that the arbitrator improperly summarily disposed of the case. The circuit court agreed and vacated the award, finding that the arbitrator "did not conduct a full and fair hearing" and substantially prejudiced the Union by summarily disposing of the case without consent. Since the summary disposition violated section 682.06(2), Florida Statutes, the court vacated the award. The order concluded with the following language:
ORDERED: Plaintiff's Petition / Motion to Vacate Arbitration Award is GRANTED and the arbitration award of Arbitrator Lunin is hereby VACATED.
FURTHER ORDERED: There are no additional pending issues before this court and the Clerk of Court is directed to CLOSE this matter. The Court has ruled on all relief requested.
The City challenged the circuit court's ruling through a petition for certiorari. The petition asked this Court to alternatively treat the case as an appeal of a final order. After receiving supplemental briefing on the method and standard of review, we accept the City's alternative request and treat this case an appeal of a final order. That said, we ultimately reject the City's arguments on the merits and affirm.
We first explain why a plenary appeal is the proper platform for review. This Court treats an order that vacates an arbitration award and directs rehearing as non-final and non-appealable, reviewable only through a petition for certiorari. Heart Surgery Ctr. v. Thomas J. Bixler, II, M.D., P.A., 128 So.3d 169, 172 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013). But the order here did not direct rehearing. We find that distinction makes a difference based on the facts of this case.
To determine whether an order is final, courts generally ask "whether the order in question constitutes an end to the judicial labor in the cause, and nothing further remains to be done by the court to effectuate a termination of the cause as between the parties directly affected." S. L. T. Warehouse Co. v. Webb, 304 So. 2d 97, 99 (Fla. 1974). An order must have "unequivocal language of finality" to be final, but no magic words are necessary. Hoffman v. Hall, 817 So.2d 1057, 1058 (Fla. 1st DCA 2002). And relevant here, the Revised Florida Arbitration Code requires a court to enter a conforming final judgment after granting an order "confirming, vacating without directing a rehearing, modifying, or correcting an award." § 682.15, Fla. Stat. (2019).
Applying the test for finality along with section 682.15, Florida Statutes, this Court has held that more judicial labor is required when an order fails to act as a judgment. City of Tallahassee v. Big Bend PBA, 703 So.2d 1066, 1069 (Fla. 1st DCA 1997). The Court specified, "if an order confirming a final arbitration award does not contain additional words of finality sufficient to show an end to judicial labor and reflect that it is a 'judgment,' it is not an appealable, final order." Id.; see also Health Care Assocs., Inc. v. Brevard Physicians Grp., 701 So.2d 118, 119 (Fla. 5th DCA 1997) (applying similar reasoning under section 682.15, Florida Statutes); Loewenstein, Inc. v. Draheim, 898 So.2d 1129, 1130 (Fla. 4th DCA 2005) (finding an order was non-final when the court vacated an order and retained jurisdiction over remaining issues).
The circuit court's order here contemplates no further judicial labor. We need not resort to guesswork; the circuit court's pointed language leaves no doubt. The order did more than just grant the Union's motion to vacate, the order vacated the award: "the arbitration award of Arbitrator Lunin is hereby VACATED." The court even went one step further and closed the case, proclaiming, "There are no additional pending issues before this court and the Clerk of Court is directed to CLOSE this matter." And if there were still any doubt, the court declared that it had "ruled on all relief requested."
Simply put, the order has "unequivocal language of finality." See Hoffman, 817 So.2d at 1058 . As a result, no separate final judgment under section 682.15, Florida Statutes, was necessary. See Big Bend PBA, 703 So.2d at 1069. The order here is final.
With that settled, we now turn to the merits. Treating this case as an appeal of a final order calls for the usual standard of review-competent, substantial evidence for issues of fact and de novo for questions of law. See Regalado v. Cabezas, 959 So.2d 282, 284 (Fla. 3d DCA 2007); see also § 682.20(2), Fla. Stat. (2019) ("The appeal shall be taken in the manner and to the same extent as from orders or judgments in a civil action.").
The Code offers an exhaustive list of circumstances that require courts to vacate an arbitration award. See Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 1579 v. City of Gainesville, 264 So.3d 375, 380 (Fla. 1st DCA 2019); § 682.13, Fla. Stat. (2019). Among the list, a court must vacate an award when an arbitrator violates the rules for conducting hearings to "prejudice substantially" a party's rights. § 682.13(1)(c), Fla. Stat. In turn, the rules for conducting hearings allow an arbitrator to summarily dispose of a claim if all parties agree.[*] § 682.06(2)(a), Fla. Stat. (2019).
