Camrex (Holdings) Ltd. v. Camrex Reliance Paint Co.

90 F.R.D. 313, 1981 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9587
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. New York
DecidedApril 27, 1981
DocketNos. 79 C 2380, 79 C 2381
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 90 F.R.D. 313 (Camrex (Holdings) Ltd. v. Camrex Reliance Paint Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Camrex (Holdings) Ltd. v. Camrex Reliance Paint Co., 90 F.R.D. 313, 1981 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9587 (E.D.N.Y. 1981).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

NEAHER, District Judge.

The Nature of the Litigation

Camrex (Holdings) Ltd. (“Camrex”), an English limited company, plaintiff in Civil Action 79 C 2380, brings this stockholder’s direct and derivative action with federal jurisdiction based on the diverse citizenship of the parties. Its wholly owned subsidiary, Camrex Contractors (Marine) Limited (“CCML”), plaintiff in Civil Action 79 C 2381, asserts claims based on admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. Both have moved to strike defendants’ timely demands in each action for trial by jury on “all issues involving claims for monetary relief.”1 CCML has also moved to amend its complaint. On their part, defendants have appealed from a United States Magistrate’s order compelling production of certain documents and answers to interrogatories.

Camrex and its world-wide subsidiaries, including CCML, manufacture, sell, distribute and, on occasion, apply special coatings designed to protect ship surfaces from corrosion. Defendant Camrex Reliance Paint Company (“Reliance”), a New York corporation on whose behalf the derivative claims in the diversity action were brought, was partly reorganized in 1977 from a predecessor company, Reliance Paint, to become exclusive United States agent and manufacturing licensee of Camrex with respect to these coatings, pursuant to a Memorandum of Intent and stock purchase agreement, a sales agency agreement and a manufacturing license agreement. Pursuant to employment agreements executed about the same time, Reliance Paint’s directors, officers and shareholders, Arger, Argiriadi and Mardikos, who are individual defendants in both actions, became officers and directors of newly named Reliance, each owning 20% of the authorized and issued stock. Cam-rex, owning the remaining 40%, was represented on the Reliance board by two of its own directors and employees, Messrs. Dillon [317]*317and Miller. Decisions on corporate action made by Reliance’s board of directors required the approval of four of the five directors, the same number also constituting a quorum.

The present lawsuits arise from large contracts let through the Coastal Dry Dock & Repair Corporation (“Coastal”) for the coating and related repair wcrk performed on United States Navy vessels, in particular the contracts relating to the U. S. S. Caloo-sahatchee and U. S. S. Kalamazoo. For reasons and under circumstances which are in dispute, Reliance did not end up with the Coastal contracts. Instead, about the time the contracts were being let, defendants Arger, Argiriadi and Mardikos caused defendant Reliance Marine Applicators, Inc. (“Applicators”) to be formed to engage in the business of blasting and then coating metal surfaces. Applicators — a New York corporation wholly owned by Whale Chemical Co., which itself is wholly owned by the individual defendants — ended up as Coastal’s subcontractor for the blasting work. The complaints in both actions do allege, however, that the Coastal subcontract was originally with Reliance.

Following an exchange of telexes in the fall of 1978 with Arger — whether he was acting for Reliance or Applicators is uncertain — CCML undertook performance of the blasting and coating work already sublet by Coastal. Until December 31, 1978 one of CCML’s directors and employees was Anthony Saleh, a British citizen and the other individual defendant in 79 C 2381. During the fall and winter 1978-1979, questions arose concerning the area aboard the ships to be blasted and coated, and the purported agreements of the parties were amended from prices calculated on the square footage to a lump sum for the two ships. Saleh left CCML and began to work for Applicators after December 1978, apparently following a confrontation with another CCML director and officer, Pagnam, concerning the area estimates for the contracts.

During performance of the coating and blasting work by CCML, Coastal paid money to Applicators for the work done but CCML claims it has not been fully paid for its work. Defendants have countered that the payments Applicators received were delayed because of CCML’s inadequate and untimely performance. Apparently the work on both ships was completed by June 1979 and completion certificates issued.

The Motions in 79 C 2381

As already noted, federal jurisdiction in this action is based on the maritime and admiralty nature of the claims asserted. The right to a jury trial in actions at common law guaranteed by the Seventh Amendment and “preserved inviolate” by Rule 38(a), F.R.Civ.P., provides no basis for claiming a jury trial with respect to the issues in an admiralty or maritime claim so designated (as plaintiff has done) under Rule 9(h), as indeed Rule 38(e) expressly recognizes: “These rules shall not be construed to create a right to trial by jury of the issues in an admiralty or maritime claim within the meaning of Rule 9(h).” See 5 J. Moore, J. Lucas, J. Wicker, Moore’s Federal Practice, ¶ 38.35 (2d ed. 1980). Thus, it is immaterial that the issues underlying CCML’s main claim for payment of the dry dock work it performed to repair and ready the two Navy ships for sea can be characterized as “legal” for purposes of a jury trial, since defendants have not contested, and reasonably could not, the maritime nature of CCML’s claim. See 1 Benedict on Admiralty, § 189 at 1-37-40 (7th ed. 1980); 7A Moore’s Federal Practice, supra, ¶ .230[4.-3] at 2801.

Furthermore, it is equally settled that a plaintiff’s election to sue on an admiralty or maritime claim as the basis for federal jurisdiction binds the parties in the lawsuit to the inevitable procedural consequence of a court trial, e. g., Harrison v. Flota Mercante Grancolombiana, S. A., 577 F.2d 968 (5th Cir. 1978) (third-party defendant sued on theories of negligence and products liability), even where a “legal” counterclaim has been interposed, Alaska Barite Co. v. Freighters, Inc., 54 F.R.D. 192 (N.D.Cal.1972). See Romero v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., 515 F.2d 1249, 1252-54 (5th Cir. 1975).

[318]*318Defendants argue, however, that since there are some close identity of fact issues in the two actions and they have asserted a right to a jury in the diversity action, they should also have a jury trial in the maritime action, relying on Fitzgerald v. United States Lines Co., 374 U.S. 16, 83 S.Ct. 1646, 10 L.Ed.2d 720 (1963). The argument misses the mark.

These two factually related actions do not present the procedural tangle, so frequently arising in seamen’s actions to recover for personal injuries, which prompted the Supreme Court to rule in Fitzgerald that a seaman’s admiralty claim for maintenance and cure should be submitted to a jury along with his Jones Act claim on which he had a statutory right to a jury trial. Here, unlike Fitzgerald, we do not have “what is essentially one lawsuit to settle one claim split conceptually into separate parts because of historical developments.” 374 U.S. at 21, 83 S.Ct. at 1650. See also Blake v. Farrell Lines, Inc., 417 F.2d 264 (3d Cir. 1969). Although there may be common fact issues, the claims here are essentially to recover for wrongs done a corporation by its directors and for payment for work done, asserted on behalf of independent entities on distinct jurisdictional grounds.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
90 F.R.D. 313, 1981 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9587, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/camrex-holdings-ltd-v-camrex-reliance-paint-co-nyed-1981.