Accusation and Violation Assignment

Running head: CASE EVALUATION
Case Evaluation
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

CASE EVALUATION
Summary of Facts
In this case plaintiff is Douglas Dejaeghere who is a former police officer of the city of
Birmingham. The plaintiff had been accused of misconduct by the city of Birmingham. The
accusation was related to the violation of several procedures, policies, regulations and rules of
the department of city police. The plaintiff also had a long history of disciplinary action at the
time of his discharge. These actions consisted of former termination of the plaintiff’s
employment in the year 1996, which had been modified by the arbitrator as suspension without
any payment in the year 1998. Two separate incidents steamed the most recent disciplinary
actions which had been taken against the plaintiff. Firstly the plaintiff had been involved in
improperly using emergency equipment which was provided to him by the police during
patrolling in his vehicle. In addition the plaintiff was found to have possessed and used in an
unauthorized manner a video camera belonging to the police department. The case has been
brought by the plaintiff against the Police Officers Association of Michigan (POAM).
The claim which has been made by the plaintiff in this case is that dependent have
violated their duty to provide fair representation to the plaintiff as they have violated the terms of
the collective bargaining agreement and not taken the grievance procedure to arbitration. The
plaintiff was a member of the defendant union as he was a police officer in the city of
Birmingham and the union represented the police officers of the city of Birmingham. The
defendants in this case are a public employee labor organization (union). POAM had represented
the plaintiff parole officer as its certified union. The employer of the plaintiff in this case is the
city of Birmingham. It is known that the relationship between the employee and the employer is
governed by the Michigan Public Employment Relations Act which sets out the right of public
workers to form, join or organize unions in the state. The employer has the duty to recognize the

CASE EVALUATION
union and indulge in collective bargaining once the labor has become exclusive bargaining
representative of the employees.
The issue in this case resulted out of the grievance process in the collective agreement.
The collective bargaining agreement had been violated according to the plaintiff and the
grievance procedure has been initiated. The defendant union had represented the plaintiff in all
the steps involved in the grievance procedure namely step 1, step 2 step 3, step 4 and step 5.
However after the completion of the steps the union was not able to get to an understating with
the employer in relation to the dispute. After no conclusion has been reached between the union
and the employer the union has the option to the issue to the process called arbitration. In this
process neutral third people analyzes the facts of the case and provide a decision which both
parties to the dispute accept. The process can be time consuming and costly of both the employer
and the union.
The claim for arbitration has to be filed within a limited time after which the right is said
to be waived or forfeited. In the given situation the defendant union did not file a claim for
arbitration within the time for the plaintiff. This situation led the plaintiff to make a claim against
the defendant.
Rules and Arguments
The duty of fair representation is imposed in labor United Stated Labor unions who
exclusively represent the employees of a particular group in bargaining. It is the duty of such
unions to represent all employees without doing any discrimination, in good faith and in a fair
manner. The situation had been recognized by the US Supreme Court through a series of cases
taking place in the mid 1940s which involved racial discrimination in railway workers. The duty