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United Mine Workers v. Gibbs
383 U.S. 715 (1966)
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent Paul Gibbs was awarded compensatory and punitive damages in this action against petitioner United Mine Workers of America (UMW) for alleged violations of § 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 61 Stat. 158, as amended, and of the common law of Tennessee. The case grew out of the rivalry between the United Mine Workers and the Southern Labor Union over representation of workers in the southern Appalachian coal fields. Tennessee Consolidated Coal Company, not a party here, laid off 100 miners of the UMW's Local 5881 when it closed one of its mines in southern Tennessee during the spring of 1960. Late that summer, Grundy Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Consolidated, hired respondent as mine superintendent to attempt to open a new mine on Consolidated's property at nearby Gray's Creek through use of members of the Southern Labor Union. (other than the UMW local) As part of the arrangement, Grundy also gave respondent a contract to haul the mine's coal to the nearest railroad loading point.
On August 15 and 16, 1960, armed members of Local 5881 forcibly prevented the opening of the mine, threatening respondent (Gibbs) and beating an organizer for the rival union. The members of the local believed Consolidated had promised them the jobs at the new mine; they insisted that, if anyone would do the work, they would. At this time, no representative of the IMW, their international union, was present. George Gilbert, the UMW's field representative for the area including Local 881, was away at Middlesboro, Kentucky, attending an Executive Board meeting when the members of the local discovered Grundy's plan; he did not return to the area until late in the day of August 16. There was uncontradicted testimony that he first learned of the violence while at the meeting, and returned with explicit instructions from his international union superiors to establish a limited picket line, to prevent any further violence, and to see to it that the strike did not spread to neighboring mines. There was no further violence at the mine site; a picket line was maintained there for nine months, and no further attempts were made to open the mine during that period.
Respondent lost his job as superintendent, and never entered into performance of his haulage contract. He testified that he soon began to lose other trucking contracts and mine leases he held in nearby areas. Claiming these effects to be the result of a concerted union plan against him, he sought recovery not against Local 5881 or its members, but only against petitioner, the international union. The suit was brought in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, and jurisdiction was premised on allegations of secondary boycotts under § 303. The state law claim, for which jurisdiction was based upon the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction, asserted "an unlawful conspiracy and an unlawful boycott aimed at him and [Grundy] to maliciously, wantonly and willfully interfere with his contract of employment and with his contract of haulage."
The trial judge refused to submit to the jury the claims of pressure intended to cause mining firms other than Grundy to cease doing business with Gibbs; he found those claims unsupported by the evidence. The jury's verdict was that the UMW had violated both § 303 and state law. Gibbs was awarded $60,000 as damages under the employment contract and $14,500 under the haulage contract; he was also awarded $100,000 punitive damages. On motion, the trial court set aside the award of damages with respect to the haulage contract on the ground that damage was unproved. It also held that union pressure on Grundy to discharge respondent as supervisor would constitute only a primary dispute with Grundy, as respondent's employer, and hence was not cognizable as a claim under § 303. Interference with the employment relationship was cognizable as a state claim, however, and a remitted award was sustained on the state law claim. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed. We granted certiorari. 382 U.S. 809. We reverse.
I
A threshold question is whether the District Court properly entertained jurisdiction of the claim based on Tennessee law. There was no need to decide a like question in Teamsters Union v. Morton, 377 U. S. 252, since the pertinent state claim there was based on peaceful secondary activities, and we held that state law based on such activities had been preempted by § 303. But here, respondent's claim is based in part on proofs of violence and intimidation.
"We have allowed the States to grant compensation for the consequences, as defined by the traditional law of torts, of conduct marked by violence and imminent threats to the public order. United Automobile Workers v. Russell, 356 U. S. 634; United Construction Workers v. Laburnum Corp., 347 U. S. 656. . . . State jurisdiction has prevailed in these situations because the compelling state interest, in the scheme of our federalism, in the maintenance of domestic peace is not overridden in the absence of clearly expressed congressional direction."
...
The fact that state remedies were not entirely preempted does not, however, answer the question whether the state claim was properly adjudicated in the District Court absent diversity jurisdiction.
The Court held in Hurn v. Oursler, 289 U. S. 238, that state law claims are appropriate for federal court determination if they form a separate but parallel ground for relief also sought in a substantial claim based on federal law. The Court distinguished permissible from nonpermissible exercises of federal judicial power over state law claims by contrasting "a case where two distinct grounds in support of a single cause of action are alleged, one only of which presents a federal question, and a case where two separate and distinct causes of action are alleged, one only of which is federal in character. In the former, where the federal question averred단언 is not plainly wanting결여 in substance, the federal court, even though the federal ground be not established, may nevertheless retain and dispose of the case upon the nonfederal ground; in the latter, it may not do so upon the nonfederal cause of action."
