Opinion ID: 480737
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the union's liability for baskin's lost pension

Text: 44
45 The cornerstone of Baskin's claim that Local 449 breached its duty of fair representation is, of course, the existence of a collective bargaining agreement between the Union and Stright, for without such an agreement, the Union could not have breached its duty to Baskin by failing to compel Stright's performance of contractual obligations. The jury found that Stright had been bound to such an agreement from 1963 through 1967 both as a signatory and by adoption and ratification. Local 449 argues that it was entitled to judgment n.o.v. because, although Moglia v. Geohegan, 403 F.2d 110, 118 (2d Cir.1968), cert. denied, 364 U.S. 919, 89 S.Ct. 1193, 22 L.Ed.2d 453 (1969), suggests that an employer may be bound to such an agreement either by signing it or by adopting and ratifying it, there was insufficient evidence at trial for the jury to find that either action had occurred. We reject this contention. 46 Judgment n.o.v. is proper only if the evidence viewed in the light most favorable to the non-movants, without considering credibility or weight, reasonably permits only a conclusion in the movant's favor. Sirota v. Solitron Devices, Inc., 673 F.2d 566, 573 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 838, 103 S.Ct. 86, 74 L.Ed.2d 80 (1982). In other words, either there must be such a complete absence of evidence supporting the verdict that the jury's finding could only have been the result or sheer surmise and conjecture or the evidence must be so overwhelming that reasonable and fair-minded persons could only have reached the opposite result. Newmont Mines Ltd. v. Hanover Insurance Co., 784 F.2d 127, 132 (2d Cir.1986) (quoting Mallis v. Bankers Trust Co., 717 F.2d 683, 688-89 (2d Cir.1983)). Local 449's challenge does not satisfy these standards. 47 The proof included evidence that Stright allowed Local 449 to banish nonunion workers from its 1958 project and dictate their replacement with union workers; that Local 449 placed Baskin, a Union member, with Stright; and that the Union placed its members only with employers who were bound by collective bargaining agreements. There was evidence that Stright promptly began making contributions to the Local 449 Welfare Fund on behalf of Baskin, and made such payments from 1958 through 1970; that such payments would have been unlawful if Stright was not bound by a collective bargaining agreement; and that the Pension Fund would have considered these payments some evidence of Stright's being party to a collective bargaining agreement. Stright's conduct with respect to the payment of below-scale wages and nonpayment of pension contributions was precisely the same after 1968, when Stright and the Union concede Stright was bound by a collective bargaining agreement, as it had been since 1958. 48 Viewed in the light most favorable to Baskin, the evidence also revealed that Stright made payments to Local 449's Welfare Fund and the Pension Fund whenever Local 449 told it to do so and in whatever amounts the Union demanded. It made no payments to the Pension Fund on behalf of Baskin because Local 449 did not tell Stright it was obligated to do so. The jury was plainly entitled to infer that Stright's contributions to the Welfare Fund from 1958 to 1970 had not been voluntary and to accept DeLuca's concession that if an employer's payments were not voluntary they were contractually required. We conclude that the evidence was ample to permit a rational juror to conclude that Stright had been bound by a collective bargaining agreement with Local 449 from 1963 through 1967.
49 Local 449's next argument is that it is entitled to a reversal of the judgment against it on the ground that there was insufficient proof of its duty to enforce Stright's obligation to make contributions to the Pension Fund because the Fund had an obligation to see that contributions were made. Although we would agree that a union's duty of fair representation does not extend to overseeing an employer's contributions to a pension fund when the union neither controlled nor was in a position to oversee such contributions, Rosen v. Hotel Restaurant Employees and Bartenders' Union, 637 F.2d 592, 599 n. 10 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 898, 102 S.Ct. 398, 70 L.Ed.2d 213 (1981), we reject the present argument both because Local 449 apparently did not move for a directed verdict on this basis and because the evidence amply demonstrated that the initial responsibility for enforcing Stright's obligation fell on the Union. 50 Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(b) generally prohibits judgment n.o.v. on any ground not raised in a motion for a directed verdict. See Abehouse v. Ultragraphics, Inc., 754 F.2d 467, 473 (2d Cir.1985); 5A Moore's Federal Practice p 50.08, at 50-74 to 50-75 (2d ed.1986); 9 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure Sec. 2537, at 598 (1971). Relief from this requirement is only available to prevent a manifest injustice. Sojak v. Hudson Waterways Corp., 590 F.2d 53, 54-55 (2d Cir.1978). 51 Local 449 does not appear to have included in its motion for a directed verdict any argument that the principal responsibility for enforcing an employer's obligation to make pension contributions fell upon the Pension Fund rather than on Local 449. Thus, its motion for judgment n.o.v. on this ground was properly denied unless there was manifest injustice in allowing the jury's verdict against it to stand. The trial evidence permits no such conclusion of injustice. The proof was that the Pension Fund had no knowledge that Stright was bound to a collective bargaining agreement prior to 1968, and hence had no basis on which to infer that pension contributions were required from Stright. Further, the proof was overwhelming that only Local 449 could monitor an employer's initial compliance with its pension contribution obligation and that both Local 449 and the Pension Fund understood that Local 449 would perform this function. Accordingly, Local 449's motion for judgment n.o.v. premised on the alleged superior duty of the Pension Fund to enforce Stright's obligation to make pension contributions was properly denied.
