Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_08-cv-01746/USCOURTS-caed-2_08-cv-01746-4/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 720
Nature of Suit: Labor Management Relations Act
Cause of Action: 28:1391 Personal Injury

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

GILBERTSON DRAGLINES, INC., No. 2:08-cv-01746-MCE-EFB

Plaintiff,

v. MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

OPERATING ENGINEERS HEALTH AND

WELFARE TRUST FUND FOR NORTHERN

CALIFORNIA, et al.,

Defendants.

_______________________________

OPERATING ENGINEERS HEALTH AND

WELFARE TRUST FUND FOR NORTHERN

CALIFORNIA, et al.,

Counter-Claimants,

v.

GILBERTSON DRAGLINES, INC.

Counter-Defendant.

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Case 2:08-cv-01746-MCE-EFB Document 62 Filed 03/10/10 Page 1 of 13
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2

Through the present action, Plaintiff Gilbertson Draglines,

Inc. (“Gilbertson Draglines” or “Plaintiff”) asks the Court to

determine that it is not bound to the terms of a collective

bargaining agreement that Defendants, a group of Union employee

benefit plans, claim created an obligation on Plaintiff’s part to

make contributions for Union fringe benefits. Defendants, in

turn, filed their own Counterclaim for unpaid benefits at the

time they answered Gilbertson’s Complaint. Both sides now move

for summary judgment. Jesse Gilbertson, Plaintiff’s principal,

claims that because he never assented to the terms of the Union

agreements at issue, his company cannot be bound by the terms of

the Union Master Agreement, as incorporated within the so-called

“short-form” agreement signed by Mr. Gilbertson. Defendants, on

the other hand, claim that the Union agreements are binding on

Plaintiff as a matter of law, and that Gilbertson is accordingly

liable for the contributions at issue. As set forth below, the

Court concludes that triable issues of fact prevent it from

granting either Plaintiff’s or Defendants’ Motion. 

BACKGROUND

In March of 1996, Jesse Gilbertson, who at all times

relevant to this litigation was a properly-licensed contractor,

purchased a piece of heavy equipment known as a Northwest

Dragline Shovel. Mr. Gilbertson, the sole proprietor of

Gilbertson Dragline Service, an unincorporated entity, proceeded

to use the shovel in various grading and dredging operations. He

was not a Union member.

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Sometime in 1999 or early 2000, Mr. Gilbertson was

approached by Cal-Neva Construction for assistance on a job

installing and removing rock barriers. That job, however,

specified the use of Union contractors. According to Jesse

Gilbertson, while he did not want to become a signatory Union

contractor, he was informed by a Cal-Neva employee, Russell

Turner, that he could become an “owner-operator” member of the

Operating Engineers Local Union No. 3 (“Union”), not bound by the

Union contract. Gilbertson Decl., ¶ 4. Turner called the

Union’s offices in Yuba City, California, and an agent told both

him and Mr. Gilbertson that Gilbertson could indeed sign up as an

owner-operator member if he supplied proof that he owned his

dragline shovel. Id.

It is undisputed that Mr. Gilbertson went to the Yuba City

Union hall on May 11, 2000, where he eventually spoke with a

Local No. 3 business agent. Gilbertson claims he specifically

told the agent that he did not want to become a Union member

bound by the terms of the Master Agreement. He claims the agent

acknowledged that request and asked him to sign papers described

as routine for new members desiring owner-operator status. Id.

at ¶ 5. Based on that representation, Gilbertson claimed he

signed two agreements, the so-called “short form” agreement, and

an “order to bill”, without reading the documents. See Exs. A

and B to the Gilbertson Decl. Gilbertson was asked to indicate

on the “order to bill” that he was an “owner-operator”, and to

confirm that he was the only operator on payroll. 

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4

Gilbertson Decl. at ¶¶ 5-6. He claims that the agent wrote “no

bill” on the form to assure him that he would not be billed for

fringe benefits. Id. at ¶ 6.

According to Jesse Gilbertson, after providing the business

agent with a copy of the bill of sale for the dragline shovel, he

left the Union office after being there less than ten minutes. 

He claims he was not given copies of either the owner-operator

agreement, the order to bill, or any other Union document. Id. 

