Wilmington Steel Products, Inc. v. Cleveland Elec. Illuminating Co., 90-813

• Decision Date: 05 June 1991
• Docket Number: No. 90-813,90-813
• Parties: WILMINGTON STEEL PRODUCTS, INC., Appellee, v. CLEVELAND ELECTRIC ILLUMINATING COMPANY, Appellant.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 120

60 Ohio St.3d 120

573 N.E.2d 622

WILMINGTON STEEL PRODUCTS, INC., Appellee, v. CLEVELAND ELECTRIC ILLUMINATING COMPANY, Appellant.

No. 90-813.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted April 9, 1991.

Decided June 5, 1991.

Syllabus by the Court

Where a plaintiff fails to make a prima facie showing of support for new matters sought to be pleaded, a trial court acts within its discretion to deny a motion to amend the pleading. (Solowitch v. Bennett [1982], 8 Ohio App.3d 115, 8 OBR 169, 456 N.E.2d 562, approved.)

Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company ("CEI"), the defendant-appellant, contracted with United Engineers & Constructors, Inc. ("United") for the design of an electrostatic precipitator at CEI's Avon Lake plant. Bids were solicited based on United's design and specifications. CEI subsequently signed a contract with Kelley Steel Erectors, Inc. ("Kelley"), effective May 2, 1983, to fabricate and erect support steel and duct work for part of the project. Kelley, in turn, contracted with Wilmington Steel Products, Inc. ("Wilmington") for the fabrication of the steel that Kelley would install in the project. Shortly after the subcontract was awarded, Wilmington and United were at odds over some elements of the design. The focus of the dispute was how the steel beams were to be connected. Discussions between the parties were held over the summer of 1983 to work out the differences. Eventually, CEI agreed to consider additional compensation for Kelley and Wilmington if they could document the added costs of resolving the differences with United over the design for the beam connections. On September 19, 1983, Kelley submitted a letter to CEI requesting $50,061 more for Wilmington, plus $9,256 for itself ($5,006 was for Kelley's ten percent markup plus $4,250 for its own additional costs). Kelley subsequently received $47,975, which included $43,725 for Wilmington, as a result of an agreement between Kelley and CEI dated December 21, 1983. Wilmington finished its fabrication work in April 1984. On December 24, 1984, Wilmington sent a claim for $719,244 to Kelley for additional costs related to the beam connections. Kelley forwarded the claim to CEI, which rejected it on the grounds that the beam connection issue had been settled by the 1983 agreement. In August 1986, a global settlement of all claims was signed by CEI and Kelley as an amendment to their contract.

Wilmington filed suit against Kelley, United and CEI on October 1, 1986. The suit charged Kelley with breach of contract, United with breaching its duty to properly design the project, and CEI with unjust enrichment for refusing to pay Wilmington's claim for additional labor and materials. On April 7, 1988, eleven days before the trial was scheduled to begin, Wilmington dismissed its case against Kelley in return for an assignment of Kelley's contract rights against CEI. The same day, Wilmington filed a motion for leave to file an amended complaint against CEI, asserting a breach of contract. Four days later, Wilmington filed a supplemental motion to amend its complaint to add another claim against CEI for alleged damages caused by United as CEI's agent. On April 18, the trial judge held a hearing on Wilmington's motions to file the amended complaints and denied them. At the close of the plaintiff's case, the judge directed verdicts for CEI and United.

On appeal, Wilmington raised four assignments of error: (1) that the trial court erred as a matter of law in granting the directed verdict on the grounds that Wilmington was not entitled to maintain a cause of action in quasi-contract; (2) that the directed verdict for CEI was against the manifest weight of the evidence and that reasonable minds could have differed on the material issues presented; (3) that the directed verdict for United was in error for the same reason; and (4) that the trial court erred in refusing to allow Wilmington to amend its complaint. The Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County reversed the trial court, sustaining Wilmington's second, third and fourth assignments of error. The appeals court overruled Wilmington's first assignment concerning the unjust enrichment claim. On July 25, 1990, this court allowed CEI's and United's motions to certify the record. On March 28, 1991, Wilmington and United jointly moved this court to dismiss Wilmington's claim against United. The motion was granted on April 4, 1991.

Summers, Fox, Coury & McGinty Co., L.P.A., and Norman A. Fox, Jr., Cleveland, for appellee.

Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, Robin G. Weaver, Katharine A. Van Tassel and David R. Percio, Cleveland, for appellant.

WRIGHT, Justice.

With the dismissal of United as a defendant, only the claims against CEI remain for resolution by this court. The only issue is whether the trial judge erred in denying Wilmington's motions to amend its complaint prior to trial.

The language of Civ.R. 15(A) favors a liberal policy when the trial judge is confronted with a motion to amend a pleading beyond the time limit when such amendments are automatically allowed. " * * * Leave of court shall be freely given when justice so requires * * *," the rule states. This court's role is to determine whether the trial judge's decision was an abuse of discretion, not whether it was the same decision we might have made. State, ex rel. Wargo, v. Price (1978), 56 Ohio St.2d 65, 10 O.O.3d 116, 381 N.E.2d 943. Not only is our role limited to review, but the review itself has narrow limits:

" * * * We have repeatedly held that '[t]he term "abuse of discretion" connotes more than an error of law or of judgment; it implies that the court's attitude is unreasonable, arbitrary or unconscionable.' " Huffman v. Hair Surgeon, Inc. (1985), 19 Ohio St.3d 83, 87, 19 OBR 123, 126, 482 N.E.2d 1248, 1252.

Wilmington relies heavily on this court's decision in Peterson v. Teodosio (1973), 34 Ohio St.2d 161, 63 O.O.2d 262, 297 N.E.2d 113, to support its contention that the trial court's decision constituted just such an abuse. It is not an adverse reflection on the syllabus law of that case, however, to...