United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

ALBERTO GARCIA,

Petitioner

v.

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY,

Respondent

______________________ 

2014-3048

______________________ 

Petition for review of an arbitrator’s decision in No. 

13-02607-3 by Sidney Moreland IV.

______________________ 

Decided: March 13, 2015 

______________________ 

JASON LEONARD ALDRICH, Gattey and Baranic APLC, 

San Diego, CA, argued for petitioner. 

DANIEL S. HERZFELD, Commercial Litigation Branch, 

Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, 

Washington, DC, argued for respondent. Also represented 

by HILLARY STERN, STUART F. DELERY, ROBERT E.

KIRSCHMAN, JR., KIRK MANHARDT. 

______________________ 

Before DYK, TARANTO, and HUGHES, Circuit Judges.
2 GARCIA v. DHS

HUGHES, Circuit Judge. 

Alberto Garcia appeals from an arbitrator’s dismissal

of his labor dispute for failure to timely file a request for 

arbitration. The applicable collective-bargaining agreement requires that requests for arbitration of adverse 

actions “must be filed . . . not later than thirty (30) calendar days after the effective date of [the Agency’s] action.” 

The Arbitrator concluded that the term “must be filed” 

requires actual receipt by the Agency of the request for 

arbitration. Because we conclude that the request for 

arbitration need only be mailed within the 30-day time 

period, we reverse and remand. 

I 

On May 9, 2013, the Department of Homeland Security issued a final decision removing Mr. Garcia from the 

U.S. Border Patrol for misconduct. Mr. Garcia received 

notice of his removal the same day. Under 5 U.S.C. 

§ 7121(e)(1), Mr. Garcia had the option to appeal his 

removal to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) or 

to invoke arbitration, as set out in his union’s collectivebargaining agreement (CBA). Article 34, Section A of the 

CBA states that in cases involving adverse actions, such 

as removal, requests for arbitration “must be filed . . . not 

later than thirty (30) calendar days after the effective 

date of the action.” Supp. Auth. 8. 

Twenty-eight days after the effective date of Mr. Garcia’s removal, his union mailed a letter to the Agency 

requesting arbitration. The Agency did not receive this 

request until seven days later. After an arbitrator was 

appointed, the Agency moved to dismiss the dispute for 

failure to file within thirty days of the effective date of 

removal. 

The Arbitrator found the plain meaning of “filed” in

the CBA requires actual receipt of the request for arbitration. The Arbitrator relied on the definition of “file” used 
GARCIA v. DHS 3

in federal court proceedings, citing Black’s Law Dictionary and judicial opinions interpreting federal procedural 

statutes. The Arbitrator also found the context in which 

“filed” is used in the CBA supports this interpretation. 

Accordingly, the Arbitrator dismissed the dispute for 

failure to timely file a request for arbitration. Mr. Garcia 

appeals. We have jurisdiction under 5 U.S.C. § 7121(f) 

and 5 U.S.C. § 7703(b)(1).

II

Interpretation of a collective-bargaining agreement is 

a question of law we review de novo. Giove v. Dep’t of 

Transp., 230 F.3d 1333, 1340 (Fed. Cir. 2000) (citing

Harris v. Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, 142 F.3d 1463, 1467 

(Fed. Cir. 1998); Muniz v. United States, 972 F.2d 1304, 

1309 (Fed. Cir. 1992)). We begin with the plain language 

of the agreement. Id. at 1340. “We give the words in the 

agreement their ordinary meaning unless the parties 

mutually intended and agreed to an alternative meaning.” 

Harris, 142 F.3d at 1467. In addition, we must interpret

specific language in light of the contract as a whole. See 

McAbee Constr., Inc. v. United States, 97 F.3d 1431, 1435 

(Fed. Cir. 1996) (“We must interpret the contract in a 

manner that gives meaning to all of its provisions and 

makes sense.”).

The Arbitrator relied on the definition of “file” as used 

in federal court proceedings to determine the meaning of 

“filed” here. It is true that federal courts have interpreted 

“file” in federal procedural statutes to require actual 

receipt. See, e.g., United States v. Lombardo, 241 U.S. 73, 

76 (1916) (interpreting “file” in a criminal appeal statute 

to require actual receipt); United States v. Doyle, 854 F.2d 

771, 773 (5th Cir. 1988) (interpreting “filed” in federal 

rules of civil and appellate procedure to require actual 

receipt); see also Black’s Law Dictionary (7th ed. 1999) 

(defining “file” to mean “[t]o deliver a legal document to 

the court clerk or record custodian for placement into the 
4 GARCIA v. DHS

official record.”). But regulations governing administrative proceedings analogous to the arbitration at issue

define “filed” differently. For instance, for the purposes of

an appeal to the MSPB, a document is “filed” at the time 

of mailing. See 5 C.F.R. § 1201.4(l) (“The date of filing by 

mail is determined by the postmark date . . . .”). Similarly, a Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) regulation states, “If the mailing contains a legible postmark 

date, then that date is the date of filing.” 5 C.F.R. 

