2010 Decisions

Opinions of the United

States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

11-5-2010

Maureen A. Coppola v. JNESO-Pocono Med Ctr

Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential

Docket No. 09-3797

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NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

_____________ 

No. 09-3797

_____________ 

MAUREEN A. COPPOLA,

 Appellant

v.

JNESO-POCONO MEDICAL CENTER,

DISTRICT COUNCIL 1, IUOE-AFL-CIO; 

POCONO HEALTH SYSTEM;

POCONO MEDICAL CENTER

_____________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. Civil No. 3-08-cv-00798)

District Judge: Honorable A. Richard Caputo

_____________ 

Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)

November 4, 2010

Before: SCIRICA, RENDELL and ROTH, Circuit Judges

(Opinion Filed: November 5, 2010)

_____________ 

OPINION OF THE COURT

_____________ 

RENDELL, Circuit Judge.

Maureen Coppola was a union employee covered by a collective bargaining 

agreement between the union and her former employer, Pocono Medical Center. The 
2

District Court held that Pennsylvania law, as articulated by the Superior Court, precludes 

Coppola from maintaining a claim for wrongful discharge in violation of public policy 

against Pocono Medical Center. The sole issue on appeal is whether we predict the 

Pennsylvania Supreme Court would hold, contrary to the Superior Court‟s longstanding 

precedent, that union employees covered by collective bargaining agreements may sue 

their former employers for wrongful discharge. Because we are unable to make such a 

prediction, we will affirm.1

I.

Maureen Coppola was terminated from her job as a nurse at Pocono Medical 

Center for failing to follow a doctor‟s orders to intubate a patient. As a member of 

JNESO, a professional health care union, Coppola was subject to a collective bargaining 

agreement that provided that the hospital could only discharge union members for “just 

cause.” The union investigated Coppola‟s termination, determined that it was justified, 

and declined to pursue a grievance on her behalf. 

Coppola then sued Pocono Medical Center and the union. As relevant here, she 

alleged that she was wrongfully terminated in violation of public policy, as embodied in 

the Pennsylvania Administrative Code‟s standards of nursing conduct. See 49 Pa. Code 

§ 21.18. The District Court granted summary judgment to Pocono Medical Center on the 

wrongful discharge claim, holding Coppola was not entitled to maintain her claim as a 

 

1

 The District Court had jurisdiction over Coppola‟s original complaint based on the 

Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 185. After Coppola‟s LMRA claims were 

dismissed by stipulation of the parties, the District Court exercised supplemental 

jurisdiction over Coppola‟s remaining state-law wrongful discharge claim. See 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1367. Our jurisdiction over her appeal arises under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
3

matter of Pennsylvania law. Coppola v. JNESO-Pocono Medical Center, No. 08-0789, 

2009 WL 2707573, at *3 (M.D. Pa. Aug. 25, 2009). Relying in particular on Phillips v. 

Babcock & Wilcox, 503 A.2d 36 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1986), the Court observed that that 

“Pennsylvania appellate courts have been clear” that union employees covered by a 

collective bargaining agreement may not pursue such claims. Id. at *2-3.

II.

On appeal, Coppola does not quarrel with the District Court‟s application of the 

Pennsylvania Superior Court‟s Phillips decision. Instead, she asks us to predict that the 

Pennsylvania Supreme Court would abrogate Phillips and hold that union employees 

subject to collective bargaining agreements may pursue wrongful discharge claims. 

Our review of the District Court‟s application of state law is plenary. Polselli v. 

Nationwide Mut. Fire Ins. Co., 126 F.3d 524, 528 n.3 (3d Cir. 1997) (citation omitted). 

“In the absence of any precedent of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, we must predict 

how that court would decide this issue.” Id. (citation omitted). At the same time, 

however, we must accord significant weight to decisions of the Pennsylvania Superior 

Court. The decision of an “„intermediate appellate state court . . . is datum for 

ascertaining state law which is not to be disregarded by a federal court unless it is 

convinced by other persuasive data that the highest court of the state would decide 

otherwise.‟” Rolick v. Collins Pine Co., 925 F.2d 661, 664 (3d Cir. 1991) (quoting West 

v. AT&T Co., 311 U.S. 223, 237 (1940)).

Applying this standard, we are constrained to hold that Phillips accurately reflects 

Pennsylvania law. For one thing, Phillips is grounded in the relevant Pennsylvania 
4

Supreme Court precedent. The Superior Court in Phillips relied heavily on the 

Pennsylvania Supreme Court‟s decision in Geary v. U.S. Steel Corp., 319 A.2d 174 (Pa. 

1974), which established at-will employees‟ rights to sue former employers for wrongful 

discharge in violation of public policy. Phillips explained that the Supreme Court‟s 

purpose in Geary was “to provide a remedy for employees with no other recourse against 

wrongful discharge.” 503 A.2d at 37. Because union employees enjoy contractual

protection against discharge without “proper cause” as part of their collective bargaining 

agreements, the Superior Court reasoned, the Supreme Court‟s justification for allowing 

at-will employees to sue former employers for wrongful discharge does not extend to 

union employees. Id. at 37-38. 

