Court Opinion

ID: 9482317
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:46:35.508774+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:54.141334
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge,
Dissenting.
I dissent as to two different matters and obviously for two different reasons.
First, I dissent from the Court’s failure to apply Louisiana authoritative precedent that the complaint alleges a valid claim under the Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law (UTPCPL) LSA-R.S. 51:1401 et seq. (West 1987 & Supp.1991).
Second, I dissent to the Court’s refusal to certify to the Supreme Court of Louisiana the question of whether, for the conduct of the defendants, there is liability under Louisiana’s limited adoption of the doctrine of tortious interference with contract.
I.

UTPCPL Claim was Stated

I start with the unchallengeable federal standard under F.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), for dismissal for failure to state a claim. Conley v. Gibson,1 355 U.S. 41, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957), states it succinctly:
[A] complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.
Conley, 355 U.S. at 45-46, 78 S.Ct. at 102, 2 L.Ed.2d at 84.
The Court’s opinion and the complaint (pars. 14, 15) asserts these facts: There was litigation involving the Jefferson Davis Parish Sanitary Landfill Commission (the Commission), the town of Welch and the Jefferson Davis Police Jury seeking to enjoin the enforcement of the initial and interim agreement between American Waste and the Commission. The complaint charged, with specificity reminiscent of old-fashioned pre-F.R.Civ.P. pleadings, several things. See pars. 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30. Of importance is the fact that, after an adverse decision in the litigation by a Louisiana State Court, American Waste and the Commission worked out an agreement, informally approved by all the parties, to settle the controversy. Being governmental entities, formal approval was contemplated. The settlement would have removed the last obstacle to performance of the initial and interim contract between American Waste and the Commission.
Notwithstanding actual knowledge by Browning-Ferris, Inc. (BFI) that the Commission and American Waste were negotiating amendments to the contract and that the parties had informally consented to a *1393settlement of all litigation, BFI intentionally bound itself to pay in excess of $5 million to induce the Commission to withdraw from their contractual relationship and the settlement negotiations and to repudiate the contractual agreements with American Waste.
Unadorned by legalistic pleading jargon, this was American Waste’s Conley v. Gibson charge:
By the promise to pay $5 million, BFI induced the Commission to (i) withdraw from negotiations of the settlement, and, (ii) repudiate the Commission-American Waste contracts, initial and interim, so that BFI would get the contract.
Without even intimating, much less implying, at this stage, that the payment of $5 million was unlawful, a bribe, etc., it remains that, by payment of money, BFI was able to obstruct the settlement and performance of the contracts, initial and interim, between American Waste and the Commission, all of this to BFI’s monetary gain.
In the face of these factual allegations (assuming they are ultimately supported by evidentiary proof) Louisiana has judicially established that a jury could find such conduct to violate UTPCPL. Jarrell v. Carter, 577 So.2d 120 (La.App.), writ denied, 582 So.2d 1311 (La.1991).
The UTPCPL is both exceedingly broad and lacking in detail. It declares:
Unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce are ... unlawful.
Id. at 123.
Jarrell emphasizes:
What constitutes an unfair trade practice is better determined by the courts on a case-by-case basis____ In that way, the many harms sought to be proscribed by the [UTPCPL] can be prevented.

Id.

What is an unfair practice is likewise broadly stated:
It has been held that a practice is unfair when it offends established public policy and when the practice is unethical, oppressive, unscrupulous, or substantially injurious. Roustabouts, 447 So.2d at 548.

Id.

Although business consumers and competitors are included in the group afforded this private right of action, they are not its exclusive members.
Like Jarrell, the conduct here “does allege facts sufficient to classify [American Waste] as a member of the group provided for by the [UTPCPL]”. See id. at 123-24.
The way in which the UTPCPL is stated and applied means that each particular set of alleged facts must be analyzed by the trial court in terms of whether such conduct is a practice which is unfair, because it offends established policy, and is unethical, oppressive, unscrupulous or substantially injurious. This is without regard to Louisiana’s modification of the doctrine of tor-tious interference with contract.2
I cannot believe that the Louisiana business community or the distinguished judiciary of Louisiana would tolerate a conclusion that by payment of money obstructing a contractual relationship or repudiating a contract would not qualify as conduct that was both unethical and unfair. The claim of Waste Management comes down to the graphic charge that a non-contracting party, by use of large sums of money, can legitimately seek to destroy the contractual relationship and, worse, induce a contract ing party to repudiate the contract. Additionally, since such conduct destroyed a profitable contract, this “confers a right of private action on ‘[a]ny person who suffers any ascertainable loss of money or movable property, corporeal or incorporeal from unfair trade practices.’ ” Id. at 123.
Here we do not have to predict what Louisiana courts would do. They have eloquently spoken.
Our Erie duty compels us to recognize that Waste Management is entitled as of right to a trial to determine whether it *1394factually establishes a UTPCPL basis for recovery.
II.

