Court Opinion

ID: 9450793
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:57:53.929498+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:27.156705
License: Public Domain

RIVES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting): With deference, I dissent.
The district court held that the claim for damages resulting from a breach of fiduciary duty is barred by the statute of limitations and that the claim for unjust enrichment is premature. Accordingly it dismissed the action but expressly made the dismissal “without prejudice to the right of the plaintiff to bring a further action for relief for restitution and unjust enrichment at such time as an order of the Federal Power Commission in the pending rate base proceeding becomes final.”
The plaintiff alone filed a notice of appeal. None of the defendants appealed. Now this Court holds that both claims were barred by the statute of limitations and that the entire action should have been dismissed with prejudice.
On their claimed defense of the statute of limitations addressed to the claim of unjust enrichment, the district court ruled against the defendants. The defendants having failed to appeal, I submit that they can no more rely on the statute of limitations as to the claim of unjust enrichment than if they had failed to plead that defense in the first instance. To the extent that the judgment was adverse to the defendants it became final without appeal, and this Court is without jurisdiction to enlarge the rights of the defendants.1
Laying aside the jurisdictional question, I submit that neither claim is barred by the statute of limitations. Florida Gas Company (F.G.C.) and Florida Gas Transmission Company (Transmission) held no claim upon which relief could be granted as early as November 1958 when the contracts were executed. Those contracts did no more than expose F.G.C. and Transmission to the risk of injury conditioned on the occurrence of two subsequent events: (1) The receipt of profits by the contracting firms; and (2) the elimination by the Federal Power Commission of those profits from Transmission’s rate base. Unless and until profits accrued to the contracting firms, the defendants’ breach of duty to the plaintiff was not complete for only profits could be eliminated from the rate base. The contracts contemplated reasonable profits to the contracting firms, but, as of the dates of the contracts, the actual receipt of the hoped for profits was speculative and uncertain. Assuming, however, that to be untrue and that the contemplated profits were so large as to make their receipt virtually a certainty, there remained a locus poenitentiae.
A fiduciary and third persons colluding with a fiduciary who obtain a benefit from a breach of the fiduciary’s duty are under a duty of restitution to the beneficiary.2 It could not be presumed in *654advance that the defendants would breach that duty so as to make the claims complete as of the dates of the contracts.
Further, profits, even when received and retained by the contracting firms, did not give rise to a claim on which relief could be granted until the Federal Power Commission actually began to eliminate those profits from Transmission’s rate base. Until that event it could not be known with any degree of certainty that the receipt of reasonable profits by the contracting firms was unjust or wrongful, or that the defendants had committed any legal injury to F.G.C. and Transmission.
The situation is analogous to Town of Miami Springs v. Lawrence, Fla.1958, 102 So.2d 143, where the action was based on the fact that the town raised the level of a street and failed to provide drainage for the plaintiff’s land. In denying the defense of limitations, the Florida Supreme Court held:
“ * * the statute does not begin to run until actual harm is inflicted to the plaintiff’s land, regardless of the installation date of the construction or obstruction causing the overflow. See 56 Am.Jur., Waters, § 444; Baker v. Fort Worth, 1948, 146 Tex. 600, 210 S.W.2d 564, 5 A.L.R.2d 297; Henderson v. Talbott, 1954, 175 Kan. 615, 266 P.2d 273; annotation in 5 A.L.R.2d pp. 302 et seq.”
See also Duchaine v. Grosco Realty Co., Fla.App.1960, 121 So.2d 679.
With deference, I submit that neither claim is barred by the statue of limitations. I submit, further, that neither claim should be dismissed as premature, but rather that a stay should be directed pending the conclusion of the Federal Power Commission’s decision and its review by the courts.3
For the reasons stated, I respectfully dissent.
Rehearing denied; RIVES, J., dissenting.

. The William Bagaley, 1866, 5 Wall. 377, 72 U.S. 377, 412, 18 L.Ed. 583; United States v. American Ry. Express Co., 1924, 265 U.S. 425, 435, 44 S.Ct. 560, 68 L.Ed. 1087; Morley Co. v. Maryland Casualty Co., 1927, 300 U.S. 185, 191, 57 S.Ct. 325, 81 L.Ed. 593; Helvering v. Pfeiffer, 1937, 302 U.S. 247, 251, 58 S.Ct. 159, 82 L.Ed. 231; Le Tulle v. Scofield, 1940, 308 U.S. 415, 422, 60 S.Ct. 313, 84 L.Ed. 355; Southern Bell Telephone Co. v. Southern Precision Pattern Works, 5 Cir. 1958, 251 F.2d 537, 540; Abel v. Brayton Flying Service, 5 Cir. 1957, 248 F.2d 713, 717; Schildhaus v. Moe, 2 Cir. 1963, 319 F.2d 587, 588; Zellinger v. Uvalde Rock Asphalt Co., 10 Cir. 1963, 316 F.2d 47, 54; 7 Moore Federal Practice ¶72.05 (2d ed. 1953).

. Jackson v. Smith, 1921, 254 U.S. 586, 588, 589, 41 S.Ct. 200, 65 L.Ed. 418; Flight Equipment & Engineering Corp. v. Shelton, Fla.1958, 103 So.2d 615, 625; A.L.I. Restatement, Restitution §§ 138, 190. Indeed, a broader principle not re*654stricted to fiduciaries and those colluding with them might be applicable, to the effect that “A. person is not permitted to profit by his own wrong at the expense of another.” A.L.I. Restatement, Restitution § 3, §§ 128-1.37; see also Prosser on Torts, § 82, p. 486 (2d ed. 1955).

. See Best v. Humboldt Placer Mining Co., 1963, 371 U.S. 334, 338-339, 83 S.Ct. 379, 9 L.Ed.2d 350; Hewitt-Robins v. Eastern Freight-Ways, 1962, 371 U.S. 84, 83 S.Ct. 157, 9 L.Ed.2d 142; Thompson v. Texas Mexican R. Co., 1946, 328 U.S. 134, 151, 66 S.Ct. 937, 90 L.Ed. 1132; General Amer. Tank Car Corp. v. El Dorado Term. Co., 1940, 308 U.S. 422, 433, 60 S.Ct. 85, 84 L.Ed. 449; United States v. Morgan, 1939, 307 U.S. 183, 198, 59 S.Ct. 795, 83 S.Ct. 1211; Mitchell Coal & C. Co. v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 1913, 230 U.S. 247, 266-7, 33 S.Ct. 916, 57 L.Ed. 1472; McCleneghan v. Union Stock Yards Co., 8 Cir. 1962, 298 F.2d 659, 670.