Opinion ID: 480737
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the union's liability for emotional distress

Text: 65 The district court set aside the jury's $650,000 award to Baskin for emotional distress because it concluded that there was insufficient evidence of outrageous conduct by the Union to warrant submission of this claim to the jury and insufficient evidence of distress on the part of Baskin to sustain an award of this size. The court thus granted judgment in favor of the Union on this claim notwithstanding the jury's verdict in favor of Baskin, and it ruled that if the judgment n.o.v. were to be reversed on appeal, the claim should be retried unless Baskin consented to a remittitur reducing the award on this claim to $50,000. We agree with the court's decision to vacate the judgment on the emotional distress claim, but we conclude that it should have granted a new trial instead of entering judgment n.o.v. or conditioning a new trial on Baskin's acceptance of the remittitur. 66
67 The principal basis for the district court's conclusion that the award on this claim must be set aside was that, as a remedy for a breach of the union's duty of fair representation, the union may not be required to pay damages for the infliction of emotional distress unless its conduct has been truly outrageous. This premise was correct. The individual union member's cause of action for breach of the statutory duty of fair representation is a judicially implied cause of action, and in fashioning remedies the courts must take care to balance the employee's interest in full compensation against the undesirability of impair[ing] the financial stability of unions and unsettl[ing] the careful balance of individual and collective interests ... in the unfair representation area. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers v. Foust, 442 U.S. 42, 48-52, 99 S.Ct. 2121, 2125-28, 60 L.Ed.2d 698 (1979). The court should seek to prevent large damage awards that may be based on a general hostility towards unions. Id. at 50 n. 14, 99 S.Ct. at 2127 n. 14. Thus, the Supreme Court held in Foust that punitive damages may not be awarded, and that only the usual damages may be awarded. Id. at 49, 99 S.Ct. at 2126. See also Farmer v. United Brotherhood of Carpenters, 430 U.S. 290, 305, 97 S.Ct. 1056, 1066, 51 L.Ed.2d 338 (1977) (judge in labor case has special responsibility to assure that the damages awarded are not excessive); Linn v. United Plant Guard Workers of America, 383 U.S. 53, 65-66, 86 S.Ct. 657, 664, 15 L.Ed.2d 582 (1966). 68 In delineating the usual damages, we note that the general rule in tort law is that, absent physical injury, a plaintiff may recover damages for emotional distress only if the defendant has engaged in extreme and outrageous conduct intentionally or recklessly caus[ing] that distress. See Restatement (Second) of Torts, Sec. 46 (1965); see also id. Sec. 436A. This principle has governed the award of damages for emotional distress in fair representation suits. See Bloom v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 468, 752 F.2d 1312, 1314-15 (9th Cir.1984); Soto Segarra v. Sea-Land Service, Inc., 581 F.2d 291, 298-99 (1st Cir.1978) (requiring proof of extreme misconduct that is malicious and willful); see also Richardson v. Communication Workers of America, 443 F.2d 974, 983-85 (8th Cir.1971) (damages for emotional distress could be granted when there was malicious treatment amounting to intentional discrimination), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 818, 94 S.Ct. 38, 38 L.Ed.2d 50 (1973); cf. Farmer v. United Brotherhood of Carpenters, 430 U.S. at 301-05, 97 S.Ct. at 1064-66 (preemptive effect of National Labor Relations Act allows state law tort suits for emotional distress but only if based on Restatement test). 69 The charge on this issue given by the district court in the present case, see Part I.C. above, did not give the jury any hint that, in order to award Baskin any damages for emotional distress, it must find outrageous conduct on the part of the Union. Nor did the court emphasize that the jury was not allowed to grant punitive damages but only compensation for emotional distress actually proven. The instructions thus were inadequate to satisfy the court's special responsibility to take precautions to forestall an excessive award. 