Alaska Employment Law

The Alaska Supreme Court issued one opinion today, and it’s an arbitration one.  Here’s Justice Matthews’ summary:

The question presented is whether the State is protected by sovereign immunity from payment of prejudgment interest on an award made by an arbitrator under a collective bargaining agreement. The superior court decided that the State was not so protected and awarded prejudgment interest on the arbitrator’s award. We largely affirm because the enforcement of the arbitrator’s award in this case sounds in contract and is enforceable in a proceeding encompassed by the general statute applicable to contract claims against the State, which waives immunity as to prejudgment interest.

The Court’s characterization of the case as one “sounding in contract” flowed from its location of the trial court’s power to confirm an arbitration award in the PERA context:

The arbitrator’s decision in this case was not only not judicially reviewable under the appellate rules, it was likewise not judicially reviewable under any statute pertaining to arbitration.  PERA also is silent on the subject of judicial review of arbitration awards. Since it is not contested in this case that a judicial remedy was available, and since no specific statute or rule prescribed or defined the remedy, it seems right to conclude that the remedy that was available had its source in decisional law.

There are numerous authorities that hold that in the absence of statute a suit to confirm an arbitrator’s award where arbitration has been contracted for is a suit to enforce a contract. At common law, an “arbitration award is not self-enforcing. An action at law such as a contract action is an appropriate vehicle for enforcing the award.”  ASEA’s action to enforce the arbitrator’s award in this case fits comfortably within these authorities.

Since we conclude that ASEA’s suit can properly be characterized as a contract claim recognized at common law, we conclude that it is encompassed by AS 09.50.250 which, as we have seen, generally applies to contract claims against the State.  Since prejudgment interest is authorized for suits brought under AS 09.50.250, the State’s sovereign immunity argument must be rejected.

The opinion doesn’t identify the arbitrator.

State v. ASEA, Op. No. 6298 (Alaska Aug. 22, 2008)(footnotes omitted)

William Milks, AAG, represented the State.  Brad Owens from JDO represented the union.