Court Opinion

ID: 9467674
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:53:36.637894+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:27.493410
License: Public Domain

ALVIN B. RUBIN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. With the best of intentions, the majority has developed a life-support system designed to prolong the life of this litigation. Believing that the district court correctly denied plaintiff’s counsel yet another chance to manipulate venue and that we do not discharge our appellate function properly by supplying a new theory to prolong the life of this moribund suit, I would let the case expire without prejudice to its possible resurrection if the plaintiff presents a tenable legal theory in a proper forum.
Woodfork filed this suit, in the Eastern District of Louisiana, where he then lived, asserting federal question jurisdiction arising out of ERISA, 29 U.S.C. § 1132 et seq., and the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C. § 141 et seq. His experienced counsel filed a complaint that sought skillfully to plead an ERISA claim. Because all of the defendants resided in California, the district court. properly ordered a transfer of venue to the Northern District of California. See 28 U.S.C. § 1391(a). This order led to plaintiff’s first maneuver: to avoid having to prosecute his suit in California, he amended his complaint, eliminating his federal claim and substituting a claim in diversity under California law. The venue of his diversity claim properly lay in Louisiana where the plaintiff resided. 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b). The defendants countered by urging that the plaintiff had no state law claim because only federal law (e. g. ERISA) was applicable. The case proceeded to trial on the California claim.
Relying on the state law preemption provisions of ERISA, the district judge dismissed Woodfork’s state law claim. See 29 U.S.C. § 1144. The court held that Wood-fork’s claim arose under federal law because his cause of action did not arise until after the effective date of ERISA, January 1, 1975. See 29 U.S.C. § 1144(a). The dismissal adjudicated only the state law claim, and, of course, did not affect the latent federal claim that Woodfork had not presented to the court. The losing plaintiff then sought to amend his complaint in order to restate his federal claim. The district court declined to permit plaintiff to reassert his previously abandoned claim. Plaintiff now contends that the district court was in error in deciding that he had no state law claim and, in the alternative, that it improperly denied him leave again to amend his complaint after trial on the merits.
My brethren remand this case for two purposes: the district court must redetermine whether Woodfork’s cause of action arose before January 1, 1975, and must permit the plaintiff to amend his complaint to reurge his federal claim. I think that the district court acted correctly, indeed wisely, on both issues.
I.
Section 1144 of ERISA provides that the statute
*978shall supercede any and all State laws [except] with respect to any cause of action which arose, or any act or omission which occurred, before January 1, 1975.
29 U.S.C. § 1144. State law thus applies to Woodfork’s claim only if his cause of action arose before January 1, 1975, when ERISA did not yet protect employee pension rights.1 If his claim arose before the preemption date, the claim may be brought in federal court only on the basis of diversity jurisdiction. Cf. Martin v. Bankers Trust Co., 565 F.2d 1276 (4th Cir. 1977). If, as the district court held, his claim arose after the preemption date, then state law cannot provide a basis for recovery. The definitive question, we are agreed, is when Wood-fork’s cause of action arose.2
My brethren state that Woodfork “might be able to make plausible arguments that his claim against the Pension Plan ripened earlier than the district court held” for purposes of California law. 642 F.2d at 974 (emphasis added). This is an oblique recognition, later stated candidly, that plaintiff failed to make these arguments in the district court. My brethren excuse this failure because Woodfork may not have been “on notice as to the critical importance of when his cause of action accrued” or may not have had a fair opportunity to present his response on the preemption issue, even though the district court allowed both sides a full opportunity to brief all issues after testimony was taken.
It is not the duty of the trial court to ferret out every possible theory on which a party might recover and to put the party on notice of the facts that might support such a theory. As an appellate court, we do not consider issues that the parties have failed to raise in the trial court, except when a miscarriage of justice might result. Noritake Co. v. M/V Hellenic Champion, 627 F.2d 724 (5th Cir. 1980); Martinez v. Mathews, 544 F.2d 1233 (5th Cir. 1976). Plaintiff’s potential arguments are, at best, “plausible;” in the absence of compelling evidence that the district court erred, I can detect no miscarriage of justice to the plaintiff (although I fear that the imposition of a second Louisiana trial on defendants may well be unjust).
