Court Rulings

The common pleas court erred in granting appellee's motion to compel arbitration where the merits of the grievance filed by appellee were already decided in a past arbitration and appellee is not entitled to have the matter resubmitted to arbitration because it missed the timeframe for requesting arbitration set forth in the parties' collective bargaining agreement.

Kimber Halliburton, the director of the Washington County Board of Education, notified Stacia Howard, a non-tenured teacher, that her employment contract would not be renewed. The Washington County board did not review the director's decision because the board's attorney believed that the board lacked the legal authority to do so. Ms. Howard and the Washington County Education Association (WCEA) filed a complaint against the board and the director. Plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment regarding the authority of the board to review and modify the director's personnel decisions, including the director's decision to non-renew Ms. Howard's contract. Defendants filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that plaintiffs lacked standing. The trial court granted the defendants' motion. Plaintiffs appeal. We affirm.

The plaintiff appealed a judgment from the Superior Court granting summary judgment in favor of the defendants. According to Automatic Temperature Controls (ATC), the plaintiff's former employer, in June 2011, the company installed tracking software on the plaintiff's work computer after child pornography was discovered on the computer. The tracking software took "screenshots" of the activity on the plaintiff's work computer, which were provided to the local police department and led to the plaintiff's arrest and ultimate conviction for possession of child pornography. In August 2016, the plaintiff filed an action in Superior Court against the defendants, alleging that ATC had violated the Rhode Island Wiretap Act, the Rhode Island Computer Crime Act, the Rhode Island Software Fraud Act, state privacy laws, as well as various federal laws, when it installed the tracking software on the plaintiff's work computer without his consent. The Superior Court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants on the grounds that the plaintiff's state law claims were time barred by the three-year statute of limitations set forth in G.L. 1956 § 9-1-14(b). On appeal, the plaintiff argued that the discovery rule should have applied to his claims under the Computer Crime Act and the Software Fraud Act. The plaintiff also contended that the hearing justice erred when he found that there was no evidence indicating that ATC had fraudulently concealed the existence of the plaintiff's claims under the Computer Crime Act and the Software Fraud Act. Further, the plaintiff maintained that the continuing violation doctrine should have applied to his claims under the Rhode Island Wiretap Act. The Supreme Court held that the discovery rule did not apply to the plaintiff's claims under the Computer Crime Act and the Software Fraud Act, but noted that, even if it did, the latest a reasonable person would have discovered such a cause of action was at the plaintiff's unemployment hearing on Ja

This is an appeal of an employer's Petition for Judicial Review, which challenged a ruling by the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development that the employer's former employee was entitled to unemployment benefits. The employer contended the employee was ineligible for benefits because she was terminated for "misconduct," as defined in the Tennessee Employment Security Act, for violating a policy known to the employee by using the employer's property for a non-businessrelated purpose. The Department found that the employee's frequent use of the employer's internal instant message system to "chat" with co-workers was an error in judgment or discretion but did not rise to the level of "misconduct," which Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-7-303(b)(3) defines as excluding "good faith errors in judgment or discretion." The chancery court affirmed the agency's decision. The employer appeals, contending the "good faith exception" never applies when an employee is discharged for violating an employer's policy or rule. The Department counters, insisting the good faith exception applies regardless of the employer's reason for termination. Construing the statute according to the natural, ordinary meaning of the language chosen by the legislature, we have determined that an employee's violation of an employer's policy that is due to good faith errors in judgment or discretion does not constitute "misconduct" as that term is defined in Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-7-303. Accordingly, we affirm.

he defendants, the Town of Johnston, the Johnston School Department, the Johnston School Committee, and various municipal officials (the town), appealed from the Superior Court's entry of summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, Rhode Island American Federation of Teachers/Retired Local 8307 and several retirees of the Johnston School Department (the association) in this declaratory-judgment action involving the annual cost of a life insurance policy made available to retired teachers in Johnston, Rhode Island. On appeal, the town argued that the Superior Court erred in granting the association's motion for summary judgment and denying its cross-motion for summary judgment because, according to the town, the trial justice incorrectly interpreted G.L. 1956 § 16-16-42. The town argued that the cost of life insurance for retired teachers must be that which is in effect at the time the teacher retires, not before the teacher retires. The Supreme Court held that the statute carries no ambiguity thus, in accordance with its plain and ordinary meaning, Johnston's teachers are entitled to retain the insurance coverage in effect at the time of retirement by paying the same annual cost that the retiree paid before retirement, as an active employee. Accordingly, the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Superior Court granting the association's motion for summary judgment.

