NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

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No. 20-1689

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SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL 

UNION HEALTHCARE PENNSYLVANIA

v.

HERITAGE VALLEY HEALTH SYSTEM,

 Appellant

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Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. No. 2-19-cv-00393)

District Judge: Hon. J. Nicholas Ranjan

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Submitted under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)

November 19, 2020

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Before: JORDAN, KRAUSE, and RESTREPO, Circuit Judges.

(Filed: February 1, 2021)

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OPINION*

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* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and, pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7, does not 

constitute binding precedent.
2

RESTREPO, Circuit Judge

Resolution of this appeal requires us to determine whether a collective bargaining 

agreement between a hospital and a nurses’ union mandates that a staffing dispute be 

arbitrated. Because we agree with the District Court that the plain language of the 

agreement requires arbitration, we will affirm.

I. Facts and Procedural History

Heritage Valley Health System (“Heritage Valley”) owns and operates a hospital

in Beaver, Pennsylvania that employs registered nurses represented by the Service 

Employees International Union Healthcare Pennsylvania (“Union”). The Union and 

Heritage Valley entered into a collective bargaining agreement effective from July 1, 

2016 until June 30, 2019 (the “CBA”). Under the CBA, Heritage Valley was required to 

maintain certain nurse-to-patient staffing ratios in each unit of the hospital. The ratios 

were collectively bargained for between the parties and differed depending on the shift 

and hospital unit. 

Heritage Valley also employs non-unionized patient care assistants. Patient care 

assistants do not require a nursing license and their responsibilities require less skill than 

those performed by the unionized nurses. Heritage Valley typically assigns patient care 

assistants to help three to four registered nurses, which means that each patient care 

assistant tends to many more patients than a single registered nurse during a shift. 

The Union filed a grievance under the CBA in October 2018 alleging that Heritage 

Valley assigned registered nurses to work as patient care assistants on at least three 

separate dates, requiring the nurses to care for more patients than permitted by the
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mandatory staffing ratios. The Union contended that “pulling” these nurses to work as 

patient care assistants breached multiple articles of the CBA and that Article 7 of the 

CBA required Heritage Valley to arbitrate the alleged breach.

Heritage Valley refused to arbitrate, arguing that its actions were both permitted 

under the CBA and excluded from the Agreement’s arbitration clause by Article 10.5(a). 

Heritage Valley contends that Article 10.5(a) of the CBA requires the Union to submit its 

grievance to the “Professional Practice Committee” for a “recommended solution,” and 

explicitly excludes arbitration as a means of resolution. Article 10.5 states in full:

10.5. Voluntary Floating/Pulling/Use of Agency Nurses The parties 

agree that it is in the interest of patient care that all staff assigned to a 

particular unit or work area shall be properly trained, oriented, and familiar 

with the policies and procedures of that unit or work area. To this end, the 

following guidelines shall apply:

(a) Heritage Valley, Beaver shall not provide regular ongoing 

staffing in any area through the use of Agency personnel, 

temporary or contract nurses or floating/pulling of employees. 

In the event that such potential problem areas are identified, 

they shall be referred to the Professional Practice Committee for 

a recommended solution, and any dispute shall not be subject to 

the grievance and arbitration procedure in Article 7. 

App. 85.

The Professional Practice Committee is an internal committee created by the CBA 

that is comprised of representatives from Heritage Valley and the Union. Article 10.1 

dictates that, among other responsibilities, the Committee may develop recommendations 

regarding staffing that will be forwarded to Heritage Valley’s administration, which must 

consider the recommendations but maintains the authority to set the hospital’s staffing 
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levels. In refusing to arbitrate, Heritage Valley invited the Union to consider submitting

the “pulling” issue to the Committee for a recommended solution. 

The Union declined the invitation and filed a lawsuit in District Court, claiming its

grievance alleged an arbitrable violation of the CBA. The parties agreed that the case 

presented a question of pure contract interpretation, that there was no dispute of material 

fact, and that the case should be resolved on cross-motions for summary judgment. App. 

6-7. Accordingly, the District Court proceeded to summary judgment on the contract 

interpretation issue. The Court’s interpretation of the CBA was that the Union’s 

grievance constituted an arbitrable claim. It therefore denied Heritage Valley’s motion,

granted summary judgment in the Union’s favor, and ordered the Union’s pending 

grievance be referred to arbitration in accordance with the procedures set forth in Article 

7 of the CBA. Heritage Valley filed this appeal.1

II. Standard of Review and Discussion

Unless the agreement clearly provides otherwise, the courts are tasked with 

interpreting agreements to determine whether the parties agreed to arbitrate the dispute in 

question. Rite Aid of Pa., Inc. v. United Food and Com. Workers Union, Local 1776, 595 

F.3d 128, 131 (3d Cir. 2010). The District Court’s interpretation and application of the 

parties’ arbitration agreement is subject to our plenary review. Id. We have no factual 

findings to review, given that the parties “agree[d] that all material facts are undisputed.”

App. 28. 

1 We have jurisdiction over this appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. 
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“[A]rbitration is a matter of contract and a party cannot be required to submit to 

arbitration any dispute which he [or she] has not agreed so to submit.” United Steelworks 

of Am. v. Warrior & Gulf Nav. Co., 363 U.S. 574, 582 (1960). But given the “strong 

federal policy in favor of resolving labor disputes through arbitration,” see Rite Aid of 

Pa., Inc., 595 F.3d at 131, doubts regarding whether an arbitration clause covers the 

dispute “should be resolved in favor of coverage,” United Steelworkers of Am., 363 U.S. 

at 582-83.