The question is into which category the present action fell.
Hurn was decided in 1933, before the unification of law and equity by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. At the time, the meaning of "cause of action" was a subject of serious dispute; [Footnote 7] the phrase might "mean one thing for one purpose and
something different for another."United States v. Memphis Cotton Oil Co.,
...
With the adoption of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the unified form of action, Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 2, much of the controversy over "cause of action" abated. The phrase remained as the keystone of the Hurn test, however, and, as commentators have noted, [Footnote 9] has been the source of considerable confusion. Under the Rules, the impulse is toward entertaining the broadest possible scope of action consistent with fairness to the parties; joinder of claims, parties and remedies is strongly encouraged. Yet, because the Hurn question involves issues of jurisdiction, as well as convenience, there has been some tendency to limit its application to cases in which the state and federal claims are, as in Hurn, "little more than the equivalent of different epithets to characterize the same group of circumstances." 289 U.S. at 289 U. S. 246.
This limited approach is unnecessarily grudging. Pendent jurisdiction, in the sense of judicial power, exists whenever there is a claim "arising under the Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority . . . ," U.S.Const., Art. III, § 2, and the relationship between that claim and the state claim permits the conclusion that the entire action before the court comprises but one constitutional "case." The federal claim must have substance sufficient to confer subject matter jurisdiction on the court. Levering & Garriges Co. v. Morrin, 289 U. S. 103. The state and federal claims must derive from a common nucleus of operative fact. But if, considered without regard to their federal or state character, a plaintiff's claims are such that he would ordinarily be expected to try them all in one judicial proceeding, then, assuming substantiality of the federal issues, there is power in federal courts to hear the whole.
That power need not be exercised in every case in which it is found to exist. It has consistently been recognized that pendent jurisdiction is a doctrine of discretion, not of plaintiff's right. Its justification lies in considerations of judicial economy, convenience and fairness to litigants; if these are not present, a federal court should hesitate to exercise jurisdiction over state claims, even though bound to apply state law to them, Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64. Needless decisions of state law should be avoided, both as a matter of comity and to promote justice between the parties, by procuring for them a surer-footed reading of applicable law. Certainly, if the federal claims are dismissed before trial, even though not insubstantial in a jurisdictional sense, the state claims should be dismissed as well. Similarly, if it appears that the state issues substantially predominate, whether, in terms of proof, of the scope of the issues raised, or of the comprehensiveness of the remedy sought, the state claims may be dismissed without prejudice and left for resolution to state tribunals. There may, on the other hand, be situations in which the state claim is so closely tied to questions of federal policy that the argument for exercise of pendent jurisdiction is particularly strong. In the present case, for example, the allowable scope of the state claim implicates the federal doctrine of preemption; while this interrelationship does not create statutory federal question jurisdiction, Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Mottley, 211 U. S. 149, its existence is relevant to the exercise of discretion. Finally, there may be reasons independent of jurisdictional considerations, such a the likelihood of jury confusion in treating divergent legal theories of relief, that would justify separating state and federal claims for trial, Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 42(b). If so, jurisdiction should ordinarily be refused.
The question of power will ordinarily be resolved on the pleadings. But the issue whether pendent jurisdiction has been properly assumed is one which remains open throughout the litigation. Pretrial procedures, or even the trial itself, may reveal a substantial hegemony of state law claims, or likelihood of jury confusion, which could not have been anticipated at the pleading stage. Although it will, of course, be appropriate to take account in this circumstance of the already completed course of the litigation, dismissal of the state claim might even then be merited. For example, it may appear that the plaintiff was well aware of the nature of his proofs and the relative importance of his claims; recognition of a federal court's wide latitude to decide ancillary questions of state law does not imply that it must tolerate a litigant's effort to impose upon it what is in effect only a state law case. Once it appears that a state claim constitutes the real body of a case, to which the federal claim is only an appendage, the state claim may fairly be dismissed.
We are not prepared to say that, in the present case, the District Court exceeded its discretion in proceeding to judgment on the state claim. We may assume for purposes of decision that the District Court was correct in its holding that the claim of pressure on Grundy to terminate the employment contract was outside the purview of § 303. Even so, the § 303 claims based on secondary pressures on Grundy relative to the haulage contract and on other coal operators generally were substantial. Although § 303 limited recovery to compensatory damages based on secondary pressures, Teamsters Union v. Morton, supra, and state law allowed both compensatory and punitive damages, and allowed such damages as to both secondary and primary activity, the state and federal claims arose from the same nucleus of operative fact and reflected alternative remedies. Indeed, the verdict sheet sent in to the jury authorized only one award of damages, so that recovery could not be given separately on the federal and state claims.
