Alman v. Taunton Sportswear Mfg. Corp., 87-1967

• Decision Date: 07 March 1988
• Docket Number: No. 87-1967,87-1967
• Citation: 857 F.2d 840
• Parties: Ronald ALMAN, etc., Plaintiff, Appellee, v. TAUNTON SPORTSWEAR MANUFACTURING CORP., et al., Defendants, Appellees, Steven Singer, Defendant, Appellant. . Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 840

857 F.2d 840

12 Fed.R.Serv.3d 271

Ronald ALMAN, etc., Plaintiff, Appellee, v. TAUNTON SPORTSWEAR MANUFACTURING CORP., et al., Defendants, Appellees, Steven Singer, Defendant, Appellant.

No. 87-1967.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard March 7, 1988.

Decided Sept. 7, 1988.

As Amended Sept. 30, 1988.

Stephen M. Sheehy with whom Howard M. Brown and Kaye, Fialkow, Richmond & Rothstein, Boston, Mass., were on brief, for defendant, appellant.

John McMahon with whom Angoff, Goldman, Manning, Pyle, Wanger & Hiatt, P.C., Boston, Mass., was on brief, for plaintiff, appellee Ronald Alman.

Before CAMPBELL, Chief Judge, WISDOM, ^* Senior Circuit Judge, and BOWNES, Circuit Judge.

LEVIN H. CAMPBELL, Chief Judge.

This appeal requires us to determine whether an order of the district court was an appealable "final decision" for the purposes of 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291 (1982), which

gives jurisdiction to the federal courts of appeals over "appeals from all final decisions of the district courts of the United States."

I.

In 1985, the trustee of several multi-employer benefit funds, one Ronald Alman, brought this action under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA"), 29 U.S.C. Secs. 1001 et seq. (1982), against Taunton Sportswear Manufacturing Corp. ("Taunton"), and Steven Singer, Taunton's president and sole shareholder. The trustee sought to recover delinquent fund contributions defendants allegedly owed under the terms of collective bargaining agreements between Taunton and Local 178 of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. His complaint included requests for the recovery of "contributions due during the pendency of this action" and for a court order permanently enjoining defendants to comply with the relevant terms of the agreements.

About two years after the complaint was filed, the parties entered into the following stipulation:

Partial judgment should enter for plaintiff Alman against [Taunton] in the amount of $63,321.91 (representing an arrears of payment to the Employees Benefit Funds, including partially calculated interest, which accrued through August 30, 1986) without waiver of plaintiff['s] rights to any arrears accrued after August 30, 1986, and interest thereon or plaintiff's claim to a judgment against [Taunton] and Mr. Steven Singer jointly and severally for all arrears owed to the plaintiff's employee benefit funds and for all other statutory relief.

In accordance with this agreement, the district court entered a "partial judgment" on February 25, 1987. The text of this judgment included the agreement's language reserving Alman's rights 1) to seek recovery of arrears accruing after August 30, 1986, and 2) to seek a judgment that Taunton and Singer were jointly and severally liable.

Alman subsequently filed a motion for summary judgment, requesting the following relief:

summary judgment in [plaintiff's] favor against defendants [Taunton and Singer] jointly and severally for all contributions owed to plaintiff's funds at the date of entry of judgment, for injunctive relief as to future contributions and an amount equivalent to such interest, and for his attorney['s] fees and costs.

In a memorandum accompanying his motion, Alman argued that Singer should be jointly and severally liable with Taunton because Singer is an "employer" within the meaning of section 1002(5) of ERISA. Singer filed a cross-motion for summary judgment, arguing that the case against him personally should be dismissed because he himself is not an "employer" under ERISA.

It is the finality of the district court's disposition of these cross-motions for summary judgment that is in dispute in this appeal. The court ruled in favor of Alman, explaining its ruling in a nine-page memorandum. On the second page of the memorandum, the court stated, "The sole issue to be decided here is whether the individual defendant, Singer, is to be held jointly and severally liable for the judgment." The court ultimately answered this question in the affirmative. The memorandum did not discuss the trustee's requests for injunctive relief, interest, attorney's fees, or costs. Nor did it indicate whether Singer was liable to the trustee for the amount of the February 25, 1987, "partial judgment" against Taunton ($63,321.91) or for some other amount. On a separate piece of paper the court wrote the following order:

ORDER

June 15, 1987

CAFFREY, S.D.J.

