Union Just-Cause Actions: California Supreme Court Grants Arbitrators Authority to Decide Pitchess Motions
December 22, 2014 by Andrew Baker
The California Supreme Court has issued a decision making it easier for unions to follow the procedures necessary to obtain disclosure of personnel records for law enforcement officers when they are needed to defend grievants in just-cause arbitration hearings.
When a union suspects that management has disciplined a member more harshly than other members for the same infraction, the union may argue that the discipline lacks just cause because of the employer’s “disparate treatment” of the grievant. To prove this argument, the union needs to obtain disciplinary records about employees other than the grievant, and this invariably means demanding relevant parts of personnel records from management. Management often resists these demands, and in cases where peace officers are involved, the resistance is supported by California law.
The California penal and evidence codes require anyone seeking disclosure of a member of law enforcement’s personnel records to file a Pitchess motion to obtain an order compelling the employer to disclose the personnel records. The process requires the demanding party to establish good cause for the disclosure, and gives the officers whose records are being sought an opportunity to object to disclosure. The Pitchess procedure applies to peace officers, including parole and probation officers, and custodial officers.
The Pitchess procedure is routinely applied in court when a criminal defendant seeks law enforcement personnel records. But when a union seeks disciplinary records of law enforcement personnel to prove a disparate treatment claim in arbitration, how the Pitchess procedure applies has been far from clear. Must the union go to court to file a new legal action in which to bring the Pitchess motion? Or can the arbitrator rule on the motion?
The California Supreme Court has now resolved this controversy in a decision issued December 1, 2014. In Riverside County Sheriff’s Dept. v. Stiglitz, the Court rejected the employer’s argument that only a judge may rule on a Pitchess motion. The Court instead made clear that an arbitrator has authority to hear and decide Pitchess motions. The Court’s decision will limit the ability of public employers to throw up road blocks to union efforts to defend their members from unjust discipline.
The process of challenging unjust discipline of a union member is one of the more complex areas of labor law especially in the public sector. Beeson, Tayer and Bodine (BT&B) attorneys are available to provide more information and to support unions and employees in all areas of job rights and labor law as applied under California statutes.
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