NAGE Local R1-25 and Brockton/West Roxbury VA Medical Center (Authority decision, June 26, 1985)

Final FLRA decision. This final Authority order concerns exceptions to an arbitration award. Under 5 U.S.C. § 7123(a)(1), orders involving arbitral awards are generally excluded from judicial review unless they involve an unfair labor practice under 5 U.S.C. § 7116. This decision does not resolve an unfair-labor-practice claim.

Plain-English summary

The Brockton/West Roxbury VA Medical Center filed exceptions to an arbitration award served by mail on April 4, 1985. The Authority calculated a May 8 deadline for filing. The exceptions arrived on May 13, so it dismissed them as untimely without addressing the award's merits.

Decision snapshot

• Authority: Arbitration exception deadline under 5 U.S.C. § 7122(b) and 5 C.F.R. § 2425.1.
• Outcome: Agency exceptions dismissed as untimely.
• Key point: An arbitration exception must be filed within the period measured from service of the award.

Full text (FLRA public release)

[ v18 p766 ]

18:0766(91)AR

The decision of the Authority follows:

18 FLRA No. 91

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GOVERNMENT
EMPLOYEES, LOCAL R1-25
Union

and

BROCKTON/WEST ROXBURY VETERANS
ADMINISTRATION MEDICAL CENTER
Activity

Case No. 0-AR-975

ORDER DISMISSING EXCEPTIONS

This case is before the Authority on exceptions to the award of Arbitrator Francis T. O'Brien filed by the Agency pursuant to section 7122(a) of the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute and section 2425.1 of the Authority's Rules and Regulations. For the reasons stated below, it has been determined that the exceptions must be dismissed as untimely filed.

The Arbitrator's award is dated April 4, 1985, and appears to have been served on the parties by mail on the same day.

Under section 7122(b) of the Statute, as amended, /1/ and section 2425.1 of the Authority's Rules and Regulations, as amended, /2/ which amendments are applicable to exceptions pending or filed with the Authority on or after March 2, 1984, and under sections 2429.21 and 2429.22 of the Rules and Regulations, which are also applicable to computation of the time limit here involved, any exceptions to the Arbitrator's award in this case had to be filed with the Authority no later than the close of business on May 8, 1985. However the exceptions were not filed until May 13, 1985. Therefore, the exceptions were untimely filed.

Accordingly, as the Agency's exceptions were untimely filed, they are hereby dismissed. For the Authority. Issued, Washington, D.C., June 26, 1985 Harold D. Kessler Managing Director for Case Processing

--------------- FOOTNOTES$ ---------------

/1/ Section 7122(b) of the Statute was amended by the Civil Service Miscellaneous Amendments Act of 1983 (Pub. L. No. 98-224, Sec. 4, 98 Stat. 47, 48 (1984)) to provide that the 30-day period for filing exceptions to an arbitrator's award begins on the date the award is served on the filing party.

/2/ 49 Fed.Reg. 22623 (1984).