Black v. Cutter Laboratories

Cutter Laboratories, Inc., appeals from a judgment entered upon the granting of an order confirming the award of an arbitration board. (See Code Civ. Proc., §§ 1291-1293.) By the award, rendered by two of the three arbitrators with the third dissenting, it was held that appellant (hereinafter sometimes termed the company) had discharged one of its employes in violation of a collective bargaining agreement between appellant and the Bio-Lab Union (hereinafter sometimes called the union) of Local 225, United Office and Professional Workers of America, and that the employe was entitled to reinstatement and to back pay limited by the bargaining agreement to eight weeks regular pay less any outside earnings or unemployment compensation received during such period. We have concluded that, upon the undisputed evidence and upon the facts found by the arbitration board, the company is correct in its contention that the arbitrators exceeded their powers, that the award is contrary to law, that it would'contravene public policy for the courts of this state to enforce reinstatement of the discharged employe, and that the judgment must therefore be reversed.

From extensive findings made by the…

All the members of the court agree that we are bound by the determination of the arbitrators * that for two and one-half years Doris Walker’s com *810 munist affiliations were a matter of indifference to Cutter, that Cutter therefore waived her communist affiliations as a ground for discharging her, that it discharged her solely because of her lawful union activity, and that in doing so it violated its collective bargaining agreement with the Union. (Code Civ. Proc., §§ 1280-1293; Pacific Vegetable Oil Corp. v. C.S.T., Ltd., 29 Cal.2d 228, 233 [ 174 P.2d 441 ] ; Sapp v. Barenfeld, 34 Cal.2d 515, 523 [ 212 P.2d 233 ]; Crofoot v. Blair Holdings Corp., 119 Cal.App.2d 156, 185 [ 260 P.2d 156 ]; see Loving & Evans v. Blick, 33 Cal.2d 603, 609 [ 204 P.2d 23 ].) It would seem necessarily to follow that we should affirm the judgment of the superior court confirming the award. The majority opinion holds, however, “that an arbitration award which directs that a member of the Communist *811 Party who is dedicated to that party’s program of ‘sabotage, force, violence and the like’ be reinstated to employment in a plant which produces antibiotics used by both the military and civilians is…