Absent one of the circumstances listed in section 682.13, Florida Statutes, a court may not vacate an award. Amalgamated, 264 So.3d at 380; see also Regalado, 959 So.2d at 287-88 (Ramirez, J., concurring) (noting that "an arbitrator has the right to be arbitrary," and upholding an award even though "[t]he evidence supporting the arbitrator's award was as flimsy as rice paper and steady as the flickering of a butterfly").
Applying these provisions here, we must first decide whether the arbitrator violated section 682.06, Florida Statutes, by summarily disposing of the case. Then, if so, whether the violation substantially prejudiced the Union.
The arbitrator violated section 682.06, Florida Statutes, because the parties never agreed to summarily dispose of the claim. At the hearing, the parties could not even concur on the issue before the arbitrator. The hearing transcript shows two parties bickering and arguing in circles, leading to the arbitrator's request for the parties to each submit a brief "[a]s to what the issue is." And in the first sentence of the City's brief-titled, "Argument on Statement of the Issue"-the City wrote, "The parties have been unable to stipulate to the issue to be decided in this arbitration and so the Arbitrator has asked them to set out their respective positions."
The City urges that any disagreement over the issue is irrelevant because the Union still agreed to brief a potentially dispositive issue. But this ignores the context surrounding the briefs: to orient the arbitrator as to the issue. This context is essential. A statement to a mechanic that aims to diagnose the problem with a car cannot be seen as permission to replace a certain part. So too, an assertion about the issue to an arbitrator at the start of a case cannot reasonably be taken as permission to decide the case without hearing any evidence.
Without consent, the arbitrator could not employ the summary procedures in section 682.06(2), Florida Statutes. The next question is whether this violation substantially prejudiced the Union's rights. It did.
Parties to an arbitration generally have a right to a full hearing "with an opportunity to be heard and present evidence." Talel Corp. v. Shimonovitch, 84 So.3d 1192, 1193 (Fla. 4th DCA 2012). Arbitrators need not follow the same rules and procedures as courts, but arbitrators must give parties a "fundamentally fair hearing." Id. at 1194. When an arbitrator fails to give notice and a chance to be heard, an award must be vacated despite a lack of bad intention. Id.
One federal case found an exception to this general rule; an arbitrator is not "guilty of misconduct" by refusing to hear parol evidence to interpret an unambiguous contract. See Spungin v. GenSpring Fam. Offices, LLC, 883 F.Supp.2d 1193, 1198 (S.D. Fla. 2012). In Spungin, a party moved to vacate an arbitration award under a prior version of section 682.06(2), Florida Statutes, which read, "The parties are entitled to be heard, to present evidence material to the controversy and to cross-examine witnesses appearing at the hearing." Id. at 1197; § 682.06(2), Fla. Stat. (2012). The party argued that the arbitration proceedings were "fundamentally unfair" because there was no chance to present evidence as to the parties' intent. Spungin, 883 F.Supp.2d at 1198. The court disagreed, reasoning that parol evidence is admissible only when a contract is ambiguous. Id. Because the arbitrator found that the release was unambiguous, the arbitrator "was not guilty of misconduct" in granting the motion to dismiss without holding an evidentiary hearing. Id.
The arbitrator's summary disposition of the claim substantially prejudiced the Union's rights because the Union never got a full hearing with a chance to present evidence. The City leans on Spungin for the idea that a party is not prejudiced by an arbitrator's failure to hear parol evidence when the arbitrator decides a contract is clear and rules as a matter of law. This reliance is misplaced. To begin with, Spungin is a federal case and does not control this Court's decision. Even so, Spungin's persuasive authority is questionable at best. The court there addressed an older version of section 682.06(2), Florida Statutes. As a result, the court never considered whether the parties consented to summary disposition or whether the party was prejudiced substantially as a result. Simply put, Spungin is unavailing.
The City still contends that no prejudice could have resulted, stressing that the Union has yet to present any evidence that would have changed the result. But the City cites nothing that requires a party to prove as much to establish substantial prejudice. Taking the City's proposed rule to its logical extent, a party could never be prejudiced when an arbitrator decides an issue "as a matter of law." In other words, an arbitrator could immediately decide a case, without notice, consent, or a hearing, and the losing party would be without recourse just because the nature of the arbitrator's decision precludes hearing evidence. This rule would directly contradict the basic principle that parties are entitled to a "fundamentally fair hearing" which includes "an opportunity to be heard and to present evidence." See Talel, 84 So.3d at 1193-94.
Although "an arbitrator has the right to be arbitrary," Regalado, 959 So.2d at 287 (Ramirez, J., concurring), arbitrators must follow the Code's summary procedures first. The arbitrator violated the rules for conducting hearings and substantially prejudiced the Union's rights as a result. Thus, the circuit court correctly vacated the award.
Affirmed.
Osterhaus and Jay, JJ., concur.
[*] There is another way to employ summary proceedings, but that is not relevant here. See § 682.06(2)(b), Fla. Stat.