Hulin v. Fibreboard Corp.

• Citation: 178 F.3d 316
• Decision Date: 09 June 1999
• Docket Number: No. 97-30734,97-30734
• Parties: Esther B. HULIN, et al., Plaintiffs, Susan H. Berry; Thomas Hulin; Sally H. Blanchard; Mary Desselle Romano; Joseph G. Hulin; Janet M. Hulin, Plaintiffs-Appellants; v. FIBREBOARD CORPORATION, et al., Defendants, American Tobacco Company, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)

Page 316

178 F.3d 316

Esther B. HULIN, et al., Plaintiffs Susan H. Berry; Thomas Hulin; Sally H. Blanchard; Mary Desselle Romano; Joseph G. Hulin; Janet M. Hulin Plaintiffs-Appellants; v. FIBREBOARD CORPORATION, et al., Defendants American Tobacco Company, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 97-30734.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

June 9, 1999.

George R. Covert, Sean D. Fagan, Baton Rouge, LA, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Robert E. Winn, Sally A. Shushan, Joy Goldberg Braun, John William Hite, III, Sessions & Fishman, New Orleans, LA, Bruce G. Sheffler, Thomas E. Bezanson, Chadbourne & Parke, New York City, for Defendant-Appellee.

David Edmund Redmann, Jr., Lemle & Kelleher, Thomas W. Tyner, Troy Nathan Bell, Aultman, Tyner, McNeese, Ruffin & Laird, New Orleans, LA, for Garlock Inc., Amicus Curiae.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana.

Before DeMOSS, PARKER and DENNIS, Circuit Judges.

DENNIS, Circuit Judge:

The district court granted the defendants a summary judgment dismissing the plaintiffs' diversity products liability actions based on Louisiana law on the grounds that the decision of the Supreme Court of Louisiana in Halphen v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., 484 So.2d 110 (La.1986), does not apply retroactively to causes of action which arose before the date it was decided, February 24, 1986. We reverse and remand the case to the district court for further proceedings. The Louisiana Supreme Court's decisions firmly establish the principles that under the state constitution and the Civil Code, courts do not make law but interpret and apply law made by the Legislature or derived from custom. In accord with those principles, the state's highest court has held that when it interprets the law in deciding a controversy between litigants in one case, that decision becomes the controlling interpretation of state law and must be given full retroactive effect in all other cases, unless the court declares otherwise or such application is barred by prescription or res judicata. Moreover, when the court interprets and applies the Civil Code in deciding a case, the foregoing general rule of adjudicative retroactivity is reinforced by civil law doctrine, under which the court's decision is considered to be declarative of what the Civil Code has always meant. The Louisiana Supreme Court did not limit the retroactive effect of its decision in Halphen, a case in which it interpreted and applied the Civil Code provisions of delictual law. Accordingly, under the Erie doctrine, we conclude that the Louisiana Supreme Court, applying its longstanding rule, would determine that Halphen applies retroactively, consistent with principles of res judicata and prescription. Consequently, Halphen must be given retroactive effect by federal courts in the same manner.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On January 7, 1986, Esther B. Hulin, Susan H. Berry, Thomas Hulin, Sally H. Blanchard, Mary H. Deselle, Joseph G. Hulin, and Janet M. Hulin ("plaintiffs") filed suit against American Tobacco Company ("American Tobacco") and various manufacturers of asbestos-containing products ("defendants") alleging that the defendants' products contributed to the lung cancer and June 3, 1985 death of Lenes J. Hulin, Jr., husband and father of the plaintiffs. In their complaint, the plaintiffs sought recovery under the theories of strict liability, ultrahazardous activities, and negligence. Six weeks after the complaint was filed, the Louisiana Supreme Court in Halphen answered the certified question asked by this federal court of appeals, by interpreting and applying the Louisiana Civil Code and its jurisprudence thereunder, and concluding that if plaintiff proves that the product was unreasonably dangerous per se, i.e., if a reasonable person would conclude that the danger-in-fact of the product outweighs its utility, whether because of defective design or another kind of defect, or unreasonably dangerous in construction or composition, a manufacturer may be held liable for injuries caused by the product even though the manufacturer did not know and reasonably could not have known of the danger. Halphen, 484 So.2d at 116-17.

On November 23, 1987, the plaintiffs amended their complaint to add a products liability claim alleging that tobacco is unreasonably dangerous per se, i.e., because a reasonable person would conclude that the danger-in-fact of tobacco outweighs its utility.

