Ohio Council 8, AFSCME, AFL-CIO v. Lakewood

Citations

• 2025 Ohio 4369

Syllabus

Application and motion to compel arbitration; Collective Bargaining Agreement (\CBA\); grievance; Last Chance Agreement (\LCA\); arbitration; presumption of arbitrability; express exclusion; strong and forceful evidence. Judgment affirmed. Where a CBA contains an arbitration clause, there is a presumption of arbitrability in the sense that an order to arbitrate the particular grievance should not be denied unless it may be said with positive assurance that the arbitration clause is not susceptible of an interpretation that covers the asserted dispute. Any doubts should be resolved in favor of coverage. Here, there was a dispute as to whether the employee's grievance was arbitrable based on language in the LCA between the parties. Arbitration of the grievance was not expressly excluded by the LCA because it failed to specify who is to determine whether a violation has occurred. Additionally, the City has failed to meet its burden of overcoming the presumption of arbitrability because it presented no \strong and forceful\ evidence of an intention to exclude the grievance from arbitration. Therefore, we find that the trial court properly granted the Union's application and motion to compel arbitration.