Opinion ID: 439051
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Quinn's Right to a Jury Trial

Text: 31 Over the defendants' protests, the trial judge referred to the jury Quinn's claims under both the Bill of Rights provisions of the LMRDA and the duty of fair representation (DFR) under the NLRA. The defendants repeat their contention here that the LMRDA and DFR claims were both primarily equitable in nature and should therefore have been tried by the judge.
32 The defendants argue that the essence of Quinn's action under the LMRDA was one for reinstatement to union membership, and that his claims for damages were merely incidental to that equitable claim. They rely heavily on McCraw v. United Association of Journeymen, 341 F.2d 705 (6th Cir.1965), which held that no jury trial was available in an action under the LMRDA Bill of Rights for both equitable relief and damages. But in Hildebrand v. Board of Trustees of Michigan State University, 607 F.2d 705, 708 & n. 4 (6th Cir.1979), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 910, 102 S.Ct. 1760, 72 L.Ed.2d 168 (1982), and Shimman v. Frank, 625 F.2d 80, 101 & n. 42 (6th Cir.1980), the Sixth Circuit sharply questioned the soundness of its own holding in McCraw, particularly in light of the Supreme Court's subsequent decisions in Ross v. Bernhard, 396 U.S. 531, 90 S.Ct. 733, 24 L.Ed.2d 729 (1970), and Curtis v. Loether, 415 U.S. 189, 94 S.Ct. 1005, 39 L.Ed.2d 260 (1974). 33 In Ross v. Bernhard, which concerned a stockholders' derivative action, the Court held that where equitable and legal claims are joined in the same action there is a right to a jury trial on the legal claims which must not be infringed by trying the legal issues as incidental to the equitable ones. 396 U.S. at 537-38, 90 S.Ct. at 738 (1970). In Curtis v. Loether, the Court held with respect to federal housing discrimination claims that the seventh amendment right to a jury trial applied to statutory claims if the statute creates legal rights and remedies, enforceable in an action for damages in the ordinary courts of laws. 415 U.S. at 194, 94 S.Ct. at 1008. The fair housing statute simply define[d] a new legal duty, and authorize[d] the courts to compensate a plaintiff for the injury caused by the defendant's wrongful breach. Id. at 195, 94 S.Ct. at 1009. Every other circuit court that has considered the availability of a jury trial for claims under the LMRDA has disagreed with McCraw and concluded that there is a right to a jury trial on a claim for damages under the LMRDA Bill of Rights, whether or not equitable relief is also requested. See, e.g., Feltington v. Motion Picture Operators Local 306, 605 F.2d 1251, 1257 (2d Cir.1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 943, 100 S.Ct. 2169, 64 L.Ed.2d 799 (1980); Simmons v. Avisco, Local 713, 350 F.2d 1012, 1018 (4th Cir.1965). Cf. International Brotherhood of Boilermakers v. Braswell, 388 F.2d 193, 197-98 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 391 U.S. 935, 88 S.Ct. 1848, 20 L.Ed.2d 854 (1968) (only damages requested; reserving question of right to jury trial where equitable relief also requested). 34 We are persuaded by the reasoning of those cases. The LMRDA Bill of Rights, in creating a set of duties of unions toward their members and in providing for enforcement through civil suits for, in part, damages resulting from breach of those duties, created a new cause of action sounding in tort. Quinn's legal claims for damages--lost wages, mental distress, harm to reputation, etc.--proximately caused by conduct in breach of the legal duties imposed on unions and their officers by the LMRDA were not mere insubstantial appendages to his prayer for equitable relief. Under the reasoning laid down in Ross v. Bernhard and Curtis v. Loether, Quinn was entitled to a jury trial of those claims. 35
36 The same line of Supreme Court cases also compels our conclusion that Quinn was entitled to a jury trial on his claim for damages resulting from a breach of the duty of fair representation. Although the two leading circuit court cases holding that a jury trial was available for DFR claims, Cox v. C.H. Masland & Sons, 607 F.2d 138 (5th Cir.1979), and Minnis v. UAW, 531 F.2d 850 (8th Cir.1975), involved, as far as we can tell, claims for damages only, the Supreme Court's pronouncements in this area do not permit us to take away Quinn's right to a jury trial simply because he sought and was granted equitable relief in addition to damages. Although the duty of fair representation is judicially implied, it is simply a new legal duty, like the duties created by the LMRDA, the breach of which gives rise to liability for any damages that result. The trial judge thus properly sent to the jury the questions of whether the union had breached its duty of fair representation and what damages, if any, Quinn suffered as a consequence; the court properly reserved for itself the question of what equitable relief, if any, Quinn was entitled to. 37 The defendants argue that Del Costello v. Teamsters, 462 U.S. 151, 103 S.Ct. 2281, 76 L.Ed.2d 476 (1983), in which the Supreme Court held that the six-month statute of limitations for NLRB charges, and not any statute of limitations borrowed from state law, applied in DFR suits, compels the opposite result. But the Supreme Court's determination in Del Costello that DFR suits had no close analogy to ordinary state law actions so as to recommend a particular state statute of limitations offers little support for the union's argument that the DFR action is equitable in nature for seventh amendment purposes. In determining whether there is a right to a jury trial of claims under a modern statutory cause of action, the nature of the remedies authorized and sought has become a more reliable clue to whether the action is legal or equitable in nature than the existence of a precise common law analogy to the modern cause of action. See Curtis v. Loether, 415 U.S. at 196-97, 94 S.Ct. at 1009-1010. An action for damages for breach of the duty of fair representation, like a damages action for housing discrimination, is an action to enforce a legal right, and the plaintiff is entitled to a jury trial of that action. 38 We are fully cognizant of the danger that jury prejudice against unions in claims like Quinn's will infect the verdict and inflate damage awards. But an analogous, if not more acute, concern over the possible influences of prejudice against minority victims of housing discrimination was considered and rejected by the Supreme Court in Curtis v. Loether as a basis for denying the seventh amendment right to a jury trial of legal claims in a statutory cause of action. 415 U.S. at 198, 94 S.Ct. at 1010. We can only echo the Court's consolation in Curtis that the trial judge's power to direct a verdict, to grant judgment notwithstanding the verdict, or to grant a new trial provides substantial protection against this risk [of jury prejudice]. Id. The judge must be attentive to the danger of jury prejudice in LMRDA and duty of fair representation cases, and must be prepared to exercise its powers to guide the jury, to override a verdict or to reduce its award if necessary to insure a fair result.