Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/739/521/454016/
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 13:47:19+00:00

Document:
Julianne McCabe, Boulder, Colo., for plaintiff-appellant.
David Evans of Bagley, Hickey, Evans & Statkus, Cheyenne, Wyo., for defendant-appellee.
Before BARRETT, BREITENSTEIN and McKAY, Circuit Judges.
This is an action by plaintiff-appellant, May, as Deputy Manager of the Western Conference of Teamsters Pension Trust Fund who is authorized to bring the action by the Trustees of the Fund. The action was originally brought in state court in Denver, Colorado, and was removed on diversity grounds pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1441. Jurisdiction is vested by the provisions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 1132(a) (3) (ii) and (e) (1). The Fund brought this action to recover $15,156.26 allegedly due it from defendant-appellee, the Interstate Moving and Storage Co., a Wyoming corporation. The jury returned a verdict of $5,389.27. To this amount the court added interest and gave the plaintiff judgment for $8,854.31. It also gave plaintiff $3,500 for attorney fees.
"The Employer shall not be obligated for the life of this agreement to pay the premiums for part-time workers on the Pension Plan as set forth above."
"Regular employees are those employees who are so designated by the Employer at the inception of this Contract and those employees who have worked for the Employer and have acquired 60 days or more of eight (8) hours each, of employment with the Employer, within a 3 month period."
"Each Employer who is party to this Agreement shall contribute to the Western Conference of Teamsters Pension Trust Fund, the provisions of which the undersigned parties agree to accept and to abide by the rules and regulations established or as may be established by the Trustees of such Trust Fund, the applicable monthly sum as listed below for each regular employee covered by this Agreement who is on the payroll of the Employer at any time during such month."
"Contribution for employees if the work is less than one month, the applicable weekly sum as listed below for each regular employee covered by this Agreement who is on the payroll of the Employer at any time during such week."
"Contributions for each casual employee shall be the applicable sum as listed below for each day worked."
"Contributions for casual employees used on a four (4) hour basis shall be paid at one-half ( 1/2) the amount of the above rates."The word "casual" is not defined in the above mentioned agreements. The witness Cooper, the president of Interstate, testified that Interstate had no casual employees working for it. Tr.Vol. IV, p. 149. Plaintiff argues that the Employer owes contributions to the Trust Fund for all of its collective bargaining agreement unit employees for every hour worked by those employees. The employer admits that the CBAs call for contributions for regular employees and casual employees. It says that it has no casual employees but only part timers.
Plaintiff says that the contract between the parties was not ambiguous and, therefore, no jury question was presented. In making this argument, the Trust Fund relies on a separate set of documents, the pension certifications, Pltfs.Exs. 7-9. In each of these, the union and employer certified that a written pension agreement was in effect, generally included in a collective bargaining agreement, and that this agreement conformed to the Trustee Policy on Acceptance of Employer Contributions. The union and employer also agreed to be bound by and become parties to the trust declaration. Plaintiff argues that the CBAs, pension certifications, and trust declaration should be construed as one contract. The jury was so instructed in Instruction 2, R.Vol. I, p. 42, which stated that, "There is only one contract in this case and it is the sum total of the written agreements of the parties."
The pre-March 1972 CBAs between Local 307 and the moving and storage industry in Cheyenne had a clause that excluded pension payments for part-time employees. In March 1972 the CBA was amended to require pension contributions on casual employees. Local 307's representative Lloyd Long testified that regular employees were seniority employees who worked a forty-hour week, part-time employees worked more regularly than casuals but less than a forty-hour week, and casuals were persons who worked infrequently. Tr.Vol. IV pp. 95-97. Interstate president Cooper agreed with these definitions, Tr.Vol. IV, p. 149. The employer argues that because the pension clause requires contributions for regulars and casuals and the company does not employ casuals, but only part-timers, the contracts are ambiguous. In the light of this distinction between part-timers and casuals, supported by the change in language from prior contracts, the CBAs were ambiguous.
No language in either the Trust Policy on Acceptance of Employer Contributions or the Trust Fund Agreement and Declaration of Trust explains this ambiguity or requires a different result. Plaintiff argues that the provisions of the Trust Policy on Acceptance of Employer Contributions are violated if part-time employees are not covered until they reach seniority status. See Pltf's Ex. 18, Provisions 3 and 4; Appellant's Reply Brief at 4. These provisions are simply illustrative of the types of clauses that would result in possible rejection of a payment plan by the trustees. No such rejection is claimed. Plaintiff asserts that the definition of Pension Agreement in Art. 1, Sec. 10 of the Agreement and Declaration of Trust, Pltf's Ex. 16, requires that casuals be read to include part-time employees. There is no such language. The Pension Agreement is defined as a written agreement requiring payments to the Trust Fund on behalf of union employees which excludes from the agreement employees not so represented.
