Court Opinion

ID: 9455861
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:35:44.337775+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:45.893853
License: Public Domain

BOREMAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
It is with some sense of disappointment that I am prompted to file this statement of dissent as to the majority’s interpretation and application of the West Virginia statute of limitations.
In the complaint the Railing partnership (hereinafter called plaintiff) invoked the jurisdiction of the court by virtue of § 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act (29 U.S.C. § 187). The plaintiff demanded judgment for damages in separate amounts: (1) for the destruction of plaintiff’s business and the loss of profits therefrom; (2) to plaintiff's physical property, machinery and equipment; (3) for sums expended by plaintiff preparing to resume business operations; and (4) for punitive damages. As the district court noted, there are two aspects to the complaint. In addition to the § 303 claim, the second aspect “of the action seeks recovery of both compensatory and punitive damages for non-peaceful, violent, coercive, and conspiratorial activities and conduct by the union of such a wilful and wanton nature as to give rise to a common-law torL” The court held that, while federal jurisdiction of the § 303 claim was fixed by statute, requisite diversity of citizenship was lacking to invoke jurisdiction of the common-law tort claim although, under the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction the court might take jurisdiction and adjudicate the tort claim as well. Citing United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 16 L.Ed.2d 218 (1966), the district court held that the plaintiff had no right to invoke the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction although the court might apply it in the exercise of its sound discretion. The court declined to reach a determination on this point until after submission of plaintiff’s proof. It was in this posture and context that the court granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment as it related to the application of the West Virginia two-year statute of limitations.
The majority takes the view that the pertinent West Virginia statute of limitations did not begin to run until the date of the cessation of strike and picketing activities (July 14, 1959), citing as authority 54 C.J.S. Limitations of Actions § 169, at p. 128 (1948); but the majority opinion fails to note that text’s further comment:
“Where a continuing tort involves separate and successive injuries, the action accrues at, and limitations begin to run as to each injury from, the date thereof, and there is not only a cause of action for the original wrong, arising when the wrong is committed, but separate and successive causes of action for the consequential damages arise as and when such damages are from time to time sustained; and, therefore, as long as the cause of the injury exists and the damages continue to occur, plaintiff is not barred of a recovery for such damages as have accrued within the statutory period before the action. Thus an action may lie for an injury recurring within the prescriptive period, even though the first tortious act antedated such period, and a. cause of action based solely on the original wrong may be barred; but the recovery is limited to such damages as accrued within the statutory period before the action.” (Emphasis supplied.) § 169, at pp. 128-129.
The district court concluded “the most appropriate rule” in cases concerned with the problem of accrual of a cause of action, involving numerous acts resulting in a continuous invasion of a protected interest, is that applied in Delta Theaters, Inc. v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 158 F.Supp. 644, 648 (E.D.La. 1958), which, although recognizing “con*785ceptual difficulties in attempting to split this type of claim," adopted the Third Circuit’s rule in Bluefields S. S. Co. v. United Fruit Co., 243 F. 1, 20 (3 Cir. 1917), as follows:
“ ‘The statute began to run when the cause of action arose, and the cause of action arose when the damage occurred. Then action might have been brought.’
and, further,
“In the case of successive damages suffered day by day * * * the statute begins to run on each day’s damage as it occurs. When suit is brought, the plaintiff may recover only for damages inflicted during the period of limitations immediately preceding the filing of the complaint.”
The court below (276 F.Supp. at 243, n. 3) appropriately cited Highland Supply Corp. v. Reynolds Metals Co., 327 F. 2d 725 (8 Cir. 1964); Streiffer v. Seafarers Sea Chest Corporation, 162 F. Supp. 602 (E.D.La.1958); and Radio Corporation of America v. Rauland Corp., 186 F.Supp. 704 (N.D.Ill.1956). While Delta Theaters, supra, involved a cause of action based upon a conspiracy violative of the Clayton Act’s § 4 (15 U. S.C. § 15), the court below regarded that analysis “particularly appropriate in an action based on Section 303 of the Act for damages to plaintiff’s ‘business or property’ ” since, as the court observed, “determining the actual cause, and the date thereof, of a particular loss for the purpose of establishing the accrual date of a cause of action would normally be impossible except in simple cases where the ‘acts are individually related to, and more or less contemporaneous with, the resulting damage.’ ”
Since the phrase “shall have accrued” is critical in the West Virginia statute of limitations, accrual of a cause of action under West Virginia decisional law becomes a pertinent inquiry.
In Pickens v. Coal River Boom & Timber Company, 66 W.Va, 10, 65 S.E. 865 (1909), the West Virginia Supreme Court held:
“When the operation of a boom causes deposit of sand in a, stream, thereby injuring the grinding capacity of a mill, the mill owner may recover in actions from time to time as damage and loss occur, and is not compelled to sue for present and prospective damage in one suit, and the statute of limitations begins to run, not from the construction of the boom, but when the damage occurs in time.”
Implementation of Pickens came in Guy-an Motors v. Williams, 133 W.Va. 630, 634, 57 S.E.2d 529 (1950), where the West Virginia Court recognized that a right of action accrues to a landowner deprived of a lateral support when damage results from a defendant’s act and not when the act takes place if that act does not then damage the land in question.
In Harrison v. McOwen, 126 W.Va. 933, 938, 30 S.E.2d 740, 742, the West Virginia Supreme Court, recognizing the validity of its rule in Pickens, stated “it is perfectly clear that the result of the alleged acts of the defendant did not happen at the actual time of the blast, but * * * when the alleged slide took place. Then the plaintiff owned this land alleged to have been damaged.”
The defendant’s motion for summary judgment was bottomed upon the complaint, pleadings, interrogatories propounded to the plaintiff by the defendant and plaintiff’s responses thereto, as well as depositions of the Railing brothers, Chester and Paul.
Deponent, Chester Railing, testified that the plaintiff’s operation had no coal orders or contracts; that plaintiff was dependent for coal orders upon Pursglove Coal Company, its broker, and that it was only when Pursglove called him daily that he knew what the orders were; that plaintiff had no price con*786tract with Pursglove and that he and the broker “would always keep haggling about the price”; that plaintiff’s losses would go from, day to day because of the way in which the plaintiff’s operation shipped and sold its coal.
This testimony is contrary to plaintiff’s contention that the alleged illegal activity resulted “in irrevocable loss of coal orders and contracts.” Even if there had been contracts (and Chester Railing said there were none), plaintiff’s argument that “some coal orders and contracts began and ended at one time and other orders and other contracts began and ended on other dates” is consistent with Railing’s testimony that losses would go from “day to day” because of the way plaintiff shipped and sold its coal. If, as admitted, losses occurred on a day-to-day basis, there was no necessity for plaintiff to make an “attempt at prophecy or projecting into the future how long the alleged illegal activities would continue.” An instant remedy was available when a right of action accrued.
Furthermore, Chester Railing testified that specific items of mining machinery were dynamited and destroyed on the mine property. He fixed the dates of the occurrences. On the night of November 16, 1958, two “P & H Shovels” were destroyed and an “87 Lorraine” shovel was dynamited on July 9, 1959. It is common knowledge in the coal industry and in the areas where coal is mined that stripping shovels are large and expensive items of production equipment. Damages for the destruction of this equipment are sought by plaintiff. Mr. Railing knew of the losses almost immediately after they occurred and it would be senseless to hold that the statute of limitations would not begin to operate as to such losses until the alleged unlawful activities had ceased.
I would affirm that portion of the judgment below which relates to and applies the two-year statute of limitations.