GREAT COASTAL EXPRESS, INC., Plaintiff-Appellee-Cross Appellant, v. INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN & HELPERS OF AMERICA, an unincorporated association, Defendant-Appellant-Cross Appellee.
Nos. 73-2393, 73-2448.
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Argued April 3, 1974. Decided Jan. 21, 1975.
511 F.2d 839 | 88 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2467 | 75 Lab.Cas. P 10,609
J. W. Alexander, Jr., Charlotte, N.C. (James M. Minor, Jr., Richmond, Va., and John O. Pollard, Charlotte, N.C., on brief), for plaintiff-appellee in No. 73-2393 and for defendant-appellant in No. 73-2448.
Before RUSSELL, FIELD and WIDENER, Circuit Judges.
WIDENER, Circuit Judge:
This suit, originally filed in a Virginia state court, was removed to federal district court pursuant to
This appeal results from two jury trials in which the appellant-defendant union, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, etc. (IBT), was found to have been responsible for damages resulting from illegal secondary boycotts conducted by three of its local unions in violation of
The employer, Great Coastal Express, Inc. (the company), contended throughout both trials that all of its damages, alleged to be $942,065, resulted from the illegal acts of IBT because the company had not suffered damage until IBT supplemented its legal tactics with illegal ones. The first jury returned a general verdict against IBT for $1,300,000, which the district court set aside on IVT‘s motion for judgment non obstante veredicto, or in the alternative for a new trial, as being excessive. See 350 F.Supp. 1377 (E.D.Va.1972). A new trial was ordered to reconsider the issue of damages, and the verdict reached at the second trial was for $806,093, upon which the district court entered judgment.
IBT contends on appeal that the court wrongfully allowed the issue of whether or not the local unions, and their officers and members, were the agents of IBT to go to the jury in the first trial; that the company should not recover any damages because it failed to particularize its losses to those caused by illegal activity as distinguished from losses caused by legal union activity; that the court erred in restricting the second trial to damages; and that the instructions to the second jury were erroneous. For reasons which follow, we affirm the judgment of the district court. Because of our resolution of the case, it will not be necessary to reach the issue of the violent conduct of the unions raised on cross appeal by the company.
The strike initially had little or no effect on the company. It was able to continue all its operations by using office employees, salesmen, supervisors, and newly-hired replacement drivers. Employees not on strike willingly crossed union picket lines at Richmond, and the company began making direct pickups and deliveries in its northern territories so that the picketed Jersey City terminal was practically unused. At the end of the seven or eight month continuance of the strike, however, the company‘s freight-hauling business had been effectively shut off. The argument between the parties is over the legality of a roving picket operation, and the extent to which illegal secondary boycott activities damaged the company.
The company‘s attack in the first trial was two-pronged, in that it sought damages for alleged secondary boycott activities in violation of LMRA § 303,
We should say here, and we emphasize, that the union does not contest the fact that there was evidence from which a jury could find an illegal secondary boycott. Indeed, the matter is admitted to be clearly a jury question. And the matter having been decided in favor of the plaintiff under proper instructions, it is, in all events, removed from our consideration. Lavender v. Kurn, 327 U.S. 645, 66 S.Ct. 740, 90 L.Ed. 916 (1946). The only question before us as to that finding is whether or not a partial new trial was proper.1
The company offered evidence as to illegal secondary activities by representatives of customers it had serviced during the strike, and drivers it had hired to replace the strikers, as well as from its own executives and other employees and the president of the Richmond local and an international director of the union.
The principal witness concerning the amount of the company‘s damages was a Certified Public Accountant, Lepp, who testified that he had worked with Great Coastal for several years and had examined the books of Great Coastal for periods before, during and after the strike. Lepp stated that he noted a disruption in the company‘s general pattern of receipts and profits after the strike started. On the basis of the company‘s business growth pattern and operating ratio over a period of time prior to the strike, Lepp projected a figure of anticipated profit during the seven months of the strike as being $322,438. He added to this the actual loss incurred by the company during the strike, $274,895, to reach a total damage figure of $597,333 during the strike. Lepp then computed a projected profit figure of $495,715 for the period from the end of the strike to the end of 1971, subtracted $150,983 actual profit which the company showed in this post-strike period, and added the additional damage figure of $344,732 to $597,333 in arriving at the total damage estimate of $942,065.
Evidence, in addition to Hodson‘s testimony, indicated that Local 592 kept close contact during the strike with both the Eastern Conference of IBT and IBT headquarters itself, and that almost all of Local 592‘s requests for assistance, financial or otherwise, were complied with. IBT was advised on numerous occasions of the existence of the roving pickets. On one occasion, Eastern Conference director and IBT director and vice president Trerotola wrote to over 100 other teamster locals advising them that the roving pickets had not been entirely successful and requested any assistance they could legally give. He enclosed a list of Great Coastal customers.