There is an ambiguity as to whether part-time workers are included as casual employees. Once it has been determined that a contract is ambiguous and that its construction depends on extrinsic facts and circumstances, then the terms of the contract become questions of fact and are for the trier of fact, in this case the jury. See Jaeco Pump Co. v. Inject-O-Meter Mfg. Co. (10 Cir., 1972), 467 F.2d 317, 320 and Metropolitan Paving Company v. City of Aurora (10 Cir., 1971), 449 F.2d 177, 181. The court properly submitted the question to the jury.
Plaintiff sued to recover unpaid contributions to the Trust Fund in the amount of $15,156.26. In his closing argument the attorney for the employer admitted that $3,028.05 was due. Tr.Vol. II, p. 35. The jury returned a verdict of $5,389.27 for the plaintiff. In his motion for a new trial the plaintiff contends (1) that the court erred in refusing to submit a key instruction to the jury, (2) the court's refusal to grant plaintiff's motion in limine allowed highly prejudicial and irrelevant evidence to be submitted to the jury, and (3) the verdict was either a compromise or based on speculation.
Where the parties have attached different meanings to a promise or agreement or a term thereof, it is interpreted in accordance with the meaning attached by one of them if at the time the agreement was made (a) that party did not know of any different meaning attached by the other and the other knew the meaning attached by the first party; or (b) that party had no reason to know of any different meaning attached by the other, and the other had reason to know the meaning attached by the first party."
The trial court's instructions are adequate if, taken as a whole, they sufficiently advised the jury of the parties' contentions and the law applicable thereto. Commercial Iron & Metal Co. v. Bache Halsey Stuart, Inc. (10 Cir., 1978), 581 F.2d 246, 250, cert. denied 440 U.S. 914, 99 S. Ct. 1229, 59 L. Ed. 2d 463). The court instructed the jury on rules of construction to aid the jury in interpreting the contracts. The requested instruction would only have added confusion. It was properly rejected.
"There can be waiver of the provisions of a third-party beneficiary contract, but that requires notice to the third-party beneficiary, and there is no indication of that here. As a consequence, I am granting the motion for directed verdict with respect to the first theory of the waiver. I will now instruct the jury on that, and I will advise them as a matter of law, there's no way.
The motion for directed verdict, however, with regard to the question of the number of employees covered and the amounts due is a matter for the jury to determine, by their consideration of the three agreements, not by the Court's."
Plaintiff argues that the jury verdict must be set aside because it was based on speculation or conjecture. The plaintiff requested $15,156.26. In closing argument the defendant's counsel admitted that $3,028.05 was due the plaintiff. The jury verdict was in favor of the plaintiff in the amount of $5,389.27. Neither party requested any special interrogatories. The trial court denied the motion for new trial in which the verdict was attacked.
"The plaintiff claims that the defendant owes contributions to plaintiff's employer, the Western Conference of Teamsters Pension Fund (Fund), under Collective Bargaining Contracts between defendant and Teamsters Local No. 307. Plaintiff alleges defendant owes contributions to the Trust Fund for all defendant's Collective Bargaining Unit employees for every hour worked by those employees.The defendant admits that the Collective Bargaining Contracts call for contributions only for regular employees and casual employees. Defendant alleges that it has no casual employees as defined under the Collective Bargaining Contract. Defendant alleges that if contributions are owing the Fund for regular employees, the amount of contributions that would be owing is substantially lower than asked for by plaintiff."
"A motion for a new trial made on the ground that the verdict of the jury is against the weight of the evidence normally presents a question of fact and not of law and is addressed to the discretion of the trial court."
In that opinion we said that the standard we use in determining this is whether the verdict is "clearly, decidedly, or overwhelmingly" against the weight of the evidence, citing Champion Home Builders v. Shumate (10 Cir., 1967), 388 F.2d 806, 808. On review, we will not disturb the denial of a motion for new trial unless there is a showing of manifest abuse of discretion. Walter v. Warner (10 Cir., 1962), 298 F.2d 481, 484. In the case at bar, the jury verdict was within the range of liability claimed by the parties. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion for new trial.
The court did not question the accuracy of the time requested but felt that the amount was unreasonable based on the foregoing considerations. Plaintiff argues that in 1980 Congress changed the language of 29 U.S.C. § 1132 to require the court to award reasonable fees, rather than leaving such an award to the discretion of the court, which was the practice under the statute before amendment. See ERISA Amendments of 1980, Pub. L. No. 96-364, Sec. 306(b) (2), 94 Stat. 1295 (amending 29 U.S.C. § 1132(g)). While this is true there was no violation of the statute in the court's determination of a reasonable fee in this case. It conforms with the standards adopted by this court in determining reasonable fees in other contexts. See Battle v. Anderson (10 Cir., 1980), 614 F.2d 251; and Francia v. White (10 Cir., 1979), 594 F.2d 778.

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