Tortious Interference With Contract Should Be Certified to the Louisiana Supreme Court

Sketching briefly Waste Management’s detailed allegation, so fully and fairly recited in the court’s opinion, this is the graphic charge:
Waste Management had both the initial long-term contract and the interim contract with the Commission to permit Waste Management to operate and manage the landfill pending implementation of the initial contract. Notwithstanding full knowledge by BFI that Waste Management and the Commission were engaged in negotiating proposed amendments, BFI destroyed the contractual relationship. BFI did this by offering $5 million to the Commission to induce the Commission to break off these contractual relationships and repudiate the contracts initial and interim.
The Supreme Court of Louisiana in 9 to 5 Fashions, Inc. v. Spurney, 538 So.2d 228 (La.1989), expressly overruled the ancient case of Kline.3 Our panel opinion recognizes the judicial embarrassment to the State of Louisiana due to the negative rule of Kline, which was out of step with modern jurisprudence.
Such embarrassment was pointed out by the Supreme Court of Louisiana in vivid terms:
[T]he common law authorities relied upon in Kline v. Eubanks have been outflanked and rendered obsolete by modern economic developments. The position taken in those cases and commentaries has been abandoned by all Anglo-American jurisdictions and is contrary to the weight of opinion in other civil law jurisdictions. Louisiana is now the only American state that does not recognize the action for tortious interference with contractual relations.
9 to 5, 538 So.2d at 232.
The Louisiana Supreme Court went on to describe the Kline bar against suits for intentional interference with contracts as “anachronistically unjust,” significantly citing Sanborn v. Oceanic Contractors, Inc., 448 So.2d 91 (La.1984),4 where it had previously suggested that intentional tortious interference with contract rights might, after all, be actionable. 9 to 5, 538 So.2d at 234.
Thus, while the Louisiana Supreme Court in 9 to 5 did indeed decline to adopt the entire law of tortious interference with contract in one bold brush stroke, it did not express the intention that joining the other 49 states in recognizing the modern concepts of that doctrine would be confined to the limited circumstances of 9 to 5, the first case addressing the issue. Instead, noting criticisms that the tort tended to be “undefined” with “no specific conduct ... proscribed,” 9 to 5, 538 So.2d at 234 (quoting W. Prosser & P. Keeton, The Law of Torts § 129, p. 979 (5th ed. 1984)), the court expressed an intent to proceed judiciously, rather than “adopt ... the fully expanded common law doctrine,” Id., 538 So.2d at 234, and to consider on a case-by-case basis what behavior should be proscribed.
Without disparaging the classic case of well-defined outright interference with a contract by the payment of money, the most the court did was to state:
[i]n the present case we recognize ... only a corporate officer’s duty to refrain from intentional and unjustified interference with the contractual relation be*1395tween his employer and a third person.” Id. (emphasis added).
The 9 to 5 court’s statements are not those of a court that intends to give an inch but not a millimeter more.
Instead, although apparently embarrassed at the anachronistic state of its law, the court expressed merely the intention in 9 to 5 as well as in Sanborn, to take the creation of Louisiana’s version of the law of tortious interference one step at a time, with issues squarely before the court. BFI’s actions constitute a classic case of common law intentional interference with a contract by payment of money. This would provide the perfect opportunity for the Louisiana Supreme Court to further develop its fledgling doctrine. But instead of certifying to authoritatively determine where the Louisiana Supreme Court would take the doctrine, our panel decision freezes Louisiana’s law, until another day, where it already has been.5
That the state’s intermediate appellate courts have grudgingly rejected expansion of the tort recognized in 9 to 5 is not surprising. As was stated by the concurring opinion in Tallo v. Stroh Brewery Co., 544 So.2d 452, 455 (La.App. 4th Cir.), writ denied, 547 So.2d 355 (La.1989), that is “the Supreme Court’s function.” Nor is it surprising that, after 92 years of refusing to recognize the tort, the Louisiana Supreme Court has not had an opportunity in the two and one-half years since 9 to 5 to expand upon the decision.
The decision in Great Southwest Fire Ins. Co. v. CNA Inc. Cos., 557 So.2d 966 (La.1990), far from limiting the new tort to 9 to 5’s facts, simply reiterates the Court’s intention to “proceed with caution in expanding that cause of action,” Id. at 969 (emphasis added), but indeed to proceed. Great Southwest Fire did not present an opportunity to expand or to limit 9 to 5 at all, because it involved negligence, not intentional interference with a contract. It dealt with the specific duty of a prime insurer to an excess underwriter.