The gist of Trerotola‘s testimony as to IBT‘s involvement and assistance during the strike may be summarized in short order; Trerotola stated consistently that he was a busy man, that it was his signature on various letters written to Local 592 and IBT, but that he did not specifically recall signing the letters because of the bulk of correspondence his office receives and the fact that he delegates many responsibilities. He said the Eastern Conference may have assisted Local 592 in getting various correspondence mailed and in obtaining contributions to its strike fund; that IBT often asked other unions to help in any way they could; and that he had requested only lawful assistance from other teamster locals. He said he had no knowledge of any illegal secondary activity in connection with this strike.
The district court‘s opinion on the motion for judgment non obstante veredicto following the first verdict of $1,300,000 is reported at 350 F.Supp. 1377. IBT raised the same issue in that motion as here with respect to whether the company had made the requisite showing of agency, and also argued that the jury charges were contradictory, and that the jury had awarded punitive damages in violation of the Labor Management Relations Act, § 303. The court relied on the case of International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. United States, 275 F.2d 610 (4th Cir. 1960), in concluding that there had been a sufficient showing of agency to let the jury consider it. The court also ruled against IBT on the jury charge issue, but did hold that the excessive verdict of damages was partially caused by the jury‘s consideration of the gross and vicious conduct attributed to the members of the local union and their sympathizers. The court stated the damage question was complicated and concluded a remittitur was improper. The motion for judgment N.O.V. was then denied, and a retrial ordered on the issue of damages.
IBT‘s first contention, that the court should have ruled as a matter of law that there was insufficient evidence for the jury to find an agency relationship between it and the striking local unions, is without merit. The Supreme Court has recognized, in suits brought under the LMRA § 303, that the responsibility of a union for the acts of its officers and members “is to be measured by reference to ordinary doctrines of agency.” United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 736 (1966). This court has previously held, in another context (a criminal case with its more stringent burden of proof), that the IBT constitution provides for such far-reaching control of local unions that the locals, in essence, are not autonomous but are subdivisions of IBT. International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. United States, supra, 275 F.2d at 614. The district court here compared the constitution in effect when the Teamsters case was decided, found no significant differences, and concluded, quite correctly, that under the evidence in this case the jury was entitled to decide the issue. 350 F.Supp. at 1379. That being so, the issue is closed, for the weight of the evidence and the credibility of witnesses is solely within the province of the jury. A. & G. Stevedores v. Ellerman Lines, 369 U.S. 355, 358-359, 82 S.Ct. 780, 7 L.Ed.2d 798 (1962); Lavender v. Kurn, 327 U.S. 645, 652-653 (1946). IBT claims no error as to the evidence admitted, which was ample to show participation by IBT, or in the jury charge, so the jury‘s finding of an agency relationship must stand.
The above discussion as to agency applies in large part to the jury finding that IBT had committed illegal secondary acts. As stated before, the defendant admits this was a jury question. The court, at the first trial, very carefully charged the jury as to the law concerning secondary boycotts, and IBT does not contest the charge on appeal. From the testimony and other evidence recited, it goes without saying that the jury had abundant evidence to find that IBT had induced, encouraged, threatened, or coerced employees of Great Coastal customers to withhold the labor from their employers, with whom they had no dispute, and that IBT so acted for the purpose of achieving the unlawful objectives set out in the National Labor Relations Act, § 8(b)(4),
The thrust of IBT‘s complaint concerning the second trial, though, is not the sufficiency of the evidence, but that the company should have separated union activity that was clearly lawful, and for which no damages could be had, from the alleged unlawful activities, and thus established the proximate cause of its damages with more specificity. The company‘s theory throughout both trials was that it had suffered no damages at issue here because of lawful union activity, but that all of such damages resulted from IBT‘s unlawful acts which ultimately shut down business entirely.
The judge again correctly charged the jury which ambulatory picketing activities were lawful, and which were unlawful, and, among several references to proximate cause in his charge which required the company to prove its damages were proximately caused by the unlawful activities of the union as contrasted to the lawful, told the jury:
“You understand, of course, that you may not award the plaintiff damages simply because of lost money during the strike or for money lost as a result of the union engaging in legal and permitted activity. In a strike situation, infliction of losses both upon the union and the employer is to be expected. It is not an occasion for liability unless the losses resulted from illegal strike activity. For this reason, you may only award damages where Great Coastal has proved by a preponderance of the evidence that it was so damaged.”
We think this case is not one where the plaintiff should be faulted out of its judgment for not proving its damages with more exactness and precision. The Supreme Court has held, in an anti-trust case, that where the amount of damages cannot be ascertained with certainty, “it would be a perversion of fundamental principles of justice to deny all relief to the injured person, and thereby relieve the wrongdoer from making any amend for his acts.” Story Parchment Co. v. Paterson Parchment Co., 282 U.S. 555, 563, 51 S.Ct. 248, 75 L.Ed. 544 (1931). This circuit has previously adopted the Story Parchment reasoning in an action under
In this regard, IBT argues that the court should have required a special verdict from the jury.
