Joyce v. General Motors Corp.

• Decision Date: 28 February 1990
• Docket Number: No. 88-2049,88-2049
• Citation: 49 Ohio St.3d 93,551 N.E.2d 172
• Parties: , 58 USLW 2588 JOYCE, Appellee, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION; Halsey et al., Appellants.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 93

49 Ohio St.3d 93

551 N.E.2d 172, 58 USLW 2588

JOYCE, Appellee, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION; Halsey et al., Appellants.

No. 88-2049.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted Oct. 18, 1989.

Decided Feb. 28, 1990.

Syllabus by the Court

1. Where, in the interest of justice, it is essential for a reviewing court to ascertain the grounds upon which a judgment of a lower court is founded, the reviewing court must examine the entire journal entry and the proceedings. (A.B. Jac, Inc. v. Liquor Control Comm. [1972], 29 Ohio St.2d 139, 58 O.O.2d 342, 280 N.E.2d 371, paragraph two of the syllabus, followed.)

2. Ideas are not the property of anyone unless they are expressed in a legally protected manner.

Plaintiff-appellee, Michael Joyce, a nonsupervisory employee in the Delco Products Division of General Motors Corporation ("GM"), submitted a written suggestion to GM on April 3, 1984, describing and recommending the adoption of certain procedures to reduce the amount of scrap in the manufacturing and testing of products in his department.

The suggestion was made pursuant to GM's suggestion plan which provides, inter alia, that "[t]he Suggestion Committee decides whether or not suggestions are eligible for awards and determines the amount of each suggestion award paid for adopted suggestions. * * * Decisions by the Suggestion Committee are final." The plan further provides that "[a] suggestion made under the terms and conditions of the * * * Suggestion Plan is not made in confidence * * *."

Joyce's suggestion was returned to him on April 4, 1984, with the comment, "[d]uplicate suggestion submitted by another suggester on same day," written on it by the head of the suggestion committee. The duplicate suggestion was made by Donald Halsey, a supervisory employee at GM. Halsey's suggestion was also returned to him with the same comment written on it as on Joyce's. Both Joyce and Halsey had discussed their suggestion ideas with others before submitting them to the suggestion committee.

After a long investigation, the suggestion committee awarded $12,573.13 to Halsey for his suggestion, which at that time had been adopted by GM. The head of the suggestion committee indicated that Halsey's suggestion was the idea "that probed the action." He further indicated that Joyce would not have gotten the award if Halsey's suggestion had been rejected.

Halsey gave $5,000 of the award money to Donald Tackett, the supervisor in charge of Joyce's department, which he claims was a gift for Tackett's help with his suggestion.

Following an unsuccessful attempt to have GM management revoke the award to Halsey, Joyce filed suit against GM, Halsey and Tackett. He essentially alleged in his complaint that Halsey wrongfully appropriated his ideas and incorporated them into his suggestion after learning of them from Tackett, who learned of them from Joyce's immediate supervisor, Chuck Guisinger, with whom Joyce had discussed his ideas. He further alleged that Halsey and Tackett "conspired * * * to deprive * * * [him] of his Suggestion and to convert it to their own use * * * unjustly enrich[ing] themselves to * * * [his] detriment." He also alleged that " * * * [General Motors] vicariously through * * * [Halsey and Tackett], and in ratification of their acts, * * * acted * * * with reckless and wanton disregard of his rights * * *."

The defendants moved for dismissal of the complaint pursuant to Civ.R. 12(B)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. The trial court initially sustained defendants' motion but later overruled it, stating that "[t]hrough the creativity of counsel, the pleadings set forth facts which, if they can be proven, may constitute a cause of action against the Defendant[s] * * *."

Prior to trial, defendant GM was dismissed as a party. The action against Halsey and Tackett proceeded to trial. At the close of plaintiff-appellee's case, defendants-appellants moved for a directed verdict pursuant to Civ.R. 50. The court sustained the motion and entered judgment accordingly. The court indicated that there is no protected right in ideas that were not copyrighted, patented or trademarked. It also noted that there is no cause of action in conversion for ideas which are not protected by law. It further indicated that no contractual rights flow from the suggestion plan. It described the plan as a "procedure by which employees are to submit their suggestion and * * * a means or method by which compensation is established and paid * * *."

The court of appeals reversed. The court stated that "[t]he trial court granted the defendants' motion for a directed verdict on the ground that no cause of action existed * * *." It thus concluded that its review was necessarily "confined to the allegations set forth in [the] * * * complaint." The court held that the complaint stated a cause of action. It stated that "where a supervisor conspires with a fellow employee to convert the valuable ideas of an hourly employee, a cause of action in conversion must lie. Such a valuable idea, in the form of a suggestion is a property right which may be the subject of conversion."

