Background
Tracylyn Lopez, a correctional officer and union representative at Salinas Valley State Prison, was suspended for 60 workdays after posting materials from an earlier disciplinary action on a union bulletin board. The posted materials revealed the nature of her discipline and the surnames of two officers involved in the underlying incident. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) argued the posting fostered the “code of silence” — an unwritten rule discouraging officers from reporting misconduct by fellow officers.
Lopez challenged the suspension through two separate proceedings. Before the State Personnel Board (SPB), the suspension was upheld as justified under the Civil Service Act. Separately, her union (CCPOA) pursued arbitration under the parties’ memorandum of understanding (MOU), arguing the discipline violated the Ralph C. Dills Act — California’s collective bargaining statute for state employees — by retaliating against protected union activity.
The arbitrator ruled in Lopez’s favor, finding CDCR discriminated against and interfered with protected speech and union activity. The arbitrator ordered the suspension rescinded with backpay. CDCR petitioned to vacate the award, and the trial court struck the remedy portion, concluding the arbitrator lacked authority to effectively reverse discipline the SPB had already approved.
The Court’s Holding
The Third District reversed. The court applied the “extremely narrow” standard of judicial review for labor arbitration awards and concluded the arbitrator did not exceed her powers. Under Code of Civil Procedure sections 1286.2 and 1286.6, an arbitration award may be vacated or corrected only in limited circumstances, including when the arbitrator exceeds their powers by issuing an award that contravenes an “explicit legislative expression of public policy.”
CDCR raised two public policy arguments. First, it claimed the award interfered with the SPB’s constitutional authority to “review disciplinary actions” under Article VII, section 3(a) of the California Constitution. The court acknowledged this is an explicit expression of public policy but found the award itself did not violate it — the SPB reviewed the discipline under the Civil Service Act, and the arbitrator independently addressed whether that same discipline constituted retaliation under the Dills Act. These overlapping adjudications were not “necessarily incompatible.”
Second, CDCR argued the award undermined the public policy of combatting the code of silence. The court found that even assuming such a policy exists in explicit legislative form, the award did not violate it because there is no public policy requiring any particular term of suspension for officers found to have fostered the code of silence.
Key Takeaways
- An arbitrator acting under a collective bargaining agreement may enter an award that offsets a penalty previously upheld by the SPB, so long as the arbitrator addresses a different legal question (here, Dills Act retaliation rather than Civil Service Act cause).
- The public policy exception to arbitration finality requires that the award itself — not the underlying conduct — conflict with an explicit, well-defined, and dominant expression of public policy.
- Overlapping adjudications between the SPB and labor arbitrators are not inherently unconstitutional; the SPB’s constitutional review authority and PERB’s labor-law jurisdiction serve different but complementary purposes.
- Courts must pay “substantial deference” to an arbitrator’s determination of her own authority and resolve doubts in the arbitrator’s favor.
Why It Matters
This decision clarifies a long-unresolved tension in California public employment law: what happens when the SPB upholds discipline but a labor arbitrator finds the same discipline was retaliatory. The court’s answer — that both results can legally coexist without one trumping the other — is a significant win for public-sector unions. It means that contractual grievance remedies under the Dills Act remain enforceable even when the SPB has already weighed in on the same discipline under a different legal framework.
For public employers, the decision signals that winning before the SPB does not immunize disciplinary decisions from arbitral review on labor-law grounds. Agencies should anticipate that discipline motivated even partly by antiunion animus can be offset through arbitration, regardless of the SPB’s independent determination that cause existed.