Roach v. Teamsters Local Union No. 688

• Decision Date: 26 April 1979
• Docket Number: Nos. 78-1633,78-1703,s. 78-1633
• Parties: 100 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3198, 85 Lab.Cas. P 11,219 William Thomas ROACH, Appellant, v. TEAMSTERS LOCAL UNION NO. 688, a Labor Organization, Appellee. Alfred D. RUSSOM, Appellant. v. TEAMSTERS LOCAL UNION NO. 688, a Labor Organization, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 446

595 F.2d 446

100 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3198, 85 Lab.Cas. P 11,219

William Thomas ROACH, Appellant, v. TEAMSTERS LOCAL UNION NO. 688, a Labor Organization, Appellee.

Alfred D. RUSSOM, Appellant. v. TEAMSTERS LOCAL UNION NO. 688, a Labor Organization, Appellee.

Nos. 78-1633, 78-1703.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Jan. 12, 1979.

Decided April 4, 1979.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied April 26, 1979.

Kenneth V. Byrne, Clayton, Mo., on brief, for appellants.

Harry H. Craig, of Wiley, Craig, Armbruster, Wilburn & Mills, St. Louis, Mo., for appellee; Clyde E. Craig, St. Louis, Mo., on brief.

Before LAY, BRIGHT and STEPHENSON, Circuit Judges.

STEPHENSON, Circuit Judge.

William Thomas Roach and Alfred D. Russom initiated separate but virtually identical lawsuits in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. Each plaintiff alleged that the Teamsters Local Union No. 688 (the Union) wrongfully deprived him of certain rights guaranteed to union members by the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), 29 U.S.C. § 401 et seq. In each case the district court ¹ concluded the suit was barred by res judicata, granted summary judgment for the Union and dismissed the complaint with prejudice. Both plaintiffs timely appealed and the cases were consolidated for briefing and oral argument. We affirm.

Roach and Russom are employees of Sears, Roebuck and Company in St. Louis, Missouri, and members of defendant Union. In separate complaints each plaintiff alleged that in January 1976 he was arbitrarily and discriminatorily prevented by union officials from attending a union meeting. Plaintiffs were thereby denied rights guaranteed to union members by LMRDA, specifically, the right to attend and participate in union meetings, the right to assemble freely with other union members, the right to express their opinions and the right to vote. Plaintiffs further alleged that subsequent to the January 1976 incident the Union continued to deny them their rights of free speech and assembly. As a result of the Union's conduct plaintiffs claimed they suffered damage to name and reputation, humiliation and mental distress. For relief they sought actual and punitive damages, costs and attorneys' fees.

On motions by the Union, summary judgments were entered in favor of the Union and the complaints were dismissed with prejudice. In separate memorandum opinions both trial courts held that plaintiffs had attempted to recover for the same alleged violations in a prior lawsuit, Cronin v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 445 F.Supp. 277 (E.D.Mo.1978), Aff'd in part, vacated & remanded in part, 588 F.2d 616 (8th Cir. 1978), and, therefore, the present suits were barred by res judicata. Roach v. Teamsters Local Union No. 688, 455 F.Supp. 322 (E.D.Mo.1978); Russom v. Teamsters Local Union No. 688, 455 F.Supp. 1353 (E.D.Mo.1978).

In 1975 Roach and Russom and several other named plaintiffs brought a class action against both Sears and the Union based on the loss of certain pension and seniority benefits. ² The Cronin dispute derived from the refusal of Sears to pay plaintiffs witness pay for the days they appeared as witnesses on their own behalf in the trial of that case. Roach and Russom and two other plaintiffs sued both Sears and the Union, alleging that Sears breached its collective bargaining agreement by refusing to pay the witness pay and that the Union breached its duty of fair representation by failing to process properly their grievances arising from the company's refusal. Plaintiffs sought actual and punitive damages for lost wages and for mental distress. At the Cronin trial, to substantiate their claims of mental distress, plaintiffs put into evidence their exclusion from the January 1976 union meeting upon which the present complaints are based. Over defendants' objections that this meeting was totally unrelated to the witness pay dispute, both Roach and Russom were permitted to testify in considerable detail about the incident.

At the conclusion of the trial, the jury returned special interrogatories finding that Sears had not breached its collective bargaining agreement but that the Union had breached its duty of fair representation. Actual damages for lost wages were stipulated by the parties to total $428. The jury assessed punitive damages against the Union in the amount of $10,000 for each plaintiff. The trial court, however, entered nominal damages for each plaintiff in the sum of $1 and vacated the award for punitive damages. On appeal, we held that the district court erred in entering a judgment for nominal damages. Otherwise, we affirm the judgment of the district court. Cronin v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., supra.