70 Local 449 did not raise either the requirement that outrageous conduct be proven as a predicate for the claim of emotional distress or the question of error in the court's charge until it made its motion for judgment n.o.v. It had neither moved for a directed verdict on the ground that the evidence of outrageous conduct was insufficient nor objected to the court's uninformative instruction on this basis. As discussed in Part II.C. above, an error in the court's charge to the jury may not be raised on appeal unless it was preserved by way of timely objection in the trial court or unless it was plain error that obviously misapplied the law or could result in a miscarriage of justice. The district court noted Local 449's procedural default but concluded that the error was plain and the potential for injustice substantial. In light of the above authorities, we agree, and we conclude that the court appropriately set aside the verdict of the jury on the ground that the jury had received inadequate instruction as to the contours of Baskin's right to recover for emotional distress. 71 As discussed in Part II.A.2. above, however, a motion for judgment n.o.v. under Rule 50(b) may not be granted unless the movant has also moved for a directed verdict, or unless the granting of the motion is required to prevent manifest injustice. While we agree with the district court's conclusion that justice required vacation of the jury's verdict, we disagree that it required that judgment be entered in favor of the Union. Although entry of judgment in favor of the moving party would be appropriate if a new trial could not result in a verdict in favor of the non-moving party, as when, for example, the defendant has immunity from a claim for the type of damages sought, see City of Newport v. Fact Concerts, 453 U.S. 247, 101 S.Ct. 2748, 69 L.Ed.2d 616 (1981) (immunity of municipality from claim under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 for punitive damages), there is no contention here that the Union is immune from a claim for emotional distress but only that the evidence was insufficient to support a finding of outrageous conduct. The question of the outrageousness of a defendant's conduct is, of course, one of fact for the jury within the usual limits on sufficiency of the evidence, see Chuy v. Philadelphia Eagles Football Club, 595 F.2d 1265, 1274 & n. 9 (3d Cir.1979), and the very purpose of Rule 50(b)'s requiring a prior motion for a directed verdict is to give the other party an opportunity to cure the defects in proof that might otherwise preclude him from taking the case to the jury. 5A Moore's Federal Practice p 50.08, at 50-77 (2d ed. 1986). Thus, if the party moving for judgment n.o.v. has not moved for a directed verdict, and if the court is nevertheless satisfied that justice requires that the judgment be vacated for insufficiency of the evidence, the court should normally grant a new trial. See Russo v. State of New York, 672 F.2d 1014, 1021-22 (2d Cir.1982); Sojak v. Hudson Waterways Corp., 590 F.2d 53, 54-55 (2d Cir.1978); Oliveras v. American Export Isbrandtsen Lines, Inc., 431 F.2d 814, 816-17 (2d Cir.1970). 72 We are unprepared to say that as a matter of law there was insufficient evidence from which a properly instructed jury could have found that the conduct of the Union here was outrageous. Nor are we prepared to say, if there was insufficient evidence, that justice required that Baskin not be given the usual opportunity that is available, when a motion for directed verdict is properly made, to supplement his record. 73 Accordingly, we vacate the judgment of the district court insofar as it dismissed Baskin's claim against Local 449 for damages for emotional distress.
74 We also agree with the district court's conclusion that, in light of the proof offered by Baskin of his emotional suffering, the jury's award of $650,000 was excessive. In the circumstances here, however, conditioning the granting of a new trial on Baskin's agreement to a remittitur was not the proper remedy, for in this case the jury was not properly instructed as to what type of conduct on the part of the defendant could justify any award for emotional distress. Baskin should not have been given the option to determine whether or not Local 449 would have a trial before a properly instructed jury. See Shu-Tao Lin v. McDonnell Douglas Corp., 742 F.2d 45, 50 (2d Cir.1984); 6A Moore's Federal Practice p 59.08, at 59-199 (2d ed. 1986). 75 Accordingly, we vacate the decision denying Local 449 a new trial in the event of a remittitur by Baskin. Since the instructions to the jury on other issues were clear and related precisely to the issues in question, and since the jury was given interrogatories that reveal its findings on the discrete questions of fact before it, the new trial should be limited to the issues of whether the Union's conduct warranted any damages for emotional distress and, if so, the amount of those damages. See Martell v. Boardwalk Enterprises, Inc., 748 F.2d 740, 756 (2d Cir.1984).