Gilbertson states that his initial Union dues were paid by CalNeva, but that he has continued to pay his Union dues ever since. 

Id. at ¶ 7.

Defendants, for their part, have presented evidence

suggesting a starkly different course of events. According to

the Declaration of Travis Tweedy, who has been employed in

various capacities since 1998 by the Operating Engineers Local

Union No. 3 office in Yuba City, the Union’s policy and procedure

in assisting an individual to become an owner-operator would

include the following:

a. orally inform the contractor applicant that

they must show proof of ownership of the equipment they

intend to operate as an owner-operator;

b. orally inform the contractor applicant that

they must enter into an Independent Northern California

Construction Agreement with the Union (commonly

referred to as a “short-form agreement” or “owneroperator agreement”);

c. orally inform the contractor applicant that

the Independent Northern California Construction

Agreement incorporates the Master Agreement;

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5

d. orally inform the contractor applicant that

under the terms of agreement, he must join the Union

and remain a member of the Union in good standing

(i.e., meaning pay his Union dues) in order to be

eligible to elect not to go on the payroll of the

Individual Employer that hires the owner-operator and

to elect to not pay fringe benefits to the various

Trust Funds for himself;

e. orally inform the contractor applicant that

under the terms of the agreement, if an owner-operator

currently or in the future employs any other person

other than himself to perform Operator work, the owneroperator must contribute to the various Trust Funds for

fringe benefits;

f. orally inform the contractor applicant that an

owner-operator who only employs himself to operator his

own equipment can choose to contribute to the various

Trust Funds for fringe benefits for himself or he may

waive such contributions for fringe benefits for

himself;

....

j. assist the contractor applicant in completing

the membership application to join the Union and

collect any Union dues the applicant chooses to pay at

that time;

k. assist the contractor employer applicant in

completing the Independent Northern California

Construction Agreement and make a photocopy for the

applicant;

l. assist the contractor applicant in completing

the Order to Bill form, including review [of] whether

the applicant chooses to make contributions for fringe

benefits for himself;

m. make a photocopy of the proof of ownership

that the contractor applicant presented and return the

original to the contractor applicant;

n. provide the contractor applicant a copy of the

Master Agreement in booklet form or confirm that the

contractor applicant already has a copy of the Master

Agreement;

o. answer any questions that the contractor

applicant might have concerning the rules and

obligations of becoming an owner-operator.

Decl. Of Travis Tweedy, ¶ 18.

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6

Under the terms of the short-form agreement, which

incorporated the Union Master Agreement, as long as

Mr. Gilbertson remained the only person performing operator work,

his company would not be obligated to make fringe benefit

contributions to Defendants. Plaintiff does not question the

fact that the Master Agreement provides that if an owner-operator

employs other individuals to perform operator work, then the

owner-operator is obligated to pay fringe benefits. Gilbertson

nonetheless claims that he did not know what he was signing, that

he was not provided copies of the Union agreements, and that the

Union agreements are consequently unenforceable against him. 

Defendants, on the other hand, contend that Plaintiff is bound by

the agreements he signed which obligated Plaintiff to pay fringe

benefit contributions if he did in fact employ other individuals.

In July of 2001, a little more than a year after

Mr. Gilbertson joined the Union as an owner-operator, he

incorporated his business as Gilbertson Draglines, Inc. He

claims that he operated his business as a non-union shop both

before and after its incorporation. Although he admits he did

hire employees and never made any contributions for fringe

benefits, he asserts that no employee, including himself, ever

sought Union benefits for work performed on Gilbertson Draglines

jobs. Gilbertson Decl., ¶ 3. Aside from paying his Union dues,

he claims he had no contact whatsoever with Defendants from May

of 2000 until February of 2008, when Defendants requested an

audit to determine if additional contributions were in fact owed.

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Defendants claim that this audit, as authorized by the Master

Agreement and an incorporated Trust Agreement, revealed that

Plaintiff did in fact employ other individuals between January of

2005 and March of 2008 to perform operator work. Defendants

thereafter demanded that Plaintiff pay delinquent contributions

which, along with interest, liquidated damages, and various fees

and costs, totaled $473,708.74. Plaintiff’s lawsuit for

declaratory relief, seeking a judicial determination that no

amount was in fact owed, followed.

