Court Opinion

ID: 9491173
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:05:49.040637+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:33.482633
License: Public Domain

NYGAARD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent because I -believe the district court’s conclusion, though harsh, is correct: the entire controversy doctrine applies. The doctrine bars successive lawsuits that “arise from related facts or the same transaction or series of transactions. It is the core set of facts that provides the link between distinct claims against the same or different parties and triggers the requirement that they be determined in one proceeding!” DiTrolio v. Antiles, 142 N.J. 253, 662 A.2d 494, 502 (1995). If the litigants are “likely to have to engage in additional litigation in order to conclusively dispose of their respective bundles of rights and liabilities” arising from the same series of transactions, the doctrine applies irrespective of whether the claims or issues are “independent cause[s] of action by technical common law definition or independent elaim[s] which, in the abstract, [are] separately adjudicable.” O’Shea v. Amoco Oil Co., 886 F.2d 584; 590-91 (3d Cir.1989).
Both suits derive from the same event: the injury Mr. Fornarotto suffered at his place of employment. The personal injury suit sought damages for the physical injuries he suffered in that accident; the ERISA suit sought compensation for the wages he lost when he became totally disabled as a result of those injuries. In the personal injury suit, Mr. Fornarotto would have had to prove the extent of his injuries, including his total disability. In the ERISA suit, he would again have had to prove that his injuries left him totally disabled. Thus, both lawsuits stem from the same core set of facts: the extent of his injury resulting from the accident. When the accident occurred, the “bundles of rights” that accrued to Fornarotto included compensation for both (1) physical injury and (2) lost income resulting from that accident. I continue to believe that the entire controversy doctrine required Mr. Fornarotto to dispose óf those rights in one proceeding.
Indeed, everyone acknowledges that the two suits share common facts. Although the personal injury suit involved issues of negligence that were not implicated in the ERISA suit, that is irrelevant. “The entire controversy doctrine does not require commonality of legal issues. Rather, the determinative consideration is whether distinct claims are aspects of a single larger controversy because they arise from interrelated facts.” DiTrolio, 662 A.2d at 504. Fornarotto admits that his accident caused his disability and is therefore common to both lawsuits.
The entire controversy doctrine has three objectives: “(1) to encourage the comprehensive and conclusive determination of a legal controversy; (2) to achieve party fairness ... and (3) to promote judicial economy and efficiency by avoiding fragmented, .multiple and' duplicative litigation.” Venuto v. Witco Corp., 117 F.3d 754, 761 (3d Cir.1997). The opinion of the court does not discuss the first and third factors, which weigh in New-Jersey American’s favor.
In arguing the “fairness” factor, Fornarotto’s attorney relies mainly on equitable con*286siderations, but does not cite a single ease in which a New Jersey court assumed that the entire controversy doctrine was applicable but declined to enforce it out of “fairness” to one of the parties. Neither I nor the majority has found one either. “Fairness in the application of the entire controversy doctrine focuses on the litigation posture of the respective parties and whether all of their claims and defenses could be most soundly and appropriately litigated and disposed of in a single comprehensive adjudication.” DiTrolio, 662 A.2d at 507. Fornarotto’s personal injury suit was pending in the state court for six years. In settling that suit, Fornarotto released New-Jersey American from “any and all actions, causes of actions, claims, demands, costs, loss of services, expenses and compensation on account of, or in anyway growing out of’ his injuries in the accident. (App. at 49.) To require relitigation of those same injuries in the ERISA suit is unfair to New-Jersey American and would certainly frustrate judicial economy.1
It could be argued that it would be unfair to bar the ERISA suit because, at the time Fornarotto filed the personal injury suit, he did not know he was disabled or that New-Jersey American would deny him disability benefits. Again, this is true but irrelevant. The entire controversy doctrine does not take effect until one suit is finally determined. Rycoline Products, Inc. v. C & W Unlimited, 109 F.3d 883, 889 (3d Cir.1997). Upon learning that New-Jersey American denied him disability benefits, Fornarotto should have simply amended his pending personal injury suit to add an ERISA claim. Instead, he chose to file a separate ERISA action in the same court on September 5, 1995. New-Jersey American removed that ERISA suit on October 27, 1995, and the parties settled the personal injury suit in November, 1996. Thus, two separate lawsuits arising out of the same event were pending in the same court for almost two months, and the ERISA suit then sat in a different court for over one year. This is precisely the type of fragmented litigation the entire controversy doctrine was meant to preclude.
Fornarotto’s attorney had a statutory duty to bring the overlap to the court’s attention when he first filed the ERISA suit, but he failed to do so, “A plaintiff who fails to allow the trial court the opportunity to supervise the entire controversy risks losing the right to bring that claim later.” Mystic Isle Development Corp. v. Perskie & Nehmad, 142 N.J. 310, 662 A.2d 523, 530 (1995). Fomarotto should not be saved by his argument that New-Jersey American avoided that same statutory duty by removing the ERISA suit before filing an answer in state court. New-Jersey American had a procedural right to remove, and removal does not bar operation of the entire controversy doctrine.2 Indeed, in Petrocelli v. Daniel Woodhead Co., 993 F.2d 27 (3d Cir.1993), we upheld summary judgment in favor of a defendant who removed a suit to federal court and then claimed it was barred by the entire controversy doctrine. Although the defendant in Petrocelli did not know of the previous suit when it removed the later suit, there, as here, the plaintiff was aware that a similar suit was pending when he filed the second suit, but failed to inform the state court as required. Id. at 28.
For these reasons, which are essentially those given by the district court in its opinion, I dissent.

. Judicial economy is not merely to save us work; it redounds to all other suits and litigants who are thus denied attention and whose causes meanwhile must remain untried.

. I am not without compassion for Mr. Fomarotto. Whatever legitimate rationale there may be that led his attorney to risk the ERISA action by filing a separate suit, it is not apparent from this record. Moreover, the timing of the removal, the first settlement, the letters exchanged (see Maj. Op. n. 9), and the motion for summary judgment lead me to believe that Mr. Fornarotto suffered a procedural "sucker punch,” from which he was unprotected, and by which he was denied disability benefits. The profession of law is reduced to a mere trade if not practiced with informed zeal and honor; I see a shortage of both here.