When in Real Doubt, Certify

Floundering around, at best, in an effort to predict what the Supreme Court of Louisiana would do, we deny, not only to the parties but to the jurisprudence of Louisiana as well, the opportunity to obtain an authoritative answer to the problem facing this panel.

Certifiable

The U.S. Supreme Court has enthusiastically endorsed the extensive use by the Fifth Circuit of certification and has itself made use of the certification procedure. In Salve Regina College v. Russell, 499 U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 1217, 113 L.Ed.2d 190 (1991) the Court said, “Of course, a question of state law usually can be resolved definitively if the litigation is instituted in state court and is not finally removed to federal court, or if a certification procedure is available and is successfully utilized.” Id. at -, n. 4, 111 S.Ct. at 1224, n. 4, 113 L.Ed.2d at 202, n. 4.
The Court most recently ordered certification in Virginia v. American Booksellers Ass’n, Inc., 484 U.S. 383, 108 S.Ct. 636, 98 L.Ed.2d 782, declining to address the constitutionality of a challenged Virginia statute without an interpretation by the Virginia Supreme Court, certified question answered, Commonwealth v. American Booksellers Ass’n, Inc., 236 Va. 168, 372 S.E.2d 618 (1988).
The Supreme Court made favorable note of “[t]he Fifth Circuit’s willingness to certify” because of “frequent state court repudiation of its interpretations of state law,” in Lehman Bros. v. Schein, 416 U.S. 386, 390, n. 6, 94 S.Ct. 1741, 1743, n. 6, 40 L.Ed.2d 215, 219, n. 6 (1974); see also W.S. Ranch Co. v. Kaiser Steel Corp., 388 F.2d 257, 266 (10th Cir.1967) (Brown, J., dissenting from failure of court to remit to New Mexico courts for declaratory judgment proceedings and citing numerous federal decisions overruled in state courts), rev’d, 391 U.S. 593, 88 S.Ct. 1753, 20 L.Ed.2d 835 (1968), on remand, 81 N.M. 414, 467 P.2d 986 (1970) (New Mexico Supreme Court rejecting 10th Circuit decision); Chotin *1396Transportation, Inc. v. M/V HUGH C. BLASKE, 475 F.2d 1370, 1371 (5th Cir.1973) (Brown, J., dissenting and citing numerous federal decisions overruled in state courts). In Lehman Bros., the Supreme Court held that while resort to available certification procedures is discretionary, it was especially appropriate because of the unsettled state of the relevant Florida law involved. Thus the case was vacated and remanded to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to “reconsider” whether to certify, as had been urged by the dissent in the Court of Appeals. Id. 416 U.S. at 391-92, 94 S.Ct. at 1744, 40 L.Ed.2d at 220. The Court said that “[certification] does, of course, in the long run save time, energy, and resources and helps build a cooperative judicial federalism.” Id. at 391, 94 S.Ct. at 1744, 40 L.Ed.2d at 220.
Urging use of innovative means to secure an authoritative answer, the Court commented favorably upon the use of a stay pending a state declaratory judgment action where no certification procedure is available, citing Kaiser Steel and Meredith v. City of Winter Haven, 320 U.S. 228, 64 S.Ct. 7, 88 L.Ed. 9 (1943). Lehman, 416 U.S. at 390, 94 S.Ct. at 1744, 40 L.Ed.2d at 220.
The use of certification6 has its impetus in Clay v. Sun Ins. Office, Ltd., 363 U.S. 207, 80 S.Ct. 1222, 4 L.Ed.2d 1170 (1960), on remand, 319 F.2d 505 (5th Cir.1963), where the Court urged the Fifth Circuit on remand to certify the question to the Florida Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has also certified questions in, Zant v. Stephens, 456 U.S. 410, 102 S.Ct. 1856, 72 L.Ed.2d 222 (1982) (what premises support Georgia Supreme Court conclusion that death sentence is not impaired by invalidity of one of several statutory aggravating circumstances found by a jury), answer conformed to, 462 U.S. 862, 103 S.Ct. 2733, 77 L.Ed.2d 235 (1983); and Aldrich v. Aldrich, 375 U.S. 249, 84 S.Ct. 305, 11 L.Ed.2d 304 (1963), rev’d, 378 U.S. 540, 84 S.Ct. 1687, 12 L.Ed.2d 1020 (1964).
The Fifth Circuit most recently used the device to certify questions of Mississippi law determinative of the cause of action in Puckett v. Rufenacht, Bromagen & Hertz, Inc., 903 F.2d 1014, opinion amended by, 919 F.2d 992 (5th Cir.1990), certified question answered, 587 So.2d 273 (Miss.1991).
It is judicially wise and administratively economical to certify the question to the Louisiana Supreme Court since it has not defined or even dealt with the scope of the duty of competitors to refrain from tor-tious interference with contractual relationships and repudiation of contracts and whether such conduct constitutes a statutory unfair trade practice.
Acknowledging as we did in Puckett that “[w]e may, in our Erie role, decide these unsettled questions of state law in the way in which it appears to us that the Supreme Court of [the state] would do,” we chose, "rather than risk pronouncing a result which that court later would not follow,” 903 F.2d at 1021, to certify.7
Recognizing that the procedure affords to the Louisiana Courts the preservation of its sovereign right to determine major policy decision, the Louisiana Supreme Court since adopting its certification procedure in 1972, has frequently responded to certified questions from this court.
Examples include Deshotels v. SHRM Catering Services, Inc., 842 F.2d 116, supplemented, 845 F.2d 582 (5th Cir.1988), answer conformed to, Sifers v. General Ma*1397rine Catering Co., 892 F.2d 386, modified in part on reh’g, 897 F.2d 1288 (5th Cir.1990); and Petroleum Helicopters, Inc. v. Avco Corp., 804 F.2d 1367 (5th Cir.1986) (scope of Louisiana long-arm statute), reh’g. denied, 808 F.2d 1520, answer conformed to, 834 F.2d 510 (5th Cir.1987).
Because of the importance of these questions and the unsettled state of Louisiana law, I would certify the questions to the Louisiana Supreme Court. I therefore dissent to this court’s failure to certify.