On this appeal, Roach and Russom contend that the courts below erred in holding that their present claims are barred by the judgment in Cronin. They argue that res judicata is inapplicable because their present claims are based upon a different specific statutory right, involve different operative facts, different issues, different damages and constitute an entirely different cause of action.

We cannot agree. In our view, this is a classic example of a litigant, having failed to recover on his initial theory, attempting to relitigate the same claim under a different theory of recovery. It is well established that res judicata prevents a litigant from getting yet "another day (in court) after the first lawsuit is concluded by giving a different reason than he gave in the first for recovery of damages for the same invasion of his rights." Williamson v. Columbia Gas & Elec. Corp., 186 F.2d 464, 470 (3d Cir. 1950), Quoted in Engelhardt v. Bell & Howell Co., 327 F.2d 30, 33 (8th Cir. 1964).

We are here dealing with the branch of res judicata we have previously labeled claim preclusion. See Engelhardt v. Bell & Howell Co.,supra. See generally Vestal, Res Judicata/Claim Preclusion: Judgment for the Claimant, 62 Nw.U.L.Rev. 357 (1967). The law of res judicata as it relates to claim preclusion is well established. ³ The rule has been explained as follows:

The general rule of Res judicata applies to repetitious suits involving the same cause of action. It rests upon considerations of economy of judicial time and public policy favoring the establishment of certainty in legal relations. The rule provides that when a court of competent jurisdiction has entered a final judgment on the merits of a cause of action, the parties to the suit and their privies are thereafter 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, 94 U.S. 351, 352, (24 L.Ed. 195). The judgment puts an end to the cause of action, which cannot again be brought into litigation between the parties upon any ground whatever, absent fraud or some other factor invalidating the judgment.

Commissioner v. Sunnen, 333 U.S. 591, 597, 68 S.Ct. 715, 719, 92 L.Ed. 898 (1948), Quoted in Sea-Land Services, Inc. v. Gaudet, 414 U.S. 573, 578-79, 94 S.Ct. 806, 39 L.Ed.2d 9 (1974) And Pepper v. Bankers Life & Cas. Co., 414 F.2d 356, 357 (8th Cir. 1969). See Clarke v. Redeker, 406 F.2d 883 (8th Cir.), Cert. denied, 396 U.S. 862, 90 S.Ct. 135, 24 L.Ed.2d 115 (1969); Engelhardt v. Bell & Howell Co., supra.

The essence of the rule is that a final judgment on the merits bars further claims by the same parties based on the same cause of action. Montana v. United States, --- U.S. ----, ----, 99 S.Ct. 970, 59 L.Ed.2d 210 (1979). The critical issue before us on this appeal is, therefore, whether plaintiffs are suing on a cause of action adjudicated in Cronin. ⁴ Various tests have been employed for determining what constitutes a cause of action for res judicata purposes. ⁵ This court has favored a broad approach in recognition of the salutary purposes of res judicata of finality of judgments and the avoidance of piecemeal litigation. See Hanson v. Hunt Oil Co., 505 F.2d 1237 (8th Cir. 1974). Thus we have said that "(i)n the final analysis the test would seem to be whether the wrong for which redress is sought is the same in both actions." Woodbury v. Porter, 158 F.2d 194, 195 (8th Cir. 1946), Quoted in Hanson v. Hunt Oil Co., supra, 505 F.2d at 1240. Accord, Clarke v. Redeker, supra. See Robbins v. District Court, 592 F.2d 1015 at 1017 (8th Cir. 1979), And Engelhardt v. Bell & Howell Co., supra, 327 F.2d at 32 (test is whether the primary right and duty, and delict or wrong are the same in each action).

We have carefully reviewed again the record in Cronin, including the pleadings and the trial transcript. We are convinced that plaintiffs are attempting to recover for a wrong for which they sought recovery in Cronin. Although in Cronin plaintiffs did not plead their exclusion from the January meeting as a separate violation of their rights, a very substantial portion of the trial was devoted to that incident, and it is evident that that alleged invasion of their rights was one basis of their damage claim.

Plaintiffs contend, however, that in Cronin they did not attempt to recover damages for their exclusion from the January meeting. They emphasize that Cronin was brought pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 185(a) for breach of the duty of fair representation whereas their present claims are based upon 29 U.S.C. § 401 et seq., which sets forth a "bill of rights" for members of labor organizations ⁶ and specifically grants union members a cause of action for violations of these rights. ⁷ They assert that the only injury for which relief was sought in Cronin and the only cause of action therein litigated was the breach of contract and the Union's breach of the duty of fair representation. The operative facts surrounding that cause of action were the events of October 1975 when the Union made the decision not to take their witness pay grievance to arbitration. Plai...