Board of Education of Waterbury

The plaintiff board sought to vacate an arbitration award issued in connec- tion with a grievance filed by the defendant union on behalf of a class of teachers, some of whom were assigned to the T school, alleging that the board had violated the parties' collective bargaining agreement by depriving certain teachers of their bargained for weekly preparation periods. Following arbitration proceedings, the arbitrator found that twenty-two teachers at the T school had been routinely deprived of preparation periods as a result of being required to substitute for absent teachers. In his award, the arbitrator ordered that the affected teachers be awarded compensatory damages and that the board cease and desist from depriving the teachers at the T school of their preparation periods. The trial court granted the board's application to vacate the award, denied the union's application to confirm the award and rendered judg- ment thereon, from which the union appealed to this court. Held: 1. The trial court improperly vacated the arbitration award, pursuant to the applicable statute (§ 52-418 (a) (4)), on the ground that the arbitrator exceeded or so imperfectly executed his powers that a mutual, final and definite award on the subject matter submitted was not made, as the award conformed to the arbitration submission: the unrestricted submission required a determination of whether teachers at the T school were deprived of their preparation periods and, if so, the nature and extent of their remedy, and the award determined that only twenty-two teachers at the T school had been deprived of their preparation periods, awarded the affected teachers compensatory damages and ordered the board to cease and desist from depriving the teachers at the T school of their preparation periods, and, therefore, the award plainly conformed to the submission because it was directly responsive to, and did not exceed the scope of, the submission; moreover, there was no merit to the board's argument