Phillips‟s holding that union employees subject to collective bargaining 

agreements may not pursue wrongful discharge claims against former employers also is 

well established in Pennsylvania law: numerous state and federal courts applying 

Pennsylvania law have cited Phillips to dismiss wrongful discharge claims brought by 

union employees. See, e.g., Pekar v. U.S. Steel/Edgar Thomson Works, No. 09-844, 2010 

WL 419421, at *9-10 (W.D. Pa. Jan. 29, 2010); Lohman v. Duryea Borough, No. 05-

1423, 2007 WL 4260943, at *14-15 (M.D. Pa. Nov. 29, 2007); Ferrell v. Harvard Indus., 

No. 00-2707, 2001 WL 1301461, at *10 (E.D. Pa. Oct. 23, 2001); Harper v. Am. Red 

Cross Blood Servs., 153 F. Supp. 2d 719, 721 (E.D. Pa. 2001); Durette v. UGI Corp., 674 

F. Supp. 1139, 1143 (M.D. Pa. 1987); Cairns v. SEPTA, 538 A.2d 659, 660-61 (Pa. 

Commw. Ct. 1988); Ross v. Montour R.R. Co., 516 A.2d 29, 32-33 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1986).
5

Coppola has not presented any persuasive data that undermines the above or 

otherwise establishes that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court would reach a different result. 

Coppola does not challenge the Phillips court‟s reasoning or cite any Pennsylvania 

Supreme Court case that suggests that the Court would be inclined to expand wrongful 

discharge claims to cover union employees. Instead, she relies on cases from other state 

courts and the U.S. Supreme Court to argue that (1) union employees‟ rights to vindicate 

public policy are “inalienable” and independent of their rights to sue under their 

collective bargaining agreements; (2) federal law precludes states from denying union 

employees tort remedies that it allows to non-union employees; and (3) the distinction 

between at-will and union employees for wrongful discharge claims violates the Equal 

Protection Clause of the Constitution. All of these arguments are unavailing.

First, the notion that union employees‟ public policy rights are “inalienable” and 

must be protected through wrongful discharge claims comes from other states that 

authorize private wrongful discharge lawsuits as a means of enforcing public policy. See, 

e.g., General Dynamics Corp. v. Super. Ct., 876 P.2d 487, 497 (Cal. 1994) (“An 

employee who states a wrongful discharge claim for violation of public policy is 

provided a remedy in tort not only to compensate the individual plaintiff for the loss of 

employment but as an indirect means of vindicating fundamental public policy itself.”). 

But wrongful discharge suits do not perform that function in Pennsylvania. As Phillips

explained, in Pennsylvania, “the wrongful discharge cause of action was never intended 

to provide a forum to vindicate public policy and punish those who deviate from it.” 503 

A.2d at 37.
6

Second, federal law allows states to extend wrongful discharge claims to union 

employees, but does not require them to do so. The United States Supreme Court cases 

in this area have held only that federal labor laws do not pre-empt “independent 

remedies,” including wrongful discharge claims, available to union members “under state 

law.” Hawaiian Airlines, Inc. v. Norris, 512 U.S. 246, 261 (1994); see also Lingle v. 

Magic Chef, Inc., 486 U.S. 399 (1988). As the District Court correctly pointed out, those 

cases do not speak to union members‟ ability to pursue such claims in states, like 

Pennsylvania, where no state-law remedy exists. Coppola, 2009 WL 2707573, at *4.2

Coppola‟s third and final argument, concerning the Equal Protection Clause, was 

not raised in the parties‟ summary judgment briefs or addressed by the District Court. 

The issue also is not well developed in the briefs on appeal. Thus, consistent with our 

practice, we decline to “address the merits of a constitutional argument for the first time 

on appeal.” C.H. v. Cape Henlopen Sch. Dist., 606 F.3d 59, 73 (3d Cir. 2010).

III.

For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court.

 

2

 The other line of United States Supreme Court cases on which Coppola relies, 

beginning with Lodge 76, International Ass’n of Machinists v. Wisconsin Employment 

Relations Commission, 427 U.S. 132 (1976), does not apply here. Those cases hold that 

federal labor laws prohibit states from regulating “the free play of economic forces,” and 

specifically forbid states from “imposing additional restrictions on economic weapons of 

self-help, such as strikes or lockouts.” Golden State Transit Corp. v. City of Los Angeles, 

475 U.S. 608, 614-15 (1986) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). This case 

does not concern any restraint that has been imposed on unions‟ or employers‟ bargaining 

practices. Moreover, as a practical matter, Coppola fails to explain how we would apply 

Machinists pre-emption, which typically invalidates state regulations, to create a new

Pennsylvania common-law remedy for union employees.