Ferro Corp. v. Garrison Industries, Inc.

927 F. Supp. 234, 1996 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7297, 1996 WL 277776
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Ohio
DecidedMarch 18, 1996
DocketNo. 1:94-CV-2641
StatusPublished

This text of 927 F. Supp. 234 (Ferro Corp. v. Garrison Industries, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Ohio primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ferro Corp. v. Garrison Industries, Inc., 927 F. Supp. 234, 1996 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7297, 1996 WL 277776 (N.D. Ohio 1996).

Opinion

OPINION & ORDER

O’MALLEY, District Judge.

Currently pending before the Court are the following motions: (1) motion by defendant Garrison Industries, Inc. (“Garrison”) to modify this Court’s Orders dated May 5, 1995 and May 11, 1995 (docket no. 91); and (2) motion by plaintiff Ferro Corporation (“Ferro”) to vacate the arbitrators’ award in related proceedings (docket no. 76). For the reasons stated below, Garrison’s motion to modify the Court’s earlier Orders (docket no. 91) is DENIED and Ferro’s motion to vacate the arbitrator’s award (docket no. 76) is GRANTED.

The parties are directed to submit to the Court a case management plan regarding future proceedings in this case, as outlined in Section IV below.

I. Background.

Because the procedural history of this case is so tortured, the Court provides the following synopsis as background necessary to understand the Court’s present rulings. Although this synopsis repeats some language used in prior opinions in this case, the following is helpful as a complete recapitulation.

This action involves a contract between plaintiff Ferro Corporation (“Ferro”) and defendant Garrison Industries (“Garrison”). The contract is referred to by the parties and the Court as the Custom Manufacturing Agreement (“CMA”). In the CMA, Garrison agreed to manufacture for Ferro a Ferrodeveloped product known as PyroChek LM, which was intended for use as a flame retardant additive to certain thermoplastics. Garrison promised to manufacture at least 1.5 million pounds of PyroChek LM per year, and up to 3 million pounds per year. In turn, Ferro agreed to: (1) pay Garrison $250,000 up front for purchase of and upgrade to Garrison’s manufacturing equipment, so that Garrison could manufacture PyroChek LM; and (2) accept and pay for (at the rate of 90 cents per pound) the Pyro-Chek LM that Garrison produced. The CMA had an initial term of two years, and contained a standard arbitration clause drafted by Ferro.

The parties executed the CMA on March 17, 1992, agreeing that Garrison would begin production of PyroChek LM as soon as Garrison completed certain upgrades to its facilities as contemplated by the contract. Garrison did not begin to produce PyroChek LM [236]*236until May 28,1992, however, because in addition to spending time making the upgrades agreed to by the parties, Garrison needed time and money to repair damage to its facilities caused by a tornado that passed across its property on May 9,1992.

During the next several months, Garrison continued to produce a quantity of PyroChek LM as it experimented with various chemical production processes. Although the product Garrison manufactured did not always meet Ferro’s specifications, and although the quantity produced fell short of the contract mínimums, Ferro purchased all of the product Garrison produced through March 26, 1993 — which amounted to about 701,800 pounds of product. On March 26, 1993, however, Ferro ordered Garrison to cease production of PyroChek LM. Ferro later told Garrison it did not intend to purchase any more of the PyroChek LM that Garrison might produce, and Ferro sent a contract termination letter to Garrison in December of 1993.

Despite Ferro’s desire to discontinue its relationship with Garrison, Garrison sought payment from Ferro for the balance of the roughly 2.2 million pounds of PyroChek LM that Ferro had promised it would buy from Garrison. Ferro refused, so, on April 25, 1994, Garrison invoked the arbitration clause of the CMA. Ferro responded on May 15, 1994, with a counterclaim in arbitration. The arbitration was scheduled for January 9, 1995. Just before the arbitration was to begin, however, the parties engaged in a whirlwind of procedural moves and counter-moves.

On December 2,1994, Ferro filed an action in state court seeking to: (1) enjoin the arbitration; and (2) have the court rescind the contract because Garrison had fraudulently induced Ferro to enter into the CMA. On the same date, Ferro filed with the arbitration panel a motion to stay proceedings pending the litigation. On December 20, 1994, the arbitration panel denied the motion to stay the arbitration proceedings. Ferro immediately sought to stay the arbitration proceedings anyway, by filing in its state court action a motion for temporary restraining order to stay the arbitration. The state court set the matter for hearing on December 22,1994.

On December 21, 1994, before the state court had ruled on Ferro’s motion for temporary restraining order, Garrison removed the action to this Court. Ferro’s counsel appeared in this Court’s waiting room on December 21, 1994, seeking, an emergency meeting with the Court and requesting immediate issuance of a temporary restraining order, so that Ferro’s counsel could avoid preparing for the impending arbitration. Although the undersigned was not in chambers, she communicated through her clerk to Ferro’s counsel (after being reached by telephone) that the Court declined to rule on the motion immediately, but that the Court would hold a hearing on the motion before the arbitration was scheduled to commence. Ferro’s counsel, either refusing or unable to understand this ruling, then went to Judge Ann Aldrich, who was the “emergency/miscellaneous judge” on duty at that time. Ferro’s counsel asked Judge Aldrich to immediately issue a temporary restraining order, on the ground that this Court was “unavailable” to consider Ferro’s request. Judge Aldrich’s clerk learned from this chambers what had already transpired, however, and she properly refused to present the matter to Judge Aldrich. The next day, on December 22, 1994, the Court set a hearing on the motion for temporary restraining order for January 5, 1995, and consolidated the hearing to include a hearing on Ferro’s request for preliminary injunctive relief. Meanwhile, the state court — apparently unaware that the case had been removed to this Court — issued the requested temporary restraining order on December 22, 1994. Of course, the state court no longer had jurisdiction over the dispute, so the state court’s order was null and void. Nonetheless, Ferro sent a copy of the void order to the arbitration panel.1

[237]*237On December 28, 1994, Garrison moved this Court to refer all the issues raised in the complaint (including Ferro’s fraudulent inducement claim) to arbitration.2 Essentially, Garrison opposed Ferro’s request for an injunction and sought an order declaring that the question of whether it had fraudulently induced Ferro to enter the CMA was an issue that only the arbitrators could resolve. The Court ordered that the issues raised in Garrison’s motion would also be heard at the January 5,1995 hearing.

At the time of the January 5,1995 hearing, Ferro had asserted only one basis for its claim of fraudulent inducement: Ferro claimed it was induced into entering into the CMA by Garrison’s false representation that Garrison was capable of manufacturing for Ferro the minimum quantities of PyroChek LM using a specific, agreed-upon chemical manufacturing process. Later, Ferro added a second basis for its claim of fraudulent inducement: Ferro claimed it was induced into entering into the CMA by Garrison’s false representation that Garrison sustained only minor, cosmetic damage from the tornado. These two claims are referred to, respectively, below as the “production fraud claim” and the “tornado fraud claim.”

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Bluebook (online)
927 F. Supp. 234, 1996 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7297, 1996 WL 277776, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ferro-corp-v-garrison-industries-inc-ohnd-1996.