STANDARD

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provide for summary

judgment when “the pleadings, depositions, answers to

interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with

affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any

material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment

as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c). One of the

principal purposes of Rule 56 is to dispose of factually

unsupported claims or defenses. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477

U.S. 317, 325 (1986). Under summary judgment practice, the

moving party

always bears the initial responsibility of informing

the district court of the basis for its motion, and

identifying those portions of “the pleadings,

depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions

on file together with the affidavits, if any,” which it

believes demonstrate the absence of a genuine issue of

material fact.

Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986) (quoting

Rule 56(c).

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If the moving party meets its initial responsibility, the

burden then shifts to the opposing party to establish that a

genuine issue as to any material fact actually does exist. 

Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574,

585-587 (1986); First Nat’l Bank v. Cities Ser. Co., 391 U.S.

253, 288-289 (1968).

In attempting to establish the existence of this factual

dispute, the opposing party must tender evidence of specific

facts in the form of affidavits, and/or admissible discovery

material, in support of its contention that the dispute exists. 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(e). The opposing party must demonstrate that

the fact in contention is material, i.e., a fact that might

affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law, and that

the dispute is genuine, i.e., the evidence is such that a

reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party. 

Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 251-52

(1986); Owens v. Local No. 169, Assoc. of Western Pulp and Paper

Workers, 971 F.2d 347, 355 (9th Cir. 1987). Stated another way,

“before the evidence is left to the jury, there is a preliminary

question for the judge, not whether there is literally no

evidence, but whether there is any upon which a jury could

properly proceed to find a verdict for the party producing it,

upon whom the onus of proof is imposed.” Anderson, 477 U.S. at

251 (quoting Improvement Co. v. Munson, 14 Wall. 442, 448, 20 L.

Ed. 867 (1872)). 

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As the Supreme Court explained, “[w]hen the moving party has

carried its burden under Rule 56(c), its opponent must do more

than simply show that there is some metaphysical doubt as to the

material facts...Where the record taken as a whole could not lead

a rational trier of fact to find for the nonmoving party, there

is no ‘genuine issue for trial.’” Matsushita, 475 U.S. at 586-

87.

ANALYSIS

A. Triable Issues of Fact Preclude the Entry of Summary

Judgment for Either Plaintiff or Defendants.

In moving for summary judgment, Plaintiff argues that its

case is directly analogous to the Ninth Circuit’s decision in

Operating Engineers Pension Trust v. Gilliam, 737 F.2d 1501 (9th

Cir. 1984), and urge the Court to grant summary judgment on that

basis. Defendants, on the other hand, ask the Court to look to

another Ninth Circuit case, Operating Engineers Pension Trust v.

Cecil Backhoe Service, Inc., 795 F.2d 1501 (9th Cir. 1986) and

find that summary judgment in their favor is in fact indicated. 

Although the Court agrees that the facts of both Gilliam and

Cecil appear to closely parallel those of the case at bar, there

are nonetheless important differences between those cases and the

instant matter that preclude summary judgment.

Gilliam, like this case, involves a non-union heavy

equipment operator who wanted to work a union job and

consequently became an “owner-operator” member. Mr. Gilliam met

with a union representative and he signed the forms required to

become an owner-operator without reading them. 

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Also similar to Mr. Gilbertson’s version of events is

Mr. Gilliam’s claim 1) that the representative did not inform him

that he was signing an agreement binding him to the terms of the

overall collective bargaining agreement and 2) that he was not

given copies of either the short-form agreement or the Union

Master Agreement. Id. at 1503.

On appeal, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s

determination, after hearing evidence, that Gilliam did not owe

the more than $365,000.00 in fringe benefit contributions sought

by the union. Citing well-established principles requiring that

any valid contract be premised on mutual assent, the court found

that under the circumstances Gilliam reasonably believed that the

short-term agreement did not bind him to the entire collective

bargaining agreement. Id. at 1503-05.

The key distinction between Gilliam and this case rests with

the fact that the district court made its “findings” as to what

occurred between Mr. Gilliam and the union “after hearing

evidence”, presumably in the context of a bench trial. Id. at

1502. Here, no such factual findings have been made; instead,

Plaintiff simply asks the Court to accept as uncontroverted its

claim that the import of the Union agreements was not explained

to Mr. Gilbertson, that he was led to believe that what he signed

did not entail adherence to the collective bargaining agreement,

and that he was not even given copies of the documents he did

sign. All of these claims are directly countered by Defendants’

evidence indicating that it was the Union’s custom and practice

to do just the opposite. 

