Nagy v. Riblet Products Corp., s. 95-1938

Citation79 F.3d 572
Decision Date14 March 1996
Docket Number95-2022,Nos. 95-1938,s. 95-1938
PartiesErnest J. NAGY, Plaintiff-Appellee, Cross-Appellant, v. RIBLET PRODUCTS CORPORATION, David Bistricer, and Nachum Stein, Defendants-Appellants, Cross-Appellees.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, South Bend Division. No. 3:90-CV-202RM--Robert L. Miller, Jr., Judge.

Bernard J. Nussbaum, William T. Barker, Kenneth H. Hoch, Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal, Chicago, IL, and William N. Farabaugh, South Bend, IN, for Plaintiff.

Dennis J. Block, Richard W. Slack, Jason M. Halper, Weil, Gotshal & Manges, New York City, James F. Groves, Hardig, Lee & Groves, South Bend, IN, Arthur R. Kaufman and Alesia Kantor, Kaufman, Naness, Schneider & Rosenweig, Jericho, NY, for Defendants.

Before CUMMINGS, CUDAHY, and EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judges.

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge.

Riblet Products Corporation makes components of "site-built" homes and recreational vehicles. In 1981 Riblet signed a contract promising Ernest J. Nagy, who then owned 14 percent of Riblet's shares and was its President and CEO, that if Nagy were discharged for any reason other than theft, disclosure of trade secrets, or "similar dishonest acts," he would receive 60 percent of his regular salary until he turned 62. Five years later Riblet was acquired by a new group of investors, who put in $7 million of their own money and secured a $25 million loan, backed by their personal guarantees. Nagy received more than $3 million for his stock in "old Riblet" and purchased 15 percent of the stock in "new Riblet." The owners of the other 85 percent--David Bistricer, Nachum Stein, and their relatives--negotiated a new employment contract with Nagy. The 1986 contract gave Nagy a five-year term with increased compensation and substantial retirement, disability, and death benefits. Paragraph 15 of the 1986 contract adds that if Nagy is terminated for "cause" (which the agreement defines as "conviction of a felony, fraud, dishonesty, illegal use of federally controlled substances, and/or misappropriation of [Riblet's] funds") all benefits of the 1986 contract would be forfeited. If Riblet terminates employment "other than for cause as defined herein" Nagy receives "all salaries, benefits, bonuses, and other direct and indirect forms of compensation" for the remainder of his five-year term. Paragraph 6 of the 1986 contract provides that the 1981 contract "shall remain in full force and effect notwithstanding the execution of this Agreement."

In April 1990, with 17 months remaining on the 1986 contract, Riblet fired Nagy. Riblet believes that it had "cause" as defined in both the 1981 and the 1986 contracts, because Nagy engaged in a series of self-dealing transactions with the firm (for example, he was an undisclosed principal in the group buying Riblet's headquarters building) and refused to follow explicit instructions issued by the board of directors (he wrote checks without the required approval, and he kept his personal secretary on the payroll after the board discharged her). Nagy believes that he was a good chief executive, fired without cause. He admits defying the board but believes that this is not "cause" as the contracts define it, and he admits that he bought the building without revealing his identity but says that this is not "dishonesty" or "misappropriation" because he paid the market price, and Bistricer and Stein discovered his role before the transaction closed. Many other disputes of fact or characterization separate the parties on the question whether Riblet had "cause" to cashier Nagy; we need not discuss them.

Nagy demanded full payment under the 1981 and 1986 contracts; when Riblet refused, Nagy filed this suit, asserting federal jurisdiction under the Employee Retirement and Income Security Act (ERISA). The ERISA claim did not survive in the district court, and although Nagy argues it anew in this court it is insubstantial. Among the many documents Nagy signed is one recognizing that his post-employment benefits are governed by contract rather than by an ERISA plan. Contracts between an employer and a single worker do not become ERISA trusts or plans as 29 U.S.C. § 1002(3) defines them just because they deal with future payments. See Jervis v. Elerding, 504 F.Supp. 606, 608 (C.D.Cal.1980); Lackey v. Whitehall Corp., 704 F.Supp. 201, 204-05 (D.Kan.1988); cf. Bartholet v. Reishauer A.G. (Zurich), 953 F.2d 1073 (7th Cir.1992). Agreements between corporations and their chief executives are in a class by themselves under 29 U.S.C. §§ 1051(2), 1081(a)(3), and 1101(a)(1) (special rules for "top hat" programs). And Nagy ought to be happy with this conclusion, because ERISA preempts all state law relating to pension plans--including the tort and contract law on which Nagy pins his principal hopes, and was awarded more than $2 million by the jury. If these contracts establish "plans" governed by ERISA, then Nagy's verdict evaporates and the litigation begins again, without any opportunity to seek punitive damages. See Kleinhans v. Lisle Savings Profit Sharing Trust, 810 F.2d 618, 625-27 (7th Cir.1987). But ERISA does not apply, so we turn to the state-law claims. These depend on the supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1367. As all theories of recovery are part of a single case or controversy, and no one questions the district court's decision to decide the state claims, we do not inquire whether this was the best way to proceed. Myers v. County of Lake, 30 F.3d 847 (7th Cir.1994).