Where, as here, the collective bargaining agreement contains a broad arbitration 

clause, there is a presumption of arbitrability, and that presumption can be rebutted by 

“only the most forceful evidence of a purpose to exclude the claim from arbitration.” AT

& T Techs., Inc. v. Commc’ns Workers of Am., 475 U.S. 643, 650 (1986).2

 Accordingly, 

to rebut the presumption, the opposing party must identify language in the agreement that 

expressly excludes the dispute from arbitration, or provide “strong and forceful” evidence 

of the parties’ intent to not arbitrate the matter. United Steelworkers of Am. v. Lukens 

Steel Co., 969 F.2d 1468, 1475 (3d Cir. 1992). But where the contract’s language “is 

explicit and unambiguous regarding whether the [g]rievance is arbitrable[,] there is no 

2 Article 7 of the CBA is titled “Grievance Procedure” and it details the steps to 

arbitration. Article 7.2 states that “[a] grievance which has not been resolved” by an 

internal process may “be referred to arbitration by the Union[.]” App. 79. Article 7.1 

defines grievance broadly as “any dispute or complaint arising between the parties hereto, 

under or out of this Agreement or the interpretation, application, or any alleged breach 

thereof . . ..” Id. at 78. And under Article 7.5, the arbitrator “shall have jurisdiction” 

over “disputes arising out of grievances as defined in Section 7.1 of this Article[.]” Id. at 

79.
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need to look to extrinsic evidence.” Local 827, IBEW v. Verizon N.J., Inc., 458 F.3d 305, 

312 (3d Cir. 2006) (quoting Lukens, 989 F.2d at 673). 

A. CBA’s plain language

Heritage Valley hinges its refusal to arbitrate on its interpretation of Article 10.5 

of the CBA, which it claims expressly excludes the Union’s grievance from the CBA’s 

arbitration provision. Specifically, Heritage Valley posits that Article 10.5 requires 

disputes over allegations of “pulling” nurses be referred to the Professional Practice 

Committee, and that the Committee’s proposed solution is not subject to arbitration. The 

District Court properly rejected this interpretation as contrary to the CBA’s plain 

language. 

Under Pennsylvania law, it is well-settled that the intent of contracting parties is 

determined by the writing of the contract. Am. Eagle Outfitters v. Lyle & Scott Ltd., 584 

F.3d 575, 587 (3d Cir. 2009). Because the CBA’s plain language is clear that the Union’s 

grievance is arbitrable, we need to look no further than the Agreement’s writing to decide 

that the Union was entitled to summary judgment. See Brokers Title Co. v. St. Paul Fire 

& Marine Ins. Co., 610 F.2d 1174, 1178 (3d Cir. 1979). 

The first sentence of Article 10.5(a) states the hospital “shall not” provide ongoing 

staffing in any area of the hospital through the use of “pulling” nurses. App. 85. 

According to the CBA’s plain language, therefore, the pulling of nurses despite the 

mandate that Heritage Valley not do so would constitute a violation of the CBA’s terms. 

Such a violation qualifies as a grievance under the Article 7 arbitration clause, and the 

Union may refer unresolved grievances to arbitration. App. 78-79. Article 10.5(a)
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instructs the Professional Practice Committee to handle “potential problem areas” 

involving staffing, not alleged CBA violations. App. 85. Moreover, Article 10.5(a) 

excludes disputes arising from the Committee’s “recommended solution[s]” from 

arbitration; there is no suggestion that the exclusion extends to disputes arising from

Heritage Valley’s allegedly violative conduct. App. 85. Because the plain language is 

unambiguous, we need to look no further to affirm the District Court’s grant of summary 

judgment in favor of the Union.

B. Extrinsic evidence of parties’ intent

Heritage Valley acknowledges on appeal that this case “comes down” to contract 

interpretation but still argues the District Court erred by ignoring forceful evidence of the 

parties’ intent to exclude the instant grievance from arbitration. Brief for Appellant 11, 

14. Specifically, Heritage Valley contends that the parties engaged in a “course of 

conduct under the CBA” that is contrary to the District Court’s interpretation of the 

Agreement. Brief for Appellant, 14. The “course of conduct” evidence seemingly 

consists of an incident in 2015 where the Union did not pursue arbitration in a similar 

staffing dispute. Heritage Valley further argues that, because the Union did not attempt

to re-negotiate the terms of Article 10.5 in the subsequent collective bargaining 

agreement, the parties did not intend for such staffing disputes to be subject to arbitration. 

Because we agree with the District Court that the CBA’s plain language unambiguously

mandates arbitration, we need not consider whether this extrinsic evidence overcomes the 

presumption of arbitrability. See Local 827, 458 F.3d at 312 (“Given the clarity of the 
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language in this CBA, we find that the bargaining history cited by [the plaintiff] is 

inapposite.”).

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III. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, we agree with the District Court’s ruling that the

grievance is arbitrable under the CBA and affirm the grant of the Union’s motion for 

summary judgment. 

3 Heritage Valley argues the Union’s other claims of CBA violations all involve 

the “floating and pulling” of nurses and are therefore also excluded from arbitration

pursuant to Article 10.5(a). Because we conclude that the Union’s grievance arising from 

Article 10.5(a) is not excluded from the CBA’s arbitration clause, we do not need to 

address this argument on appeal.