Brown v. Bridgeport Rolling Mills Company

• Decision Date: 30 July 1965
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 10390.
• Citation: 245 F. Supp. 41
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut
• Parties: Theodore Roosevelt BROWN, International Union United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Workers of America (UAW) and Local Union No. 877, Plaintiffs, v. BRIDGEPORT ROLLING MILLS COMPANY, Defendant.

245 F. Supp. 41

Theodore Roosevelt BROWN, International Union United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Workers of America (UAW) and Local Union No. 877, Plaintiffs, v. BRIDGEPORT ROLLING MILLS COMPANY, Defendant.

Civ. No. 10390.

United States District Court D. Connecticut.

July 7, 1965.

Rehearing Denied July 30, 1965.

John A. Arcudi, of Arcudi & Green, Bridgeport, Conn., for plaintiffs.

Robert C. Bell, Jr., New Canaan, Conn., for defendant.

TIMBERS, Chief Judge.

In this action to confirm an arbitrator's award, plaintiffs' motions for summary judgment, pursuant to Rule 56, Fed. R.Civ.P., and to strike the second and third defenses and counterclaim in defendant's answer, pursuant to Rule 12(f), Fed.R.Civ.P., present a question of importance in the application of the Labor Management Relations Act¹ and the United States Arbitration Act.²

QUESTION PRESENTED

The chief question presented is whether an employer, after unsuccessfully seeking to vacate a labor arbitration award adverse to it, may, under the guise of defending a subsequent action by the employee and union to confirm that award, continue to resist complying with the award by injecting issues expressly held to be irrelevant in the prior proceeding.

The Court holds that the employer may not do so. Accordingly, plaintiffs' motions for summary judgment and to strike defenses and counterclaim are granted.

FACTS

An arbitration award, entered August 21, 1961 by Arbitrator Paul R. Hays, ordered Bridgeport Rolling Mills Company to reinstate with back pay an employee, Theodore Roosevelt Brown. The Company had discharged Brown upon suspicion of complicity in the theft of materials from its plant. The arbitrator found that the evidence offered against Brown in the arbitration proceeding was "mere rumor and gossip" and held that the Company at the time of the discharge did not have just cause to discharge Brown.

The Company moved in the District Court, pursuant to Section 10 of the Arbitration Act,³ to vacate the arbitration award; Brown and the Union moved for judgment on the record and pleadings. The Company, pursuant to Rule 60(b), Fed.R.Civ.P., claimed to possess evidence uncovered after the arbitration award which conclusively established Brown's complicity, during his employment, in the thefts which occurred during his employment and alleged that Brown's testimony at the arbitration hearing, being perjurious, resulted in a fraudulent award.

The District Court held that it had jurisdiction to vacate, correct or modify the arbitration award if it was procured by fraud; that if material perjured evidence had been furnished to the arbitrator by the prevailing party, that would constitute fraud sufficient to warrant setting aside the award; and that the Company, as the party asserting such perjury as fraud to upset the award, must show that the claimed newly discovered evidence relied upon to establish fraud, if received, would meet the requirements (a) of probative value normally expected in an arbitration proceeding and (b) of being not discoverable or available to the Company in the exercise of due diligence during the arbitration proceeding. The District Court concluded that the Company had failed to sustain its burden of complying with the foregoing requirements and therefore denied the Company's motion to vacate the arbitration award and granted the motion by Brown and the Union for judgment on the record and pleadings (Bridgeport Rolling Mills Company v. Brown, Civil No. 8995 (D. Conn. July 25, 1962)) (unreported).

Upon the Company's appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court. 314 F.2d 885. The Supreme Court denied certiorari. 375 U.S. 821, 84 S.Ct. 58, 11 L.Ed.2d 55. Upon oral argument in the Court of Appeals, counsel for the Company stated he was prepared to submit to that Court additional confirmatory information demonstrating Brown's complicity in the thefts and his perjury, which information had been obtained after the docketing of the appeal. 314 F.2d 885. Such offer of proof was rejected by the Court of Appeals as irrelevant —in that Court and in the District Court — to the issues the arbitrator heard and to the arbitrator's determination that the Company did not have just cause to discharge Brown.⁴

The instant action by Brown and the Union, pursuant to Section 9 of the Arbitration Act,⁵ seeks an order confirming the arbitration award and directing that Brown be reinstated with back pay in accordance with the award. The Company admits the allegations of the complaint, except it alleges that Brown, rather than demanding reinstatement with back wages in accordance with the award, appeared at the Company's place of business to discuss his return to work; and, by special defenses and counterclaims, the Company alleges that Brown rejected the Company's offer of re-employment and Brown owes the Company substantial sums of money for material stolen from the plant by Brown in person and in conspiracy with others.

PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

The question before the Court on the instant motion is whether there is any genuine issue as to any material fact and whether plaintiffs are entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

The Court holds that the judgment entered in the prior proceeding (Civil No. 8995) denying the Company's motion to vacate the arbitration award and granting the motion by Brown and the Union for judgment on the record and pleadings is res judicata (perhaps more accurately stated, collateral estoppel by judgment) as to all issues involving the validity of the award in the instant action to confirm it.⁶

It might well be sufficient to hold that the motion by Brown and the Union for judgment on the record and pleadings in the prior proceeding was tantamount to a Section 9 motion to confirm the award; in fact, their motion requested "that a Judgment be entered confirming the Arbitration award and denying the Company's petition to vacate the said award." (Emphasis added) That motion was granted and judgment was entered by this Court; it was affirmed on appeal. Under the doctrine of res judicata, therefore, the parties are bound "not only as to every matter which was offered and received to sustain or defeat the claim or demand, but as to any other admissible matter which might have been offered for that purpose." Cromwell v. County of Sac, supra note 6, at 352.

Viewing the prior proceeding strictly as one pursuant to Section 10 to vacate the award, however, the judgment entered therein has the effect at least of collateral estoppel by judgment (and perhaps of res judicata) in the instant proceeding pursuant to Section 9 to confirm the award. In a converse situation under the Arbitration Act, the Court of Appeals for this Circuit (Hand, Swan and Hand, C. JJ.) in The Hartbridge, 57 F.2d 672, 673 (2 Cir. 1932), cert. denied, 288 U.S. 601, 53 S.Ct. 320, 77 L.Ed. 977 (1933), stated:

"Upon a motion to confirm the party opposing confirmation may apparently object upon any ground which constitutes a sufficient cause under the statute to vacate, modify, or correct, although no such formal motion has been made.

* * * * * *

"As we understand the statute a motion to confirm puts the other party to his objections. He cannot idly stand by, allow the award to be confirmed and judgment thereon entered, and then move to vacate the award just as though no judgment existed."

In short, in a proceeding to confirm an award not only may an opposing party object upon grounds which might be urged in support of a proceeding to vacate an award; he must do so, or he waives his right to do so.

Conversely, the same principle should be applied as a matter of common sense in a proceeding to vacate an award where, as here, the opposing parties (Brown and the Union) were required to object upon all grounds which might be urged in support of a proceeding to confirm the award. Brown and the Union did just that in the prior proceeding (Civil No. 8995); they not only opposed the motion to vacate the award but affirmatively moved for judgment on the record and pleadings. Accordingly, this Court's judgment in the prior proceeding denying the Company's motion to vacate the award and granting the motion by Brown and the Union for judgment on the record and pleadings was in effect a judgment confirming the award pursuant to Section 9. Under the doctrine of collateral estoppel by judgment, the judgment in the prior proceeding operates as an estoppel "as to those matters in issue or points controverted, upon the determination of which the finding or verdict was rendered." Cromwell v. County of Sac, supra note 6, at 353.⁷

The Company's claim, asserted in defense of the instant proceeding to confirm the award, that "Theodore Roosevelt Brown owes the defendant substantial sums for material which was stolen from the plant of the defendant by the said Theodore Roosevelt Brown in person and in concert and conspiracy with others" is substantially the same claim — or at least is based on the same underlying facts — as the Company's claim in the prior proceeding to vacate the award that Brown was implicated in the theft of materials from the Company's plant. The determination in the prior proceeding that such claim was irrelevant is conclusive upon the Company in the instant proceeding. "Once a party has fought out a matter in litigation with the other party, he cannot later renew that duel." Commissioner v. Sunnen, supra note 6, at 598. The Company's recasting the claim in the instant proceeding in the form of a money claim for damages (as well as a defense against the proceeding to confirm the award) in no way dilutes the conclusiveness of the prior determination against the Company in the instant proceeding.

The only matters before the Court in the instant proceeding which were not determined in the prior proceeding are whether the Company has offered Brown reinstatement to his former position and the amount of compensation due from the...