Legal Lesson of the Month: No Arbitration, No Lawsuit

EMS can be full of interesting and tricky legal scenarios. While you can’t have an attorney ride with you, it behooves providers to have at least some familiarity with the principles, precedents, and major issues of EMS law. To that end EMS World is pleased to offer the EMS Legal Lesson of the Month.

These cases are presented by prominent attorneys in the EMS field. This month’s comes from Larry Bennett, program chair for fire science and emergency management at the University of Cincinnati. Bennett’s department publishes a monthly Fire & EMS and Safety Law newsletter; subscribe to that by e-mailing Lawrence.bennett@uc.edu or read the latest edition here.

Case: Augustine Eddy v. Pascoag, Rhode Island Fire District, Pascoag Fire and Rescue Association, and International Association of Fire Fighters Local 4908

Decided: January 2022

Verdict: The Supreme Court of Rhode Island held 4–0 that the trial court properly dismissed Eddy’s lawsuit against the fire district and the union because he never pursued arbitration.

Facts: In January 2016 the district presented Eddy with a plan for remedial training to address complaints from his partner regarding his job performance. Eddy was given 3 months to show improvement before the district would consider suspension.

On March 27, 2016 Eddy and 3 coworkers were dispatched to transport a 37-year-old patient with paraplegia experiencing difficulty breathing. Eddy was the primary patient caregiver for the dispatch. During the transport the patient lost consciousness and ultimately died at the hospital. The plaintiff was told that night that he was suspended with pay pending an investigation.

On April 3, 2016 Chief Harold Carter sent a letter to the Board of Fire Commissioners notifying the board he was recommending Eddy’s termination. The letter said Carter had suspended Eddy with pay pending an investigation following the March 27, 2016 incident and that a subsequent investigation found deficiencies in his performance during the transport. Carter’s letter concluded that Eddy’s failures, in addition to his admission to Carter shortly after the incident that “I know, I know, my skills are not what they should be, I should [have] started an IV,” made clear the action plan implemented earlier in the year to address the plaintiff’s need for improvement had had no effect on his performance.

Following a pretermination hearing on April 6, 2016 to provide Eddy with an opportunity to respond, Eddy was terminated by the district on April 12, 2016. By letter Carter reiterated that his recommendation was based on Eddy’s “conduct and performance during a rescue run on March 27, 2016” and his “continuing and ongoing inability to perform the functions of [his] position despite counseling and additional training.”

On April 19, 2016 Eddy met with the executive board of the union to discuss his termination and the grievance process steps, including arbitration. Thereafter, he began the grievance process in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the district and the union. On April 24, 2016, pursuant to the CBA, Eddy submitted his initial grievance alleging wrongful termination and requesting the district immediately rescind it. This grievance was rejected by Carter on the grounds Eddy had failed to exercise good judgment and take basic actions during a critical situation—the March 27, 2016 transport incident—and that he’d had his performance called into question in the past and not improved despite efforts to that end.

On May 3, 2016 Eddy proceeded to the next step of the grievance process, again alleging wrongful termination and requesting the district immediately rescind the termination. This grievance was similarly rejected by David Carpenter, chair of the board. By letter dated June 10, 2016, the union executive board informed Eddy it had decided not to seek arbitration for his grievance. The executive board opined in that letter that plaintiff’s termination had merit. The union president later represented in an interrogatory answer that the union “could not afford going to arbitration” for Eddy.

According to Eddy, however, a day before the deadline to submit the matter to arbitration, the union informed Eddy it would proceed to arbitration provided Eddy retained an attorney at his own expense. The plaintiff asserted he “was unable to retain an attorney to handle the arbitration, so the deadline passed without the union filing for arbitration.” Eddy sought no further relief through the administrative process.

Key quote: “We discern no competent evidence in the record to suggest the union prevented the plaintiff from exhausting the administrative remedies available to him. Specifically, under the union’s constitution and bylaws, the plaintiff had the ability to appeal the union’s decision not to pay for arbitration to the union’s general president, but he failed to do so. There is no evidence to suggest the union prevented him from appealing under the union bylaws. Therefore, the plaintiff fails to establish that the union induced him to fail to act.”

Legal lesson: Under his CBA this paramedic failed to exhaust his administrative remedies by pursuing arbitration.