. We have had hundreds of cases applying this principle. Barber v. Motor Vessel “Blue Cat", 372 F.2d 626 (5th Cir.1967); Cook & Nichol, Inc. v. Plimsoll Club, 451 F.2d 505 (5th Cir.1971).

. See Part II.

. Kline v. Eubanks, 109 La. 241, 33 So. 211 (1902).

. In Sanborn, the court stated that:
there have been recent expressions by some members of this Court that, in a case squarely presenting the issue, Forcum-James [Co. v. Duke Transportation Co., 231 La. 953, 93 So.2d 228 (1957) (following Kline in refusing to recognize a cause of action for tortious interference with contract) ] should be re-examined.... [W]ere plaintiff to allege and prove defendant intentionally and willfully interfered with plaintiffs contract ..., he might be entitled to relief.
448 So.2d at 95, n. 5.

. See, e.g. Peacock v. Brightway Signs, Inc., 545 So.2d 649 (La.App. 5th Cir.1989).

. If certified, counsel will be engaged in drafting proposed questions.

. Some other cases in which this Court has made good use of certification include: Manookian v. A.H. Robbins Co., Inc., 760 F.2d 567 (5th Cir.1985); Boardman v. United Services Auto. Ass'n, 742 F.2d 847 (5th Cir.1984), answer conformed to, 768 F.2d 718 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 980, 106 S.Ct. 384, 88 L.Ed.2d 337 (1985); Sandefur v. Cherry, 718 F.2d 682, as amended, 721 F.2d 511 (5th Cir.1983), answer conformed to, 744 F.2d 1157 (5th Cir.1984); Anderson v. Jackson Municipal Airport Authority, 645 F.2d 401 (5th Cir.1981), answer conformed to, 691 F.2d 742 (5th Cir. 1982); Trail Builders Supply Co. v. Reagan, 409 F.2d 1059 (5th Cir.1969), answer conformed to, 430 F.2d 828 (5th Cir.1970); Martinez v. Rodriguez, 394 F.2d 156 (5th Cir.1968), answer conformed to, 410 F.2d 729 (5th Cir.1969).