52 There is no question that Baskin's cause of action for the loss of his pension accrued in 1972 when the Fund denied his application. Thus, the statute of limitations, be it the six-year Connecticut statute provided by Conn.Stat.Gen. Sec. 52-576 (1985) for contract actions, or the six-month statute that has been applied to claims under 29 U.S.C. Sec. 185(a) (1982) arising out of violations of contracts between an employer and a labor union, see DelCostello v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 462 U.S. 151, 169-72, 103 S.Ct. 2281, 2293-95, 76 L.Ed.2d 476 (1983), would have run prior to the commencement of this suit if its running was not tolled on account of fraudulent concealment. Local 449 makes a number of arguments in support of its contention that the fraudulent concealment argument was not available, including (1) that there was insufficient proof of fraudulent concealment on the part of the Union, (2) that the court erred in concluding that a plaintiff who claims fraudulent concealment has no duty to exercise diligence in learning the facts concealed, (3) that there was insufficient evidence of Baskin's diligence, and (4) that the court erred in instructing the jury that the Union had a duty to disclose. We reject each argument. 53 There was evidence of active concealment. Concealing the actionability of a known injury is sufficient to toll the statute of limitations. See, e.g., Bowen v. City of New York, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 2022, 2030, 90 L.Ed.2d 462 (1986) (though plaintiffs knew of loss of benefits, statute of limitations was tolled by defendants' concealment of facts revealing that the loss constituted a violation of rights), aff'g, City of New York v. Heckler, 742 F.2d 729, 738 (2d Cir.1984); Hamilton v. Smith, 773 F.2d 461, 468 (2d Cir.1985) (applying Connecticut law) (plaintiff knew he had cancer but defendant allegedly concealed evidence of earlier misdiagnosis); Barrett v. United States, 689 F.2d 324, 327-28 (2d Cir.1982), cert. denied, 462 U.S. 1131, 103 S.Ct. 3111, 77 L.Ed.2d 1366 (1983); Moviecolor Ltd. v. Eastman Kodak Co., 288 F.2d 80, 87 (2d Cir.) (there is fraudulent concealment when defendant conceals either the transaction sued upon, the defendant's identity, or the facts rendering a known transaction actionable), cert. denied, 368 U.S. 821, 82 S.Ct. 39, 7 L.Ed.2d 26 (1961); Richards v. Mileski, 662 F.2d 65, 69, 70 (D.C.Cir.1981) (despite plaintiff's knowledge of sufficient facts relating to other causes of action, statute of limitations on defamation cause of action was tolled by defendant's fraudulent concealment of their knowledge of falsity of statements about plaintiff). 54 Indisputably, the Union actively concealed from Baskin any hint that Stright was bound to a collective bargaining agreement from 1963 through 1967. DeLuca represented to the Pension Fund that Stright was not so bound; the Fund informed Baskin that this was the reason his pension application was denied. Further, Baskin testified that DeLuca had told him that Stright had not made payments on his behalf to the Welfare Fund, further concealing the employer's contractual obligations. Though DeLuca in effect denied at trial that he had made such a statement, claiming that he had told Baskin that Stright's contributions were too small to benefit Baskin, the assessment of the credibility of the witnesses is a matter wholly within the province of the jury. The jury apparently credited Baskin's evidence, perhaps influenced by the fact that DeLuca had twice falsely stated in pretrial statements under oath that Stright had made no contributions to the Welfare Fund prior to 1968 and had falsely represented that the Union no longer had any records as to pre-1968 contributions. In the end, the jury found that Local 449 fraudulently conceal[ed] facts giving rise to plaintiff's cause of action, and there is no basis in this record for overturning this finding. 55 We see no merit in the Union's contentions regarding Baskin's diligence. Local 449 argues that the district court erred in relying on this Court's decision in Robertson v. Seidman & Seidman, 609 F.2d 583, 593 (2d Cir.1979), for the proposition that a plaintiff need not establish his diligence in attempting to discover his cause of action if the defendant has engaged in active concealment. Even if Robertson did not stand for this proposition, which we think it does, the Union has shown no basis for reversal, for in fact the jury was instructed that Baskin was required to exercise reasonable diligence, and was asked, Could Mr. Baskin or his attorneys have discovered the grounds for his cause of action through the exercise of reasonable diligence despite the Union's fraudulent concealment? The jury answered this question in the negative. 56 Nor was the proof of Baskin's diligence inadequate to support this finding. It is settled that reasonable diligence does not require a person to commence a lawsuit in order to procure court-ordered discovery of concealed facts. See, e.g., Barrett v. United States, 689 F.2d at 330. Given the evidence that Baskin was illiterate, had no access to the concealed records, and relied on DeLuca initially to assist him in applying for a pension, and given the proof of the array of false statements, half-truths, and omissions on the part of the Union, it was more than reasonable for the jury to infer that commencement of the lawsuit was the only step that could have uncovered the information concealed here. We conclude that the evidence was sufficient to support the jury's verdict. 