Brass City Local, CACP v. Waterbury

Citations

• 337 Conn. 576

Syllabus

The plaintiff, a collective bargaining unit that represented employees of the Waterbury Police Department, appealed from the trial court's judgment dismissing for lack of subject matter jurisdiction the plaintiff's applica- tion to confirm an interest arbitration award that had been issued pursu- ant to statute (§ 7-473c). The plaintiff and the defendant city, which were parties to an expired collective bargaining agreement, entered into mandatory, binding arbitration after they failed to negotiate a successor agreement. The resulting arbitration award determined the terms and conditions of the successor agreement. The city filed a motion to dismiss the plaintiff's application to confirm, contending that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to consider it. In granting the city's motion, the trial court concluded, inter alia, that § 7-473c did not, by its terms, authorize judicial review of an interest arbitration award by way of an application to confirm filed pursuant to statute (§ 52-417). On appeal from the dismissal of the plaintiff's application to confirm, held that the trial court correctly determined that it lacked jurisdiction under § 52-417 to confirm an interest arbitration award issued pursuant to § 7-473c and, accordingly, properly granted the city's motion to dis- miss: the provisions of chapter 909 of the General Statutes, including § 52-417, which generally govern agreements to arbitrate and arbitration proceedings, apply solely to arbitral awards resulting from written agree- ments to arbitrate, and it was undisputed that the parties' arbitration was not conducted pursuant to such an agreement but, rather, in accor- dance with the mandatory arbitration provisions of § 7-473c; moreover, although § 7-473c explicitly provides that parties may seek to vacate or modify an interest arbitration award under the statutes (§§ 52-418 and 52- 419) governing applications to vacate and to modify arbitration awards, respectively, § 7-473c does not pr