Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 315223.cor.pdf

illusory. Taylor v. Shigaki, 84 Wn. App. 723, 730, 930 P.2d 340 (1997).

The CBA's "Limitations on Grievances" provision states that "[n]on renewal of

provisional employees and matters relating to evaluation ... shall be grievable only

through Step Three" and that a grievance of that sort could pertain "solely to alleged

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No. 3 1522-3-III
Spokane Sch. Dist. No. 81 v. Spokane Educ. Ass 'n

procedural discrepancies." CP at 109-10. According to the provision, this is with the

understanding that after step three, "non renewal of provisional employees, matters

relating to evaluation, ... and non renewal or discharge matters shall be governed and

controlled by the rights, procedures, and remedies afforded by statute." CP at 109-10.

If a provisional employee could grieve alleged CBA violations that she claimed

led to an adverse evaluation and nonrenewal, could request a remedy that would

compensate her economic loss from the nonrenewal, and could then demand that her

grievance and request for relief be resolved through arbitration under step four, then the

limitations on grievances provision would be meaningless to the district. The union's

agreement to resolve nonrenewal and discharge matters through statutory procedures

would be illusory.

No fair reading of the CBA can support the result advocated by the union. The

trial court properly concluded that Ms. Easterling's claims of progressive discipline

violations, given the remedy she sought, were not arbitrable.

2. Retaliation

The union next argues that the retaliation Ms. Easterling was seeking to grieve

occurred before the district's notice of nonrenewal; it now denies that she was seeking to