Our labor and employment group successfully overturned an arbitration decision in Superior court for a K&P client. Since there is a strong public policy in Massachusetts favoring arbitration, judicial review and reversal is available only in very limited circumstances. In this matter, however, the court held that the arbitrator’s retroactive award of sick leave and sick leave buyback offended public policy, since the result would have been a windfall for employees, by potentially crediting them with hundreds of sick days, and would have presented a heavy financial burden on the town.