It is even more difficult to understand our decision in light of the facts. Woodfork was disciplined 17 years ago, in 1964, when he was 57. He reached early retirement age, 61, in 1969, and full retirement age, 65, in 1972. Nine years after he had inquired into his early retirement rights, only to be rejected, and three years after he reached full retirement age, he hired a lawyer. With the assistance of counsel, Woodfork filed a belated application for benefits with the defendants. In February, 1975, he filed suit asserting jurisdiction under ERISA. The defendants rejected his application in March, 1975, six years ago. All of the operative facts, except the actual rejection of Woodfork’s belated application, occurred long before suit was filed, raising the suspicion that any suit not based on defendants’ most recent rejection is time-barred under whatever California limitation period is applicable. Any cause of action based on the 1975 rejection is, as we all agree, preempted under ERISA. I doubt that we are doing even Woodfork a good turn by attempting to resurrect a patently weak claim.
II.
I have equal difficulty understanding why we remand the issue of when the cause of action arose to the district court. My *979brethren state that there is “an unresolved question of fact, and of law, whether his cause of action accrued before January 1, 1975,” justifying a remand. 642 F.2d at 970 (emphasis added). Plaintiff, however, has not contended that he proffered any evidence at the trial that was refused by the district court or that he has any additional facts to offer. We are left, therefore, with a pure question of law. Courts habitually decide when a cause of action arises on the pleadings, without requiring that the facts :be established through the trial process. See, e. g., Anisgard v. Exxon Corp., 409 F.Supp. 212 (E.D.La.1975).
It seems to me that my brethren are merely inviting the district judge to give a second opinion. If he was wrong in holding that Woodfork’s claims arose after January 1, 1975, he should be reversed. However, I find no error in his ruling and my brethren are unwilling explicitly to declare any misapprehension. More important, the district judge is not likely to think that he was in error unless we instruct him; we will have accomplished little if he reaffirms his earlier decision, leading to an appeal on the same issue again. We would do better to decide the issue ourselves.
III.
My brethren also reverse the district court’s refusal to allow Woodfork to reurge his claim under ERISA. They have shown why a different district judge might have allowed the amendment, but they have not shown that this district judge abused his discretion in reaching his decision. “When the trial court has had a reason for refusing to allow amendment, this court has left its action undisturbed.” Freeman v. Continental Gin Co., 381 F.2d 459 (5th Cir. 1967).
The district court had two good reasons. First, Woodfork having previously dismissed his federal claim in order to manipulate the court’s jurisdiction, he should not be allowed to maneuver again to the detriment of the defendants. Twice before, this court has stated
[m]uch of the value of summary judgment procedure ... would be dissipated if a party were free to rely on one theory in an attempt to defeat a motion for summary judgment and then, should the theory prove unsound, come back long thereafter and fight on the basis of some other theory.
In re Beef Industry Antitrust Litigation, 600 F.2d 1148, 1162 (5th Cir. 1979), cert. denied sub nom. Safeway Stores, Inc. v. Meat Price Investigators Association, - U.S. -, 101 S.Ct. 280, 66 L.Ed.2d 137 (1980); Freeman v. Continental Gin Co., 381 F.2d 459, 469-70 (5th Cir. 1967).
This reasoning applies with even greater force to an attempt to assert a new legal theory after trial. Given the legal expense and the judicial resources involved in a trial, plaintiffs should not be allowed to present their claims seriatim, so that the first trial becomes only a preliminary round whenever a plaintiff loses. Woodfork’s counsel could properly choose to avoid the effects of the venue statute by dismissing the federal claim, but he could not (and probably did not) expect to escape the consequences of his own decision. The district court certainly did not abuse its discretion in enforcing those consequences.