It is true that the § 303 claims ultimately failed, and that the only recovery allowed respondent was on the state claim. We cannot confidently say, however, that the federal issues were so remote, or played such a minor role at the trial that, in effect, the state claim only was tried. Although the District Court dismissed as unproved the § 303 claims that petitioner's secondary activities included attempts to induce coal operators other than Grundy to cease doing business with respondent, the court submitted the § 303 claims relating to Grundy to the jury. The jury returned verdicts against petitioner on those § 303 claims, and it was only on petitioner's motion for a directed verdict and a judgment n.o.v. that the verdicts on those claims were set aside. The District Judge considered the claim as to the haulage contract proved as to liability, and held it failed only for lack of proof of damages. Although there was some risk of confusing the jury in joining the state and federal claims, especially since, as will be developed, differing standards of proof of UMW involvement applied -- the possibility of confusion could be lessened by employing a special verdict form, as the District Court did. Moreover, the question whether the permissible scope of the state claim was limited by the doctrine of preemption afforded a special reason for the exercise of pendent jurisdiction; the federal courts are particularly appropriate bodies for the application of preemption principles. We thus conclude that, although it may be that the District Court might, in its sound discretion, have dismissed the state claim, the circumstances show no error in refusing to do so.
[The Court then decided that plaintiff could not recover for conspiracy under
Tennessee law on the facts in the record.]
Summary
Consolidated Coal Company, which is not involved in this case, laid off 100 miners from UMW when it closed one of its mines. Later, Grundy Company, a fully owned subsidiary of Consolidated, hired Gibbs as the mine superintendent to open a new mine using members of the Southern Labor Union (excluding the UMW local).
In 1960, members of UMW stopped the opening of a mine, threatening and beating those who opposed them. They believed they were promised jobs. The IMW, the international union, was not present at the time. George Gilbert, the UMW's representative for the area, was attending a meeting and only learned of the violence later. When he returned, he was instructed by his superiors to establish a limited picket line to prevent further violence and to ensure that the strike did not spread to neighboring mines. There was no more violence at the mine site, and a picket line was maintained for nine months. Respondent lost his job as superintendent, and his trucking contracts and mine leases were affected. He claimed that the union had conspired against him and sued the international union in the District court.
The jury found that the UMW had violated both § 303 and state law. Gibbs was awarded damages. The damage award was sustained only on the state law claim.
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Did the District court error in allowing the state claim to proceed in this case?
In Teamsters Union v. Morton, we did not need to decide this issue as the state claim in question was based on peaceful secondary activities, which had been preempted by § 303. However, the respondent's claim in this case involves violence and intimidation.
State jurisdiction in these situations has been upheld due to the compelling state interest in maintaining domestic peace unless Congress has clearly expressed that state law should be preempted.
In Hurn v. Oursler, it was established that federal courts can determine state law claims if they are parallel to a substantial claim based on federal law.
Hurn was decided in 1933, before the unification of law and equity by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The meaning of "cause of action" was a subject of serious dispute…
Pendent jurisdiction exists whenever there is a claim "arising under the Constitution, Art. III, § 2
The federal claim must have substance sufficient to confer subject matter jurisdiction on the court. The state and federal claims must derive from a common nucleus of operative fact.
pendent jurisdiction is a doctrine of discretion, not a plaintiff's right. Its justification lies in considerations of judicial economy, convenience, and fairness to litigants. If these are not present, a federal court should not exercise jurisdiction over state claims.
If the federal claims are dismissed before trial, the state claims should be dismissed as well. Similarly, if the state issues substantially predominate, the state claims may be dismissed without prejudice and left for resolution to state tribunals.
The issue of whether pendent jurisdiction has been properly assumed remains open throughout the litigation.
It is possible that pretrial procedures or the trial itself may reveal that state law claims are more significant than anticipated, or that there is a risk of jury confusion. In such cases, dismissal of the state claim may be appropriate, even if the trial has already begun.
In this particular case, the pendent jurisdiction was not deemed excessive. Although the § 303 claims based on the secondary boycott ultimately failed, the secondary pressure claims based on the haulage contract were substantial. The state and federal claims reflected alternative remedies arising from the same nucleus of operative facts, with only one award of damages authorized by the jury.
In the end, the court concluded that there was no error in allowing the state claim to proceed, as the circumstances did not warrant its dismissal.
[The Court then decided that the plaintiff could not recover for conspiracy under Tennessee law on the facts in the record.]
Note
During the trial, the court emphasized that both the state and federal claims were related to the same nucleus of operative facts. Although the federal claims were eventually dismissed, they still played a significant role in the trial and were not considered less important than the state claims. The court acknowledged that it may not be clear from the start of the case that the federal issues will be dismissed. This often happens at different stages of the legal process.
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