Court Rulings

The plaintiff town appealed to the Superior Court from the decision of the defendant State Board of Labor Relations determining that the town had unilaterally changed an established past practice of including extra duty pay in the calculation of pensions for members of the defendant union, M Co., in violation of the Municipal Employees Relations Act (§ 7-467 et seq.). The town established a retirement committee to admin- ister its retirement plan, consisting of three members appointed by the town. In the midst of ongoing negotiations with M Co. for a successor collective bargaining agreement, the retirement committee notified M Co. that it had decided to exclude extra duty pay from pension calcula- tions. M Co. filed a complaint with the labor board, alleging that the town violated the act when the retirement committee unilaterally elimi- nated extra duty pay from pension calculations. The town claimed, inter alia, that the labor board lacked jurisdiction over the complaint because the retirement committee was not a municipal employer under the act as defined by statute (§ 7-467). The labor board issued a finding that the town violated the statute (§ 7-470 (a) (4)) requiring municipal employers to bargain in good faith when the retirement committee excluded extra duty pay from the calculation of pensions. The labor board found, inter alia, that there was a consistent past practice of including extra duty pay in pension calculations that had endured for almost thirty years. It rejected the town's contract defense, concluding that M Co. had not waived its right to bargain over changes to the calculation of future retirement benefits. The labor board applied its well established standard that a waiver must be clear and unmistakable. During the pendency of the town's administrative appeal, the National Labor Relations Board issued a decision in MV Transportation, Inc. (368 N.L.R.B. No. 66), in which it abandoned the clear and unmistakable waiver standard for determining

The plaintiff appealed to this court from the judgments of the trial court dismissing the substitute complaints in three cases she had filed against her former employer, the defendant hospital, as barred by the exclusivity provision (§ 31-284 (a)) of the Workers' Compensation Act (§ 31-275 et seq.). The plaintiff had been employed by the defendant when she suf- fered an injury for which she sought workers' compensation benefits, and the defendant accepted the claim. The plaintiff filed functionally identical substitute complaints in each of the three actions, alleging, inter alia, that the defendant had engaged in retaliatory and discriminatory conduct against her in violation of statute (§ 31-290a) as a result of her having sought workers' compensation benefits. The trial court granted the defendant's motions to strike all three complaints, determining that they did not allege employment discrimination claims pursuant to § 31- 290a but, rather, bad faith processing of a workers' compensation claim, which was barred by § 31-284 (a). Held that the trial court properly struck the complaints as being barred by § 31-284 (a), as the plaintiff failed to allege any adverse employment action by the defendant, none of its alleged behavior related to or had any effect on her employment status, she admitted in her complaints that the defendant's behavior did not arise out of or in the course of her employment, and, despite her attempt to recast her claims as alleging employment discrimination, she alleged nothing more than bad faith processing of her workers' compensation claim. Argued January 20—officially released May 3, 2022