This court has considered new trials limited to damages on several occasions since the Gasoline Products case. It is well settled that granting or denying a new trial, either for excessiveness or inadequateness of the verdict, is discretionary with the trial court, and not reviewable absent a showing of abuse of discretion. Young v. International Paper Co., 322 F.2d 820, 822 (4th Cir. 1963). Most of the cases considered by this court have concerned the district court‘s discretion in ordering a partial new trial for inadequate damages, but the same general principles apply whether the verdict is attacked either for inadequacy or excessiveness. DeFoe v. Duhl, 286 F.2d 205 (4th Cir. 1961) (citing Virginia law); see Note, 29 A.L.R.2d 1202 (on inadequacy). The only case where a new trial on all issues was suggested because of excessive damages was United Construction Workers v. Haislip Baking Co., 223 F.2d 872 (4th Cir. 1955), cert. den., 350 U.S. 847, 76 S.Ct. 87, 100 L.Ed. 754 (1955).
In Haislip Baking, an action based on
In another Fourth Circuit case involving excessive damages, the trial court ordered a remittitur instead of a partial new trial. Ford Motor Co. v. Mahone, 205 F.2d 267 (4th Cir. 1953). This court reversed and ordered a new trial as to all the issues when it was found that one of the jurors had obvious partisan bias in favor of one of the parties, and this in a “hotly contested” trial as to both liability and damages which resulted in a verdict the court found based on pity and sympathy. Likewise, the problem is not presented in this case.
This court has noted that there is “always a presumption in favor of the validity of a verdict if it is the result of honest judgment,” City of Richmond v. Atlantic Co., 273 F.2d 902, 916 (4th Cir. 1960), but has found a new trial on all issues to be required where a totally inadequate verdict was rendered which could only have been a sympathy or compromise verdict. Southern Railway v. Madden, 235 F.2d 198 (4th Cir. 1956), cert. den., 352 U.S. 953, 77 S.Ct. 328, 1 L.Ed.2d 244 (1956). But where there is no substantial indication that the liability and damage issues are inextricably interwoven, or that the first jury verdict was the result of a compromise of the liability and damage questions, a second trial limited to damages is entirely proper. Young v. International Paper Co., supra; Mason v. Mathiasen Tanker Industries, Inc., 298 F.2d 28 (4th Cir. 1962), cert. den., 371 U.S. 828, 83 S.Ct. 23, 9 L.Ed.2d 66 (1962).
In short, our task here is to determine whether the district court‘s conclusion that the first verdict was based on honest judgment by a well-intentioned jury, and that the liability and damage issues were not inextricably intertwined, so that a partial new trial was fair to both parties, was an abuse of discretion, and whether the presumption of the validity of the verdict has been overcome. IBT argues that the evidence of violence heard by the jury, before the court directed a verdict against the company as to that issue, so inflamed the jury, and caused them to render a verdict in excess of damages proven, that the entire verdict was tainted. We cannot agree. The court charged the jury that no acts of violence testified to could be considered in assessing any damages, and that damages were limited to losses which flow proximately from any illegal activity the jury might find. During deliberations, the jury inquired of the court, “What amount of damages lost in dollars is the plaintiff asking? Is it the $942,065 figure?,” to which the court responded “... yes ... I must tell you that you are not to concern yourselves with what the plaintiff asks for unless it coincides with the evidence as you find it.” 350 F.Supp. at 1378. It is obvious from the foregoing that the jury did not consider the $942,065 as a limiting figure, but we are unable to say from the record that the excessive verdict was caused from anything more than a misunderstanding of the jury charge as not limiting the recovery to pecuniary loss as mentioned in the question asked the court. There is no basis to support the defendant‘s contention that the first verdict was fatally infected by prejudice. To hold otherwise would be speculation on our part as to what the jury considered in its deliberations, and this we should not do, for, in the words of Mr. Justice Brandeis, “(a)ppellate courts should be slow to impute to juries a disregard of their duties, and to trial courts a want of diligence or perspicacity in appraising the jury‘s conduct.” Fairmount Glass Works v. Cub Fork Coal Co., 287 U.S. 474, 485, 53 S.Ct. 252, 77 L.Ed. 439 (1933). Since no error is alleged as to any of the evidence, jury charges, or other relevant proceedings during the first trial, and especially considering the admitted and abundant evidence as to illegal secondary boycott activities, we are of opinion that the presumption in favor of the validity of the first verdict, insofar as it applies to the finding of IBT‘s liability, has not been overcome. City of Richmond v. Atlantic Co., supra.
Nor are we able to agree that the issues of liability and damages were so closely intertwined that the second jury should not consider the issue of damages apart from liability. The jury in the first trial, under proper instructions, ascertained liability, and in the second trial the judge ever so carefully charged the jury only that the defendant had been found liable for certain acts of unlawful secondary boycott activity, and having again defined which activities were lawful and which were not, left to the jury the question which of the unlawful acts, if any, caused damage to the plaintiff, and which did not, and also the amount of the damages. We thus find the ruling of the district court as it awarded a partial new trial was not an abuse of discretion and free from exception. We are of opinion the issues in the second trial were properly separated from those in the first, and that the issues of liability and damages were not so inextricably interwoven that a new trial was required on all issues. We are further of opinion this phase of the case is controlled by those cases exemplified by Young v. International Paper Co., and Mason v. Mathiasen Tanker Industries, Inc.
Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is
Affirmed.