In April 1994, the district court in this case granted American Tobacco's motion for summary judgment and dismissed all of the plaintiffs' claims except their allegation that the defendants' products were unreasonably dangerous per se. On July 29, 1996, American Tobacco filed a motion in limine to determine the applicability of Halphen to this suit. On December 9, 1996, the district court issued its Ruling on Motion in Limine To Determine Applicability of Halphen, declaring that Halphen could not be applied retroactively to this case. In a separate ruling on that date, the court granted American Tobacco's motion for summary judgment and dismissed it from this case after concluding that the plaintiffs' sole remaining claim, that the defendants' products were unreasonably dangerous per se, was inapplicable in light of the court's nonretroactivity ruling. The plaintiffs appealed from this judgment.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

A district court's decision of a question of state law is subject to de novo review by this court. Salve Regina College v. Russell, 499 U.S. 225, 231, 111 S.Ct. 1217, 113 L.Ed.2d 190 (1991). A summary judgment ruling is also reviewed de novo, applying the same criteria employed by the district court. Conkling v. Turner, 18 F.3d 1285, 1295 (5th Cir.1994).

III. DISCUSSION

A. Federal Courts Must Apply The Law of the State, Except in Matters Governed By the Federal Constitution Or By Acts of Congress

In Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938), the Supreme Court announced the governing principle that was to become the heart of the Erie doctrine:

Except in matters governed by the Federal Constitution or by Acts of Congress, the law to be applied in any case is the law of the state. And whether the law of the state shall be declared by its Legislature in a statute or by its highest court in a decision is not a matter of federal concern. There is no federal general common law. Congress has no power to declare substantive rules of common law applicable in a state whether they be local in their nature or "general," be they commercial law or a part of the law of torts. And no clause in the Constitution purports to confer such a power upon the federal courts.

Id. at 78, 58 S.Ct. 817.

The Court has stated that, in determining the content of the state law to be applied:

the underlying substantive rule involved is based on state law and the State's highest court is the best authority on its own law. If there be no decision by that court then federal authorities must apply what they find to be the state law after giving "proper regard" to relevant rulings of other courts of the State.

Commissioner v. Estate of Bosch, 387 U.S. 456, 465, 87 S.Ct. 1776, 18 L.Ed.2d 886 (1967); see also id. at 477, 87 S.Ct. 1776 ("[A]bsent a recent judgment of the State's highest court, state cases are only data from which the law must be derived...." (Harlan, J., joined by Fortas, J., dissenting)). See, e.g., Jackson v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., 781 F.2d 394, 397-98 (5th Cir.) (en banc) (In filling a void in state law the federal court may not do merely what it thinks best, but rather must do what it thinks the state's highest court would deem best.), cert. denied, 478 U.S. 1022, 106 S.Ct. 3339, 92 L.Ed.2d 743 (1986); Rogers v. Corrosion Prods., Inc., 42 F.3d 292, 295 (5th Cir.) (Although "[t]he decisions of lower state courts should be given some weight, ... they are not controlling where the highest state court has not spoken on the subject."), cert. denied, 515 U.S. 1160, 115 S.Ct. 2614, 132 L.Ed.2d 857 (1995); Roginsky v. Richardson-Merrell, Inc., 378 F.2d 832, 851 (2d Cir.1967) ("[W]hen a federal court must determine state law, it should not slavishly follow lower or even upper court decisions but ought to consider all the data the highest court of the state would use."); 19 CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT ET AL., FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 4507, at 124 (2d ed. 1996) ("[A] responsible determination of state law involves something more than checking the digests for state court decisions on point[.]"); 19 WRIGHT ET AL., supra at 126-30 ("[T]he federal court must determine issues of state law as it believes the highest court of the state would determine them, not necessarily (although usually this will be the case) as they have been decided by other state courts in the past."); 19 WRIGHT ET AL., supra at 157 ("Thus, intermediate appellate court decisions may be disregarded if the federal court is convinced by other persuasive data that the highest court of the forum state would decide the matter in a different fashion." (citing, e.g., Industrial Indem. Co. v. Chapman and Cutler, 22 F.3d 1346, 1355 n. 18 (5th Cir.1994); Eljer Mfg., Inc. v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 972 F.2d 805, 814 (7th Cir.1992), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 1005, 113 S.Ct. 1646, 123 L.Ed.2d 267 (1993))). See also ERWIN CHEMERINSKY, FEDERAL JURISDICTION § 5.3, at 325 (3d ed.1999) ("In other words, a federal court in a diversity case is to apply the law the state's highest court likely would apply. The federal court should consider lower state court decisions, but is not bound to apply and follow them if the federal court believes that they would not be affirmed by that state's highest court. The federal court may consider all available material in deciding what law would be followed by a state.").

B. Louisiana Judicial Retroactivity Doctrine Declared By The

State's Highest Court And Derived From Civil,

Common, and Constitutional Law...