Markwell v. Local 978, United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners

215 F. Supp. 792, 52 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2835, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7002
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Missouri
DecidedMarch 29, 1963
DocketCiv. A. No. 1713
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 215 F. Supp. 792 (Markwell v. Local 978, United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Markwell v. Local 978, United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners, 215 F. Supp. 792, 52 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2835, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7002 (W.D. Mo. 1963).

Opinion

JOHN W. OLIVER, District Judge.

This case now pends on defendants’ motion for judgment on the pleadings or for summary judgment. That motion was filed in accordance with the procedure agreed to at pre-trial conference. A short statement of this case’s history will sharpen the legal question raised by defendants’ motion.

It was first tried before a jury in a trial presided over by the late Judge Smith. Judgment on plaintiffs’ verdict was entered against three defendants in the amount of $50,000. The two defendants here involved appealed to the Court of Appeals on October 26, 1961. On December 21, 1961 plaintiffs and the third defendant, Local #676, International Hod Carriers, Building and Common Laborers Union of America, AFL-CIO, against whom judgment was initially rendered, filed in this case a document captioned “partial satisfaction of judgment”. That document, executed by plaintiffs and Local #676, recited in substance that those two parties desired to settle, compromise and adjust the judgment only as it affected that defendant. It also recited that in consideration of the payment of $15,000 cash plaintiffs discharged defendant Local #676 from all effects of the judgment and that defendant Local #676 was released from further liability. The partial satisfaction of judgment was patterned upon, and, in large part, copied from the agreement set forth in Barnett v. Conklin, 8th Cir., 1920, 268 F. 177, 180, cert. denied 255 U.S. 570, 41 S.Ct. 375, 65 L.Ed. 791 (1921).1

The appeal of the remaining defendants went forward. On July 11, 1962, as Case No. 16962, entitled Local #978 United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, AFL-CIO, v. Markwell, 8th Cir., 1962, 305 F.2d 38, the Court of Appeals reversed the judgment and remanded the cause for a new trial.

After the first pre-trial conference following remand, plaintiff filed an amend[794]*794ed complaint on November 14, 1962. In accordance with procedure agreed upon at pre-trial, defendants filed a joint answer of defendants in which they set forth as a separate affirmative defense the partial satisfaction of judgment. That answer alleged that “plaintiffs, by their own voluntary acts, have caused and created a complete accord and satisfaction, and relinquishment and release, as a matter of law and fact, of any claims or causes of actions against these defendants”.

Plaintiffs’ reply accordingly admitted the basic facts alleged in the separate affirmative defense, but alleged that the “partial satisfaction of judgment was properly and legally made and that it did not and does not in any way prevent plaintiffs from proceeding against these defendants in the trial of this case as directed by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals”.

Plaintiffs also alleged in that reply that certain statements made during the argument on appeal by defendants waived any alleged right to raise the question presented in their separate affirmative defense.2 Defendants then, again in accordance with the agreed pretrial procedure, moved for judgment on the pleadings, or, in the alternative, for summary judgment. Because there are thus no disputed facts, the motion raises a pure legal defense and is therefore ripe for decision. The parties have fully briefed the questions involved.

Jurisdiction over plaintiffs’ cause of action and plaintiffs’ alleged rights is conferred and established by §§ 301 and 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 (29 U.S.C.A. § 185 and § 187). We are therefore dealing with matters of federal labor law and “incompatible doctrines of local law must give way to principles of federal labor law”. Local 174, Teamsters etc. and Helpers of America v. Lucas Flour Co., 369 U.S. 95, 102, 82 S.Ct. 571, 576, 7 L.Ed.2d 593 (1962). See also Atkinson v. Sinclair Refining Co., 370 U.S. 238, 345, 348, 82 S.Ct. 1318, 8 L.Ed.2d 462 (1962) and eases cited therein. The State court cases therefore have persuasive, as distinguished from binding effect. That question, however, is not of real importance in regard to this case because there is no real conflict between the State and federal law.

Defendants seek an application of the unquestioned general rule that “the satisfaction of a judgment against one of two joint tortfeasors bars an action against, or the enforcement of another judgment against another tortfeasor arising out of the same wrong, injury, or cause of action”. Defendants concede that “if the Court of Appeals had affirmed the judgment, [the] instrument executed by and between the plaintiffs and the joint judgment debtor, Local #676, would have operated only as a partial satisfaction of the judgment, and a full release of Local #676, and these defendants would have remained bound by the judgment and liable for the payment of the balance thereof”.

But defendants quite correctly state that this is not what happened. The judgment of the trial court was reversed. Defendants therefore argue that in spite of what may have been said in the release agreement, “plaintiffs made their election and are bound by the consequences”. Defendants emphasize that plaintiffs “knew or should have known that there was a possibility that the judgment against these defendants would be reversed” and contend that “the consequences” of plaintiffs having settled with the non-appealing defendant is that this Court, as a matter of law, must hold that plaintiffs also settled their remaining claims against the remaining defendants.

On the facts, defendants argue that the reversal of the initial judgment of the first trial left outstanding a judg-[795]*795vnent against Local #676 and that the partial satisfaction of that judgment must call into play the principle of law that the satisfaction of a judgment against one of two tortfeasors bars any additional action against any other joint tortfeasors arising out of the same cause of action. Defendants spell out their not uncomplicated thesis by contending that “the fact that the Court of Appeals remanded the case for a new trial as to these defendants has no effect whatever •on the former judgment [rendered against Local #676]”. Defendants point out that the judgment against Local #676 was in fact compromised and settled. Defendants therefore argue that “when the Court of Appeals reversed the judgment as to these defendants, that action created the same situation as if there had been no judgment at all against these defendants”, and that the ■only judgment that continued to remain alive after reversal “was the judgment entered against Local #676”; that “plaintiffs by their voluntary settlement and compromise had completely released Local #676” from that judgment, and that “the reversal of the judgment against these defendants caused the ‘partial satisfaction’ of the judgment to become a full satisfaction since [it was] the only judgment remaining”.

We cannot accept defendants’ somewhat sophistical argument. Certainly many of the cases in the annotations in 27 A.L.R. 305, 65 A.L.R. 1087, and 166 A.L.R. 1099 entitled “Payment of, or proceeding to collect judgment against one tortfeasor as release of others” show that various courts have used both a scholastic approach and schoolmen’s language concerning the question there annotated. The cases discussed in the lengthy annotation in 53 A.L.R.

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215 F. Supp. 792, 52 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2835, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7002, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/markwell-v-local-978-united-brotherhood-of-carpenters-joiners-mowd-1963.