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Groslinger was Wyckoff’s only female cop when she protested the department’s refusal of light duty during her pregnancy. She said she was also denied paid leave for pregnancy-related absences, which she said violated the police union’s collective bargaining agreement with the township.
She later complained that she was assigned administrative and civilian dispatcher duties despite her pregnancy, another contract violation.
A third grievance said a new 15-day-per-year sick leave policy contradicted the full year she was entitled to under the collective bargaining agreement.
By this time, the PBA Local 261 had filed grievances of its own supporting Groslinger. At the same time, she filed a civil suit, alleging violations of the state’s Law Against Discrimination and Family Leave Act.
The arbitrator determined that the issue was whether the township violated the collective bargaining agreement by assigning Groslinger civilian dispatcher duties.
“Officer Groslinger was not given regular assignments with consistent schedules, duties and hours to be worked,” he wrote. “Male officers worked with regular schedules and duties with a medical condition.”
By changing their accommodation process for a female officer” and “lowering the status of Officer Groslinger because she was a female working with a medical condition,” township officials violated the bargaining agreement.
The arbitrator ordered the department to “cease and desist” violating the agreement’s sick leave provisions.
The township sued Groslinger and the PBA, saying the arbitrator exceeded the scope of his authority by framing the issue around sick leave.
Superior Court Judge Daniel Mecca agreed.
Groslinger and the union “instigated proceedings for the purpose of addressing sick leave and gender discrimination, separate and independent from the current action,” he ruled.
The judge, sitting in Hackensack, said Groslinger and the PBA “never requested the involvement of [the arbitrator] to evaluate possible violations of the [collective bargaining agreement’s] sick leave provision and gender discrimination clause.”
He was wrong, the appeals court said.
For one thing, the justice said, Mecca shouldn’t have used the pending discrimination lawsuit against Groslinger and the PBA “as a basis for vacating the arbitration award.”
“We see no reason in these circumstances why parallel pursuit of the two avenues of recovery should be precluded,” the appeals judges wrote.
Mecca also blundered when he found that the arbitrator had improperly failed to consider “the financial impact of an award on the residents of Wyckoff.” The judge said the arbitration and the lawsuit could leave taxpayers “forced to pay damages to the same party in two cases based on exactly the same facts and/or conduct.”
“We find no precedent to support an argument that the cost of the arbitration itself should factor in the arbitrator’s decision,” the appeals court wrote. “Indeed, we do not see how it could do so without unjustifiably undermining what is generally recognized as a beneficial process.
The judges cited federal precedent in their ruling that Groslinger and the PBA were right, and Mecca and the township were wrong.
“By submitting a broad issue without limitations as to contractual provisions to be interpreted, the parties ceded to the arbitrator the duty to define the precise contours of the issue submitted,” the judges wrote.
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