Connecticut: Arbitration Decision Adverse to Discharged Employee Does Not Bar Separate Retaliatory Discharge Action

A former employee should be permitted to pursue a claim under against a former employer for retaliatory discharge under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 31-290a, in spite of the fact that the former employee’s union filed a grievance that was submitted to arbitration pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement and the mediation and arbitration board determined that the employer had just cause to terminate the plaintiff, held the Supreme Court of Connecticut. The former employer contended that the retaliatory discharge claim was barred by collateral estoppel because the issue arising from the claim had been finally decided by the mediation and arbitration board in the prior arbitration. The Court disagreed, observing that the legislature had contemplated that employees covered by collective bargaining agreements would have the same right as other employees to raise a statutory claim (i.e., retaliatory discharge) in an agency, such as the Workers' Compensation Commission. 

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance. 

See Williams v. City of New Haven, 329 Conn. 366, 2018 Conn. LEXIS 240 (July 3, 2018)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 104.07.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law