Curtiss-Wright Corp. v. General Elec. Co.

• Decision Date: 04 June 1979
• Docket Number: No. 78-2179,78-2293.,78-2179
• Parties: CURTISS-WRIGHT CORPORATION v. GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

599 F.2d 1259

CURTISS-WRIGHT CORPORATION v. GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY, Appellant.

Nos. 78-2179, 78-2293.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

June 4, 1979.

Isaac N. Groner (argued), Walter H. Fleischer, Alfred F. Belcuore, Cole & Groner, P.C., Washington, D.C., Albert G. Besser, Hannoch, Weisman, Stern & Besser, P.A., Newark, N.J., for appellant; Jamie H. Gearon, General Electric Co., Schenectady, N.Y., of counsel.

Ralph N. DelDeo (argued), Richard S. Zackin, Gerard C. Sims, Jr., Crummy, DelDeo, Dolan & Purcell, Newark, N.J., for appellee.

Before SEITZ, Chief Judge, and ALDISERT, ADAMS, GIBBONS, ROSENN, WEIS and HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judges.^*

SUR PETITION FOR REHEARING

The petition for rehearing of 597 F.2d 35 filed by Appellee in the above entitled case having been submitted to the judges who participated in the decision of this court and to all the other available circuit judges of the circuit in regular active service, and no judge who concurred in the decision having asked for rehearing, and a majority of the circuit judges of the circuit in regular active service not having voted for rehearing by the court in banc, the petition for rehearing is denied.

For the reasons pointed out by Judges Rosenn and Gibbons, Judges Adams and Higginbotham believe that the issues raised in this appeal are of sufficient importance so as to command the attention of the full Court. Accordingly, they vote for rehearing.

GIBBONS, Circuit Judge, dissenting:

I dissent. In a casual per curiam opinion¹ the panel majority, without analysis or explanation, has established a virtual per se barrier to Rule 54(b) certification in civil damage actions involving counterclaims. With similar unillumination the panel majority also adopts the rule that financial hardship should never be a justification for Rule 54(b) certification unless the claimant is insolvent. These extraordinary holdings find no support in the prior law of this circuit and run directly counter to the spirit and purpose of Rule 54(b). If applied literally and consistently, they will sharply limit the effective use of Rule 54(b) in this circuit, with resulting harm both to litigants and to the ability of district judges to expedite the disposition of cases. This threat to the integrity of the Rule 54(b) certification process is worthy of the court's en banc attention.²

I. THE FACTS

This suit is a paradigmatic example of a complex commercial litigation. It grows out of the performance, over a period of nearly a decade, of 21 subcontracts for the production of nuclear propulsion components. These subcontracts had a total value of $215 million. Curtiss-Wright's initial complaint pleaded 16 counts of fraud, misrepresentation, and breach of contract on the part of General Electric in the performance of various subcontracts. Three counts later added by an amended complaint sought $19 million in contract price balances owed under the 21 subcontracts. The latter claims are the subject of this appeal.

General Electric's counterclaim is in two parts. Counts I-IV of the counterclaim constitute a single attempt to recover, on different theories, for $1.9 million in costs incurred as the result of "extraordinary efforts" in the nature of technical assistance provided to Curtiss-Wright during the performance of the 21 contracts in suit. Count V sweeps more broadly. In it, General Electric claims that the same "extraordinary efforts" for which it seeks to recover in Counts I-IV of the counterclaim enabled Curtiss-Wright to avoid a contract default and a consequent loss of $52 million. General Electric asserts a claim to that $52 million on the theory that Curtiss-Wright has been unjustly enriched by what it never gained, but did not lose.

The facts underlying most of the claims in this extraordinarily large and complex commercial dispute are hotly disputed. Reviewing the case, the district court concluded that full resolution of all of the issues in the case would require "many months, if not years." Certainly this court is in no position to contest that conclusion. Curtiss-Wright's $19 million claim on the subcontracts, however, is not subject to factual dispute. General Electric has accepted the Curtiss-Wright components, has found no fault with them, and has used them in the performance of its prime contract with the Navy. Its sole defense to the claims to payment on the subcontracts is Article 5(c), a provision in each agreement which requires that as a condition to final payment Curtiss-Wright must release all claims arising out of the performance of that agreement. General Electric contends that so long as Curtiss-Wright's 16 claims remain pending Article 5(c) constitutes a bar to recovery of the undisputed contract balances. The application and interpretation of Article 5(c) to the 16 claims presents a pure question of law which the district court decided in Curtiss-Wright's favor. With the exception of that legal issue, there is no dispute that Curtiss-Wright is entitled to final payment upon the subcontracts.