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Resolution of these competing claims requires factual

determinations not amenable to disposition on summary judgment. 

Those determinations were made in Gilliam as part of the district

court’s findings of fact, but they have not been made here.

The Cecil case cited by Defendants makes this Court’s

assessment of the matter even clearer. There, the decision

states explicitly that the facts were determined by way of

Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law by the district court

following a two-day bench trial. Operating Engineers Pension

Trust v. Cecil, 795 F.2d at 1504. Consequently, while the Ninth

Circuit found in Cecil that the owner-operator was bound by the

agreements he signed, the factual predicate for that decision was

made by the district court as trier of fact. Here, no such

factual determination has been made, and cannot be made by this

Court on summary judgment given the conflicting evidence with

which it is confronted. Consequently, both Motions here must be

denied.

B. Defendants’ Motion to Strike Plaintiff’s Opposition as

Untimely is Not Persuasive.

Plaintiff filed its Summary Judgment Motion on November 2,

2009. Defendants thereafter, on November 16, 2009, jointly filed

an Opposition to Plaintiff’s Motion along with a Counter-Motion

for Summary Judgment requesting that judgment be entered in

Defendants’ favor on both Plaintiff’s Complaint and Defendants’

Counterclaim. That joint filing caused Plaintiff to also file a

combined response both in Opposition to Defendants’ CounterMotion and in reply to Plaintiff’s Opposition to its Motion. 

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Because Plaintiffs’ joint response was filed less than fourteen

days prior to the then-scheduled hearing date of January 7, 2010,

Defendants claimed that it was precluded from filing its own

timely reply and consequently moved to strike Plaintiff’s

Opposition as untimely. Defendants further asked the Court to

enter judgment on its behalf without a hearing given the untimely

opposition.

Having received Defendants’ objections in this regard, and

recognizing that the deadlines associated with concurrently

pending cross-motion filed in response to an original motion can

be confusing to all concerned, the Court immediately took steps

to remedy the situation by continuing the January 7, 2010 hearing

dates on the Motions for Summary Judgment (which in the meantime

had been continued on the Court’s own motion to January 14, 2010)

to February 12, 2010 in order to afford Defendants the

opportunity to file a timely reply. Defendants subsequently

filed their reply on January 21, 2010. All sides were

consequently afforded full opportunity to be heard in this

matter. Any prejudice to Defendants was ameliorated by the

opportunity afforded by the Court to file a reply.

The Court’s conclusion that Defendants’ Motion to Strike

should not be granted is underscored by the fact that even if

Plaintiff’s opposition was untimely, its reply was not. In the

context of cross-motions for summary judgment, disposition must

be made based on all the evidence submitted. See Fair Housing

Council of Riverside County, Inc. v. Riverside Two, 249 F.3d

1132, 1136 (9th Cir. 2001). 

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 Because oral argument would not be of material assistance, 1

this matter was deemed suitable for decision without oral

argument. E.D. Local Rule 230(g).

 While the Court also recognizes that Plaintiff filed 2

various objections to the evidence proffered by Defendants in

connection with the cross-motions for summary judgment, because

none of the evidence in dispute was central to the Court’s

decision, the Court need not specifically rule on the objections

and declines to do so.

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This means that the arguments set forth in Plaintiff’s Reply

would have to be considered by the Court, even if the intertwined

Opposition (contained within the same filing) was not. The

arguments posited by Defendants simply do not make practical

sense under those circumstances.

CONCLUSION

For the reasons set forth above, triable issues of fact

preclude issuance of summary judgment in favor of either

Plaintiff or Defendants. The parties’ Cross-Motions for Summary

Judgment (Docket Nos. 29 and 30, respectively) are therefore

DENIED. Defendants’ Request for Entry of Order for Summary 1

Judgment (Docket No. 42) and its Motion to Strike (Docket No. 51)

are also DENIED.2

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: March 9, 2010

_____________________________

MORRISON C. ENGLAND, JR.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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