In accordance with memorandum filed this date, it is ORDERED:

1. Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment is allowed;

2. Defendant's motion for summary judgment is denied.

On the same date that appeared on the order itself, June 15, 1987, the district court clerk made the following docket entry:

CAFFREY, SDJ : MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

ENTERED ... In accordance with memorandum filed this date, it is ORDERED: 1) Plaintiff's motion for Summary Judgment is allowed; 2) Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment is denied. cc/cl, WEST, Lexis, BMA, CCH, MLW, etc.

Singer filed a notice of appeal from this disposition on July 16, 1987, one day after the 30-day deadline for such a filing. See Fed.R.App.P. 4(a)(1). In response to an order from the court of appeals to show cause why the appeal should not be dismissed as untimely, Singer pleaded "inadvertence." The appeal was dismissed on September 3, 1987.

Singer took a new tack on October 14, 1987, filing a motion in the district court asking that court "to set aside the entry of judgment against him on the Clerk's docket in this action [the June 15 judgment] and cause a judgment to be entered in accordance with Rules 58 and 79 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure." In a memorandum of law accompanying this filing, Singer argued that the court's June 15 decision was not final under section 1291. The district court denied this motion by marginal notation. It is this ruling of the district court from which the instant appeal is taken.

II.

Appellant Singer argues that the district court's disposition of June 15, 1987, holding him jointly and severally liable with Taunton for the delinquent fund contributions, was not a "final decision" for the purposes of 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291. ¹ Because the disposition was not final, he contends, the district court erred by denying Singer's October 14 motion to enter a new judgment, the objective of which was to procure an appealable final decision. Singer's challenge to the finality of the decision proceeds on two fronts. To understand his arguments it will be helpful to consider briefly the dual nature of the finality requirement. ²

Although section 1291 does not by its own terms define "final decision," the Supreme Court has frequently endorsed the following interpretation of the statute: "A 'final decision' generally is one which ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment." Budinich v. Becton Dickinson & Co., --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 1717, 1720, 100 L.Ed.2d 178 (1988) (quoting Catlin v. United States, 324 U.S. 229, 233, 65 S.Ct. 631, 633, 89 L.Ed. 911 (1945)). But even a decision that completely disposes of a case's merits can lack finality for the purposes of section 1291 if it fails to comport with the technical dictates of Rules 58 and 79(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. See United States v. Indrelunas, 411 U.S. 216, 93 S.Ct. 1562, 36 L.Ed.2d 202 (1973). The pertinent part of Rule 58 states that "[e]very judgment shall be set forth on a separate document. A judgment is effective only when so set forth and when entered as provided in Rule 79(a)." Rule 79(a), in turn, requires the district court clerk to make an entry on the civil docket "show[ing] the nature of each paper filed or writ issued and the substance of each order or judgment of the court."

Singer claims the district court's disposition was defective in both of these respects: it neither fully disposed of the case's merits nor complied with Rules 58 and 79(a). We turn first to the latter argument.

A. Singer claims the district court's cross-reference to its memorandum in the text of the so-called order of June 15 1987--"In accordance with memorandum filed this date...."--violated Rule 58's requirement that a judgment be set forth on a separate document. We find no merit in this argument. The district court's judgment was in fact set forth on a separate document, as required by Rule 58. See supra. There was thus no ambiguity as to the date on which the court performed the judicial act of rendering its decision. And Rule 58, it must be noted, does not by its own terms stipulate the substantive requirements of a judgment. As the Supreme Court has indicated, the primary purpose of the "separate document" requirement is to establish a certain reference point for determining the timeliness of post-judgment motions and appeals. See Bankers Trust Co. v. Mallis, 435 U.S. 381, 385, 98 S.Ct. 1117, 1119, 55 L.Ed.2d 357 (1978). See also Diamond v. McKenzie, 770 F.2d 225, 232 (D.C.Cir.1985) (Robinson, C.J., concurring) (the separate document requirement attempts to provide a sure answer to "the old, old question of when is a judgment a judgment") (citation omitted). The terms of the order did not, therefore, violate Rule 58.

Singer contends the district court's disposition also ran afoul of Rule 79(a) because the docket entry did not show the "substance" of the court's disposition. We disagree. The docket entry repeated verbatim the text of the order itself. Singer's quarrel with the judgment's substance cannot be brought by way of Rule 79(a), which only requires that the docket entry capture the substance of the order or judgment that was actually rendered by the court. Indeed, both of Singer's arguments about the decision's technical inadequacy suggest that his chief complaint in this appeal is that the district court's disposition on June 15, 1987, did not finally dispose of all the issues in the case. It is thus the nature of the court's action, rather than its...