Shani Hannah

Cleveland tried to fire officer Shani Hannah after she stabbed her boyfriend and admitted to assault. But an arbitrator said that was inconsistent with what the city had done with other officers who did similar or more serious bad deeds. Four officers who committed acts of domestic violence got to keep their jobs.

(Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Department)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - A Cleveland police officer who stabbed her boyfriend cannot be fired, an arbitrator ruled.

Now two courts have backed the arbitrator, illustrating just how hard it is to overturn an arbitrator's decision. That's the way it's supposed to be, a legal expert says.

Cleveland sought to fire officer Shani Hannah in 2012, after she got drunk, hit and stabbed her boyfriend and then threatened suicide. She pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault, after being charged with felonious assault.

The city fired Hannah in May 2013, but the police union appealed that decision to an arbitrator. He ruled there wasn't just cause for the firing and ordered her reinstated without back pay.

Hannah has been off-duty without pay since then.

A Cuyahoga County Common Pleas judge upheld that reinstatement last year, and last week the 8th Ohio District Court of Appeals agreed. Judge Anita Laster Mays wrote the appellate opinion. Judges Sean C. Gallagher and Melody J. Stewart concurred.

"It's supposed to be hard to overturn an arbitrator's decision," said L. Camille Hebert, a professor and employment law expert at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law.

That's what the city and the police union bargained for when they negotiated the police contract.

Need some help understanding? Read on.

Why did the case go before an arbitrator?

Ohio is what commonly is called an "at will" state - one in which employers generally are free to terminate an employee.

But Cleveland's labor agreement with the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association requires disputes to be submitted to an arbitrator for resolution.

The arbitrator collects evidence presented by both sides and then makes a decision, which is binding.

What does the arbitrator consider?

An arbitrator generally looks to see if the contract is being applied consistently from case to case, Hebert said.

In this case, that means the arbitrator looked to see if the discipline the city sought to apply against Hannah was consistent with cases involving other officers.

What do the courts look at when the arbitrator's decision is challenged?

When an arbitrator's decision is appealed into the courts, the review is generally very limited, Hebert said. Since the parties to the labor agreement chose to have disputes settled via arbitration, the arbitrator's decision is afforded great weight.

Overturning a ruling doesn't happen very often - generally only if the ruling so offends community common sense that it violates public policy or reaches beyond the terms of the agreement.

The court of appeals said something similar in it's ruling.

"Arbitration awards are presumed valid, and an appellate court may not substitute its interpretation of a contract provision for that of an arbitrator chosen by the parties," Mays wrote in her ruling.

"A reviewing court's role in evaluating an arbitration award is limited to determining whether the award is unlawful, arbitrary, or capricious and whether it draws its essence from the collective bargaining agreement," Mays wrote.

What about the public policy issue?

Cleveland sought to argue that the arbitrator's ruling should be set aside because if was against well-established public policy. The public should have confidence in police officers and officers should be held to the highest ethical standard, the city argued.

In this case, an arbitrator reinstated an officer who got drunk, stabbed her boyfriend and was convicted of a crime.

But a lack of consistency hurt Cleveland in this case.

During the arbitration hearing the union presented four cases in which off-duty officers were charged with domestic violence but kept their jobs after pleading guilty to lesser charges.

"The termination of Hannah is disproportional to discipline imposed on other officers for the same or more severe conduct," the arbitrator wrote in his decision.

Based on that, the courts held that the arbitrator was within his discretion and that the city's argument that the decision should be overturned as a matter of public policy failed.

What happens now?

The arbitrator reinstated Hannah as a patrol officer. Two courts now have upheld that decision, rejecting the city's arguments that it should be overturned.

At this point, Hannah has not been recalled to work, said Jennifer Ciaccia, a police spokeswoman.

Dan Williams, a spokesman for Mayor Frank Jackson, said Tuesday that the city hasn't decided what course of action it will take next. Conceivably it could try to appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court.

Winning that appeal likely will be difficult, though, too.