The jury concluded that Riblet broke its promise to Nagy and awarded him $1,267,747 in compensatory damages. The judge instructed the jury that Bistricer and Stein, as majority shareholders, owed Nagy, as minority shareholder, a fiduciary duty of loyalty. Their selfinterested conduct in firing Nagy (to improve corporate profits, and thus the value of their own investments) led the jury to hold Bistricer and Stein jointly and severally liable with Riblet for the compensatory award--and to tack on $375,000 in punitive damages against each of them. When instructing the jury, the district judge did not mention the clause of the 1981 contract (which passed unchanged through the 1986 deal) allowing Riblet to avoid all post-discharge payments if it had the kind of "cause" the parties specified. Defendants believe that this requires a new trial, because it put them in an untenable position before the jury--for if the "cause" provision in the 1986 pact was the sole document allowing Riblet to reduce its obligations to Nagy, then Riblet owed Nagy something for deferred compensation and was hard pressed to tell the jury why it had not paid one red cent.

In a post-verdict memorandum denying the motion for a new trial, the district judge justified his decision as the consequence of waiver. Riblet first raised the subject during the conference on jury instructions--too late, the judge held. Riblet argues to us that the effect of the 1981 contract did not have to be raised in the pleadings as an affirmative defense, but this is beside the point. By the time trial begins, pleadings have faded into history. The document controlling the course of trial is the pretrial order under Fed.R.Civ.P. 16. Each side plans for trial on the assumption that it needs to meet only the contentions its adversary identifies in that order. Unless issues omitted from the pretrial order are foreclosed, neither side could make that assumption, and the function of the pretrial order would be defeated. So we have enforced a stringent rule of forfeiture. See Gorlikowski v. Tolbert, 52 F.3d 1439, 1443-44 (7th Cir.1995) (collecting cases). There are exceptions: for example, to preserve the possibility of appeal, the parties need not list an issue that was resolved before trial, see Calderon v. Witvoet, 999 F.2d 1101, 1108 (7th Cir.1993). District judges may amend the pretrial order to prevent injustice, but appellate review of decisions either way is deferential. The district judge did not abuse his discretion in holding Riblet to the issues and contentions it listed.

From the vantage of hindsight, the "cause" provision of the 1981 contract does not seem important. The jury awarded Nagy everything he asked for. This means that the jury found that Riblet lacked "cause" to discharge Nagy even as the 1986 agreement defines that term. "Cause" in the 1981 agreement is a subset of "cause" in the 1986 agreement; to reject the employer's position under the 1986 agreement is necessarily to reject its position under the 1981 pact. Riblet replies that the jury's verdict is untrustworthy because the inability to explain why they sent Nagy packing empty-handed made Bistricer and Stein look like a pair of stinkers. Maybe so, but the legal system cannot afford to indulge the possibility that jurors disregard their instructions on emotional grounds. Jurors' ability and willingness to follow instructions is not a "fact" about juries; it is, rather, a premise of the jury system. See Gacy v. Welborn, 994 F.2d 305, 313 (7th Cir.1993). If the jury followed the instructions given it, then the verdict shows lack of "cause"; and the lack of cause makes Riblet's arguments about the 1981 contract academic.

Riblet must pay Nagy what the jury found it owes under the contracts. Whether Bistricer and Stein owe anything personally depends on the law of torts and the law of corporations. One of Nagy's theories is that Bistricer and Stein tortiously interfered with the Nagy-Riblet contract. The district court dismissed this theory, and properly so. The premise of applying this tort to intra-corporate affairs is that investors want to prevent their agents from injuring the corporation by firing good employees for personal reasons--for example, from getting rid of a good executive in order to find a sinecure for a crony. See Rice v. Nova Biomedical...

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