City of Los Angeles v. the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Respondent Engineers & Architec — Corrigan, J…

Summary

The dissent would affirm the Court of Appeal because the parties’ memorandums of understanding reserved to the City the authority to relieve employees from duty for lack of funds and to take necessary emergency actions, subject only to specific contractual limitations. It reasons that the arbitration provision covered only the practical consequences of those management decisions, not the validity of mandatory furloughs themselves. The dissent also concludes that the agreements contain no specific limitation barring furloughs and that the majority improperly allowed an arbitrator to decide a matter the parties excluded from arbitration.