Court Opinion

ID: 9489880
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:26:39.642203+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:46.208110
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Today the majority ignores the law-of-the-case doctrine and effectively reverses a prior decision by this court. In LaPointe v. United Autoworkers Local 600, 8 F.3d 376 (6th Cir.1993), this court reversed the district judge’s first grant of summary judgment, over the dissent of Judge Batchelder. Although the majority in that case (Judges Contie and Milburn) based its holding on other grounds, it noted that the evidence proffered by the parties at the summary judgment stage was insufficient for the court to hold as a matter of law at summary judgment that plaintiff could have resigned from his union position but retained his job with Ford. 8 F.3d at 377-78 n. 1. Judge Batchelder’s dissent focused solely on that issue. Today’s majority opinion turns that dissent into law. I respectfully dissent.
On remand, the defendants made no new argument and, despite the position of this new majority to the contrary, presented no adequate basis for reconsidering this issue in support of their renewed motion for summary judgment. Compare J.A. at 35-36 (Brief in Support of Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment, 9/10/91) and Defendants’ Reply Brief, 10/24/91, docket number 32, with J.A. at 134-35 (Brief in Support of Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment, 4/15/94) (citing the same deposition testimony). Instead, they merely fleshed out an argument they had made previously. There was one new piece of evidence attached to the second motion for summary judgment— the affidavit of Virgil Seal. This affidavit merely offered cumulative support for defendants’ position; it did not establish as a matter of law that there was no genuine issue as to material fact. The district court, even noting that the defendants were “[t]aking cues from the dissenting opinion in the Sixth Circuit’s remand of plaintiffs appeal in this case,” apparently ignored the majority opinion in that remand and again granted summary judgment to the defendants.
The law-of-the-case doctrine states that “a decision on an issue made by a court at one stage of a case should be given effect in successive stages of the same litigation.” United States v. Todd, 920 F.2d 399, 403 (6th Cir.1990), quoted in Shore v. Federal Express Corp., 42 F.3d 373 (6th Cir.1994). “A court has the power to revisit prior decisions of its own or of a coordinate court in any circumstance, although as a rule courts *490should be loathe to do so in the absence of extraordinary circumstances____” Todd, 920 F.2d at 403 (quoting Christianson v. Colt Indus. Operating Corp., 486 U.S. 800, 817, 108 S.Ct. 2166, 2178, 100 L.Ed.2d 811 (1988)) (ellipses in original); see United States v. Moored, 38 F.3d 1419, 1421 (6th Cir.1994) (“[I]ssues, once decided, should be reopened only in limited circumstances, e.g., where there is ‘substantially different evidence raised on subsequent trial; a subsequent contrary view of the law by the controlling authority; or a clearly erroneous decision which would work a manifest injustice.’ ”) (citation omitted). See also IB James Wm. Moore et al., Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 0.404[4. — 6], at 11-33 to 11-35 (2d ed. 1985).
Although the previous Sixth Circuit panel did not rest its decision on the issue now before us, it clearly did consider and address the issue. In a footnote, the majority clearly stated that summary judgment was inappropriate on the constructive discharge issue.1 This court reviews a grant of summary judgment de novo and could have affirmed the district court’s judgment on any ground supported by the record, even one not cited by the district court. City Management Corp. v. U.S. Chemical Co., 43 F.3d 244, 251 (6th Cir.1994) (citing Hilliard v. United States Postal Serv., 814 F.2d 325, 326 (6th Cir. 1987)). Judge Batchelder’s detailed dissent laid the issue squarely before the court. The fact that the majority in that case chose not to adopt her view clearly indicates that the court considered and rejected that basis for summary judgment. We should not now second-guess that decision.
Although the majority here attempts to sidestep the law-of-the-case problem by asserting that “we found ourselves at that time unable to conclude” as a matter of law that LaPointe could have resigned his Union job and retained his job at Ford, the case is no different at this time. In their renewed motion for summary judgment, the defendants did not offer substantially different evidence that might justify a different outcome. Instead, they cited the same evidence that had been presented at the original summary judgment stage, and reiterated their previous argument, stated in more detail and informed by Judge Batchelder’s dissent. Today, that dissent becomes a majority opinion.
Because I believe that this holding violates the law-of-the-case-doctrine, I must respectfully dissent.

. The majority wrote:
Though the district coürt noted that "plaintiff could have resigned from his union position but nonetheless retained his job with the Ford Motor Company,” District Court's Memorandum Opinion and Order at 2 n. 2, LaPointe maintains that Thompson threatened that he "would be gone, one way or another, because [Thompson] would still be around.” Joint Appendix at 244. Because we cannot say, as a matter of law at summary judgment, that the district court's assumption is correct, we reject the notion that LaPointe was not constructively discharged from both Ford and Local 600.
8 F.3d at 377-78 n. 1.