§ 2429.21(b)(1).

The definitions used in MSPB and FLRA regulations 

are more relevant to the CBA than the general definition 

used in federal court. The parties negotiated the CBA’s

arbitration procedures as an alternative to an administrative appeal to the MSPB. See 5 U.S.C. § 7121(e)(1) (giving 

federal employees the option to raise certain disputes 

either in an appeal to the MSPB or under a negotiated 

grievance procedure). This context informs our understanding of the parties’ intent. As we have previously 

recognized, “[i]t is neither reasonable nor logical to assume that the negotiators intended to fix a different date 

as the filing date for an arbitration appeal” than the date 

used as the filing date for an MSPB appeal. Huey v. Dep’t

of Health & Human Servs., 782 F.2d 1575, 1578 (Fed. Cir. 

1986) (finding the date the union “initiated” arbitration 

was the date its request was mailed, consistent with the 

date of filing used in appeals to the MSPB). Accordingly, 

the ordinary meaning of “filed” in the context of the CBA 

only requires mailing, not actual receipt, following the 

definition of “filed” that would be used in an appeal to the 

MSPB. See 5 C.F.R. § 1201.4(l). 

The Agency points to other provisions of the CBA 

which, it argues, demonstrate the parties’ intent to require actual receipt of the request for arbitration within 

thirty days. In particular, the Agency cites two provisions 

that establish differing deadlines for requesting arbitration, depending on the type of agency action involved, in 
GARCIA v. DHS 5

Article 34, Section A of the CBA. The provision for requesting arbitration of suspensions of less than fifteen 

days and adverse actions, at issue here, requires that 

requests for arbitration be filed within thirty days of 

“receipt” of the Agency’s Notice of Decision (the adverseaction provision). The provision for requesting arbitration 

of all other grievances requires calculating the deadline in 

a slightly different way—fifteen days after the Notice of 

Decision is personally delivered or mailed, but an additional five days is allowed if mailed (the grievance provision). The Agency thus asks us to draw the inference that 

because the CBA contains an express reference to the 

Agency’s mailing in the grievance provision, the absence 

of an express mailing reference in the adverse-action

provision indicates that the parties did not intend for the 

Union’s mailing of an arbitration request to constitute 

filing and therefore meet the thirty-day deadline. 

We do not find this inference persuasive. The Agency’s service of its final decision and the Union’s request for 

arbitration are two different processes undertaken by two 

different entities. And read in context, the likely reason 

for the explicit reference to service by mail in the grievance provision and its omission in the adverse-action 

provision is the difference in events that cause the Union’s submission deadline to begin to run. In the grievance provision, the triggering event is personal delivery or 

mailing by the Agency. Given the relatively brief fifteenday deadline, if service is by mail, the provision expressly

adds five days to account for any delay that may occur in 

the Union actually receiving the Agency’s decision. In the 

adverse-action provision, the triggering event is “receipt” 

of the Agency’s decision. Because the deadline does not 

begin to run until actual receipt, no additional time for 

service by mail is necessary. Thus, we do not find the 

lack of a mailing reference in the adverse-action provision 

to be dispositive. Indeed, if we were strictly parsing the 

language of the two provisions, we would note that the 
6 GARCIA v. DHS

grievance provision does not require that a request for 

arbitration is “filed” before the deadline, but rather it 

“may be submitted.” Supp. Auth. 8. It is therefore difficult to draw any firm conclusions about the meaning of 

“filed” in the adverse-action provision by comparing it to 

the language of the grievance provision. At bottom, 

without any compelling textual evidence to the contrary 

in the CBA, we conclude that the definition of “filed”

should be construed in the same manner as in MSPB 

proceedings—where a document is filed at the time of 

mailing. See 5 C.F.R. § 1201.4(l). 

III

We conclude the requirement in Article 34, Section A

that a request for arbitration “must be filed . . . not later

than thirty (30) calendar days after the effective date of 

[the Agency’s] action” is satisfied when the request is 

mailed before the thirty-day deadline. The parties do not 

dispute that Mr. Garcia’s union mailed a request for 

arbitration twenty-eight days after the effective date of 

the Agency’s final decision. Accordingly, we reverse the 

Arbitrator’s dismissal for failure to timely file a request 

for arbitration and remand for further proceedings.

REVERSED AND REMANDED 

No costs.