The petitioners, Robin Brindle, Kathleen Brown, Sandra Carter, Marcie LaPorte, and Kelvin Ramirez, filed petitions for writ of certiorari to this Court pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act, G.L. 1956 § 42-35-16, seeking review of a Superior Court judgment affirming a decision of the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training that denied the petitioners' wage and hour claims against Delta Airlines, Inc. The petition was granted, and, before the Supreme Court, the petitioners argued that the Superior Court erred in affirming DLT's finding that G.L. 1956 § 25-3-3 is preempted by federal law, specifically, 49 U.S.C § 41713(b)(1) of the Airline Deregulation Act (the ADA). The Supreme Court held that requiring airlines such as Delta to provide one-and-one-half-times the normal rate of pay for work on Sundays and holidays does in fact relate to the services provided by Delta, and, thus, the logical effect of § 25-3-3 on Delta's delivery of services is sufficient to bring the statute within the preemptive scope of the ADA. Specifically, the Court determined that the sworn testimony offered by Delta before the DLT demonstrated that forcing Delta to comply with the requirements of § 25-3-3 could significantly impact the services that Delta and other airlines provide on Sundays and holidays. The Court concluded that there was sufficient evidence in the record for the Superior Court to conclude that DLT's decision was supported by adequate and legally competent evidence. Accordingly, the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Superior Court.

This is the third appeal to address the issue of alimony between these parties. Pursuant to our decision in the first appeal, Husband was required to pay Wife $6,000 per month in alimony in futuro. In this proceeding, Husband sought termination or reduction of his alimony obligation due to a disability that rendered him unable to work. After Husband filed his petition, he unilaterally reduced the amount of alimony that he paid during the proceeding. Following a hearing, the trial court found that a substantial and material change in circumstances had occurred due to Husband's disability, and the court concluded that a reduction of the alimony obligation was warranted. The trial court reduced the alimony in futuro award from $6,000 per month to $3,900 per month. However, the trial court found Husband in contempt for willfully failing to pay alimony in accordance with the existing order during this proceeding. The trial court awarded Wife a judgment for the arrearage but calculated it based on the reduced rate of $3,900 per month. Wife appeals, asserting that Husband maintains the ability to pay alimony at the previous level of $6,000 per month despite his disability. She also requests recalculation of the arrearage and seeks an award of attorney's fees. For the following reasons, we reverse the decision of the trial court and reinstate the alimony award of $6,000 per month. The arrearage should also be recalculated based on the original award of $6,000 per month plus post-judgment interest. We further conclude that Wife is entitled to an award of attorney's fees on appeal and remand for the trial court to determine an appropriate award. The trial court should reconsider Wife's request for attorney's fees incurred in the trial court.

The defendant, Steven Robinson, appealed from an order of the Superior Court that denied his motion to confirm an arbitration award issued in his favor in court-annexed arbitration. Although the plaintiff, Gerald Richard, filed a timely rejection of the arbitration award, his initial electronically submitted filing was rejected because he had used an incorrect filing code. When the statutory period for filing a rejection expired, the defendant filed a motion to confirm the award. Soon thereafter, the plaintiff corrected his initial filing. The Superior Court denied defendant's motion to confirm the arbitration award. On appeal, the Supreme Court noted that an improper code is not a sufficient reason for rejecting an electronic filing in an arbitration case, but noted that plaintiff had not challenged the procedures used to reject his filing in this case. The Court held that Article X, Rule 5(c) of the Supreme Court Rules Governing Electronic Filing directs that, if an electronically submitted filing is rejected, a corrected filing will relate back to the date of the original filing if made "promptly." The Court further held that a determination of whether a correction was made promptly is within the sound discretion of the trial justice, and the Court's review of such a determination is limited to whether the trial justice abused his or her discretion. The Court discerned no abuse of discretion in this case and affirmed the order of the Superior Court.