Limited Role of Courts in Determining Applications to Stay Arbitration (Re: a Collective Bargaining Agreement [CBA]) Explained

The Third Department determined the petition to stay arbitration in a teacher-tenure matter should have been denied. In so finding, the Third Department explained the limited role of the courts in determining applications to stay arbitration:

The court’s role in determining applications to stay arbitration is limited and, as relevant here, requires a determination of whether the parties have agreed to arbitrate the dispute at issue … .Inasmuch as respondent has asserted a violation of the evaluation procedures agreed to by the parties as part of the CBA, there is a rational relationship between the subject of the grievance and the CBA … . The question of whether petitioner violated these procedures “goes to the merits of the grievance, not to its arbitrability” … . “[T]he fact that the substantive clauses of the contract might not support the grievances . . . is irrelevant on the threshold question of arbitrability. It is for the arbitrator, and not the courts, to resolve any uncertainty concerning the substantive rights and obligations of the[] parties'” … . Matter of Brunswick Central School District …, 517060, 3rd Dept 2-20-14