57 Finally, we find no reversible error in the court's instruction to the jury that Local 449, because of the special relationship between a union and its members, had an obligation to disclose to Baskin information that it knew might give him a claim against the Union. The Union argues that reversal is required because a union has no duty of fair representation to its members who are retired. We reject this argument for several reasons. 58 First, though we note that a union's duty of fair representation does not include an obligation to take into account the interests of its retired members when it is negotiating contracts with an employer, see, e.g., Central States, Southeast And Southwest Areas Pension Fund v. Central Transport, Inc., 472 U.S. 559, 105 S.Ct. 2833, 2843 n. 18, 86 L.Ed.2d 447 (1985); Allied Chemical & Alkali Workers v. Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., 404 U.S. 157, 172-75, 92 S.Ct. 383, 393-96, 30 L.Ed.2d 341 (1971), we are aware of no case holding that where a union has, as the jury found here, breached its duty of fair representation to a member while he was an employee and member of the bargaining unit, its duty of honest conduct expires upon the member's retirement and the union can thereupon with impunity engage in half-truths and outright falsehoods to conceal its prior breach. Nor need we reach the question of whether such misrepresentations by a union in these circumstances would give the member a cause of action for lack of fair representation, since the function of the challenged instruction was not to list the elements of any cause of action but solely to inform the jury's consideration of whether there was such fraudulent concealment of the prior breach of the fair-representation duty as to toll the statute of limitations. Thus, with regard to Baskin's claim of a breach of the duty of fair representation, the jury was asked only whether Local 449 breached the duty in failing to require Stright to pay pension benefits during the years from 1963 through 1967 when Stright was bound by a collective bargaining agreement[.] We doubt that rulings that a union has no duty of fair representation to retired members while it is negotiating contracts should preclude consideration of a union's concealment when the question is solely whether the union should thereby be equitably estopped from gaining the benefit of the statute of limitations. 59 Finally, even if the court should not have instructed the jury that the Union had a special relationship with Baskin at the time of his pension application, the Union's duty to disclose here did not depend on the assumed special relationship, for if the Union qua union had no duty to disclose anything, it is nonetheless fundamental that a person who speaks has a duty to disclose enough to prevent his words from being misleading. A statement disclosing favorable information but omitting all reference to material unfavorable facts breaches that duty. See Restatement (Second) of Torts Sec. 529 & comments a, b (1977); Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts Sec. 106, at 738 (5th ed. 1984). This principle is plainly applicable to the question of whether a defendant has engaged in fraudulent concealment. See United States v. Hardy, 299 F.2d 600, 609 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 370 U.S. 912, 82 S.Ct. 1259, 8 L.Ed.2d 405 (1962); Hickok Producing & Development Co. v. Texas Co., 128 F.2d 183, 185 (5th Cir.1942). 60 In all the circumstances, given the ample evidence of falsehoods and half-truths by the Union preventing Baskin from perfecting his application for a pension and from learning of the Union's breach of its duty of fair representation, we cannot conclude that the instructions as to fraudulent concealment contained reversible error.
61 Local 449 contends that the district court should have charged the jury that the Union could be held responsible only for the portion of Baskin's damages that was proportionate to its fault in relation to that of Stright. At trial, Local 449 neither requested such a charge nor objected to its absence. 62 In general, a party may not raise on appeal an asserted error in the giving or failure to give a particular instruction to the jury unless he has made timely objection in the trial court. Fed.R.Civ.P. 51; Air et Chaleur, S.A. v. Janeway, 757 F.2d 489, 493 (2d Cir.1985); Haskell v. Kaman Corp., 743 F.2d 113, 123 (2d Cir.1984); Goodman v. Heublein, Inc., 645 F.2d 127, 131 n. 5 (2d Cir.1981). An exception may be made only when there is plain error that may result in a miscarriage of justice, or in obvious instances of ... misapplied law. Air et Chaleur, S.A. v. Janeway, 757 F.2d at 494 (quoting City of Newport v. Fact Concerts, 453 U.S. 247, 256, 101 S.Ct. 2748, 2754, 69 L.Ed.2d 616 (1981)). 63 We find no error, plain or otherwise, in the failure to give the apportionment charge, for when a union has caused or participated in the underlying wrong of the employer, it is appropriate to hold it jointly and severally liable for the employee's loss. See Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171, 197 n. 18, 87 S.Ct. 903, 920 n. 18, 17 L.Ed.2d 842 (1967); Jones v. Transworld Airlines, Inc., 495 F.2d 790, 798 (2d Cir.1974) (tacit understanding between union and employer led to underlying violation); Farmer v. ARA Services, Inc., 660 F.2d 1096, 1107 (6th Cir.1981); see also Bowen v. United States Postal Service, 459 U.S. 212, 223 n. 11, 103 S.Ct. 588, 595 n. 11, 74 L.Ed.2d 402 (1983). By breaching its duty of fair representation in not contemporaneously requiring Stright to make pension contributions from 1963 to 1967, the Union participated in the underlying wrong. 64