The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Friday ordered a new hearing for a teacher's assistant fired in 2002 from her job in Westmoreland County for allegedly violating a district morality clause.
Sherie Leigh Vrable, 49, of Washington Township in Fayette County, has sought for five years to be reinstated to her job as a teaching assistant in an emotional support class with the Westmoreland Intermediate Unit, claiming her firing was inappropriate.
The 3-2 appellate court decision effectively overturns two lower court rulings that affirmed Vrable's firing.
Vrable, a 23-year teaching veteran, was fired after she was found unconscious in a restroom at West Newton Elementary School. Court records show that Vrable was treated for an overdose of Fentanyl, a pain-relief drug similar to morphine, from a patch she had placed on her back.
West Newton police subsequently charged Vrable with possession of a controlled substance. She was sentenced to a year's probation without verdict for the offense.
The Intermediate Unit concluded that Vrable's actions constituted immorality because it occurred on school property and set a poor example for students.
Her firing was initially reversed by a state arbiter. The arbiter ruled that Vrable would not receive any back pay, but made her reinstatement subject to successful completion of a drug and alcohol treatment class and unannounced, periodic alcohol and drug screening.
That decision was appealed by the Intermediate Unit and in 2003 Westmoreland Judge Gary Caruso found that the district had appropriate grounds to terminate her employment.
In 2005, a three-judge panel of the state Commonwealth Court issued a split decision that affirmed Caruso's ruling and upheld the firing.
But now the Supreme Court has sided with the arbiter, suggesting Vrable's conduct was not immoral.
The court said, "We conclude, contrary to the Commonwealth Court majority, that the arbitrator's interpretation which resulted in his award can rationally be derived from the collective bargaining agreement."
Its opinion noted that "the arbitrator sustained the Association's grievance by finding that the Intermediate Unit lacked just cause to terminate Ms. Vrable because her conduct did not rise to the level of immorality.
"This conclusion was based upon the finding of a foolish mistake by Ms. Vrable in using a friend's Fentanyl patch; that this mistake did not so grossly offend the morals of the community so as to rise to the level of immorality, especially in light of it being the one and only one workplace incident in Ms. Vrable's 23-year unblemished tenure with the Intermediate Unit," the court said in a 19-page decision.
The court added that Westmoreland Common Pleas Court, at a future proceeding, should consider whether Vrable's reinstatement "contravenes a well-defined, dominant public policy that is ascertained by reference to the laws and legal precedents and not from mere general considerations of supposed public interests."
Vrable could not be reached for comment Friday.
Attempts to reach officials at the Intermediate Unit were unsuccessful.
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