American Medical Response

An ambulance driver was a member of the Teamsters Local 769 (union) (plaintiff) and an employee of American Medical Response (American Medical) (defendant). A collective-bargaining agreement (CBA) between the union and American Medical provided that American Medical had the staffing authority to require mandatory overtime. Under the CBA, American Medical was required to give an employee notice that the employee would need to stay longer than a scheduled shift at least one hour before the end of the employee’s shift. Additionally, under normal practice, the period of the last 45 minutes of a shift was reserved for paperwork, not ambulance calls. The CBA also gave American Medical broad rights to manage its operations, including immediate discharge of employees for insubordination. Consistently with this authority, the CBA made clear that an arbitrator could not modify the level of discipline as determined by American Medical for an offense. One day, the driver was on a call during a shift that was scheduled to end at 6:00 p.m. At 4:30 p.m., a supervisor called and requested that the driver do one more call between 5:15 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. (i.e., during the period the driver would normally do paperwork). Although the driver was a union steward, she misinterpreted the CBA provision regarding notice for overtime as requiring the overtime request to come in an hour before 5:15 p.m. instead of an hour before 6:00 p.m. The driver and a coworker refused to complete the call, citing their understanding of the CBA. American Medical terminated the driver for insubordination, which was challenged under the CBA. The union argued that the driver had not been terminated for just cause and that the termination violated the CBA. Specifically, the union asserted that (1) the driver’s conduct did not rise to the level of insubordination because the driver did not receive a direct order, (2) the termination constituted disparate treatment because the driver’s coworker received only a warning letter for refusing to take the call, and (3) the termination penalty was too harsh.