II. THE DISTRICT JUDGE'S DECISION

With the case in this posture, more than two years after the filing of the original complaint, the district judge granted Curtiss-Wright's motion for summary judgment on the three subcontract claims. The court then made both the "express direction" for entry of judgment and the determination that there was "no just reason" for delay required by Rule 54(b). In doing so, it complied fully with this court's decision in Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Philadelphia Electric Co., 521 F.2d 360 (3d Cir. 1975), by providing a carefully considered written statement of reasons supporting the decision to direct entry of a final judgment. In that statement the court noted that the certification remedy was to be reserved for "the infrequent harsh case." Moreover, he found that the presence of General Electric's counterclaim, and the consequent possibility of a setoff, militated against certification. But on balance, he concluded that sound judicial administration and fairness to litigants would ultimately be advanced by certification. With regard to judicial administration, the court found that the certification of the order as a final judgment could not result in unnecessary or duplicative appellate review: the contract claim was "separate, distinct, and independent of any other claims in this lawsuit," and would not be mooted by further proceedings in the case. The district court also concluded that certification would cause no delay or inefficiency at the trial court level, since the other claims in the case could be prepared for trial during the pendency of the appeal.

On the issue of fairness to the litigants, the district court noted that until judgment was entered on the contract counts Curtiss-Wright would be entitled only to 6% prejudgment interest on its $19 million claim, and would be required to absorb the difference between that rate and the much higher market rate of interest, thereby suffering "daily financial losses from nonpayment of these liquidated debts." This injustice, the court concluded, could prove exceptionally severe since "because of the complex nature of the remaining claims in this case, the delay in payment which would occur if certification were denied would span many months, if not years."

III. THE PANEL MAJORITY OPINION

The panel majority opinion rejects the district court's carefully considered decision on two grounds. First, it postulates that Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Philadelphia Electric Co., supra, establishes a blanket presumption against the certification of separate claims where a counterclaim is pending. Second, it holds that as a matter of law the district court could not have viewed the loss of over one million dollars in annual interest, even for a period of "many months or years," as a "harsh circumstance" sufficient to overcome that presumption and permit an immediate appeal. It therefore concludes that, despite the district judge's unchallenged finding that this appeal poses no risk of delay or wasted effort at either the trial court or appellate level, the decision to enter final judgment on the $19 million claim must be reversed.

IV. THE PANEL MAJORITY'S USE OF PRECEDENT

The panel majority opinion effectively holds that the district court may not enter a Rule 54(b) money judgment in an action in which a non-frivolous counterclaim has been filed unless the party seeking to recover on the judgment is insolvent. The opinion makes no serious effort to justify this result. Rather, it asserts that its decision is compelled by this court's decision in Allis-Chalmers. In support of this conclusion, however, it cites not to the Allis-Chalmers majority opinion, but to my dissent in that case.

I am underwhelmed. First, as Judge Rosenn points out,³ Judge Garth's majority opinion in Allis-Chalmers stresses that the reversal and remand of the Rule 54(b) certification in that case did not rest on a determination "that this was an improper case for Rule 54(b) certification." 521 F.2d at 367 n. 16. According to the Allis-Chalmers court the remand was "only for a statement of reasons," and "expressed no opinion on" the merits. Id. (emphasis in original). Second, contrary to the panel majority's assertion, my dissent in Allis-Chalmers was not directed to the majority's improper evaluation of the merits of the certification, but rather to its unprecedented and unwarranted imposition of a "statement of reasons" requirement in a case where the justification for certification was glaringly apparent on the face of the record. This is evident from even a cursory reading of the passage cited by the panel majority. See 521 F.2d at 367. Finally, although dicta in Allis-Chalmers might be read to cut against certification here, there is, as Judge Rosenn demonstrates,⁴ other language in the opinion which would permit and indeed encourage the result reached by the district court.⁵ The majority's unsupported...