The cause is now before this court pursuant to the allowance of a motion to certify the record.

Green & Green and Peter F. von Meister, Dayton, for appellee.

Turner, Granzow & Hollenkamp and David F. Rudwall, Dayton, for appellants.

MOYER, Chief Justice.

The first issue for our disposition is whether the court of appeals properly construed the trial court's action as a response to defendants' Civ.R. 12(B)(6) motion, rather than as a response to defendants' motion for a directed verdict.

Defendants-appellants contend that it is error to treat a directed verdict entered at the conclusion of plaintiff's case as a motion to dismiss under Civ.R. 12(B)(6).

Civ.R. 50(A)(4) provides in part:

"When a motion for a directed verdict has been properly made, and the trial court, after construing the evidence most strongly in favor of the party against whom the motion is directed, finds that upon any determinative issue reasonable minds could come to but one conclusion upon the evidence submitted and that conclusion is adverse to such party, the court shall sustain the motion and direct a verdict for the moving party as to that issue." (Emphasis added.)

The primary difference between a directed verdict motion and a Rule 12(B)(6) ¹ motion is procedural: A Rule 12(B)(6) motion is made, heard and determined before trial on application of any party, Civ.R. 12(D), while " ' * * * [a] directed verdict motion * * * [is] made at trial and decided on the evidence that has been admitted * * *.' " Grau v. Kleinschmidt (1987), 31 Ohio St.3d 84, 91, 31 OBR 250, 256, 509 N.E.2d 399, 405. See, also, State, ex rel. Keating, v. Pressman (1974), 38 Ohio St.2d 161, 163-164, 67 O.O.2d 176, 178, 311 N.E.2d 524, 526.

Application of the foregoing principles produces the conclusion that defendants were not in a position to make a Rule 12(B)(6) motion once trial had commenced. Furthermore, their Rule 12(B)(6) motion had been overruled prior to trial. The motion before the trial court at the conclusion of plaintiff's case was a motion for a directed verdict.

The question thus posed by the court of appeals' decision is whether the trial court misconstrued appellants' directed verdict motion as a Rule 12(B)(6) motion.

Where, in the interest of justice, it is essential for a reviewing court to ascertain the grounds upon which a judgment of a lower court is founded, the reviewing court must examine the entire journal entry and the proceedings. A.B. Jac, Inc. v. Liquor Control Comm. (1972), 29 Ohio St.2d 139, 58 O.O.2d 342, 280 N.E.2d 371, paragraph two of the syllabus. It is fundamental in law that the court speaks through its entire journal entry. Id. at 142, 58 O.O.2d at 343, 280 N.E.2d at 373.

In disposing of the directed verdict motion, the trial judge made the following comment: "Until they are protected as a matter of law, there simply is no right to an idea, and my biggest problem came when I attempted to draft a jury charge * * * [after listening to the evidence ]. When I got to the issue of personal property, * * * for the jury to find that there is a conversion, they must find that there is a conversion of tangible personal property with title vested in the plaintiff. There is no such thing identifiable within this record. And, therefore, it is my judgment * * * that pursuant to law, the Defendants' motion for directed verdict be sustained and that judgment be entered accordingly." (Emphasis added.) The court further commented that "there is no cause of action [for conversion of ideas]."

While we agree that the trial court should not have used the "no cause of action" language in ruling on the directed verdict motion, it is clear from the record that the court viewed the motion as a directed verdict motion and that its decision was predicated on the evidence adduced at trial.

We have consistently held that a reviewing court is not authorized to reverse a correct judgment merely because erroneous reasons were assigned as the basis thereof. Agricultural Ins. Co. v. Constantine (1944), 144 Ohio St. 275, 284, 29 O.O. 426, 430, 58 N.E.2d 658, 663.

For the foregoing reasons, we hold that the court of appeals erred in confining its review of the trial court's proceedings to the allegations set forth in appellee's complaint.

We next consider whether an idea submitted by an employee pursuant to an employee suggestion plan is in itself personal property which may not be converted by another employee.

In Zacchini v. Scripps-Howard Broadcasting Co. (1976), 47 Ohio St.2d 224, 226, 1 O.O.3d 129, 130, 351 N.E.2d 454, 456, we held that conversion is the wrongful exercise of dominion over property to the exclusion of the rights of the owner, or withholding it from his possession under a claim inconsistent with his rights. Thus, before we reach the issue of conversion, we...