My brethren reject this rationale on the ground that the Pension Plan did not assert its preemption defense until the eve of trial. They imply that, if Woodfork had known that his state claim was likely to fail, he would have pursued his federal claim. This contradicts my brethren’s assertion that there are “plausible arguments” showing that Woodfork’s state claim was not preempted (indicating that, even if Woodfork had sufficient time before the trial, he would still have pursued his state claim). Leaving aside this paradox, I see a more fundamental reason for not allowing amendment. If judgment after trial is to have a conclusive effect on litigation, it does not matter when plaintiff discovers he is going to lose. The proper course, in any event, is for plaintiff to request a continuance before trial. Having failed to do so, plaintiff cannot now complain of the district court’s refusal to let him try again — at defendants’ expense. I would also note *980that, while we may permit plaintiff to manipulate the jurisdiction and venue of the federal courts, we are under no obligation to encourage this manipulation by making it risk-free. Indeed, the costs of this very appeal will not fall on the maneuvering plaintiff but on the defendant with whose position my brethren as yet find no real fault.
Second, allowing the amendment would be futile, because the motivation for plaintiff’s decision to dismiss his federal claim still remains. If plaintiff restates his ERI-SA claim, defendants will almost certainly reurge their motion to transfer venue and the district court will be required to grant that motion. The majority’s argument that the district court should simply have applied federal rather than state law, while correct under other circumstances, does not alter the fact that venue must be transferred to California. The district court could properly decide, as a matter of equitable discretion, that, if plaintiff wanted to pursue his federal claim, he should bring it in the proper venue rather than forcing the defendants to make another unwarranted appearance in Louisiana. Of course, dismissal on this ground increases the likelihood that plaintiff’s claim will be prescribed by the relevant statute of limitations, but I cannot say that the district court abused its discretion in refusing to give this factor controlling weight.
IV.
Having resurrected Woodfork’s federal claim, the majority proceeds to revivify state law as well. While we all agree that federal common law governs interpretation of ERISA, the majority holds that Wood-fork’s federal rights must be interpreted “in light of [the] worker’s pre-ERISA state law rights.” 642 F.2d at 973 (emphasis added). They further state that, if pre-ERISA state law rendered the contractual provision invalid, the federal court should apply state law, rather than enforce the terms of the contract. Although ERISA was intended to preempt state law, my brethren would nonetheless give state law full force as a matter of federal law. Moreover, they would not apply contemporaneous state law, but pre-1975 state law that could not serve as a basis of a cause of action under the statute. (In effect, pre-1975 California law now serves as a cause of action, transformed into a federal claim.)
I see no basis for this incorporation theory. My brethren adduce no legislative history indicating that prior state law should be applied. Incorporation leads to state-by-state variation in the application of ERI-SA’s provisions, many of which are sufficiently complex as to beg for uniform application as a means of elucidation. My brethren argue only that application of state law is necessary to prevent a gap in an employee’s rights, on the theory that if an employee’s vested rights are of pre-1975 origin, they can be enforced only under the state law that, alone, protected them prior to the preemption date. In their admirable concern to protect employees’ rights, my brethren have striven mightily to make hard what, in fact, is easy. Federal common law, of its own force, was intended to provide protection for employees’ pension rights, regardless of whether those rights were created before or after the preemption date. Preemption eliminates state law protection, but does not alter the underlying right. We have not been shown any reason why the protection of federal common law will be less adequate than the protection of prior state law. I would hold that federal common law, alone, governs the interpretation of Woodfork’s contractual rights.
Some statutes resist even the most determined attempts at clarification. The art of statutory interpretation is not advanced when an already complex statute is laboriously parsed in an effort to breathe continued life into a lawsuit that is in articulo. Believing that the district court administered the proper rites, I would affirm his decision.

. I agree with the majority that Sections 301 and 302 of the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C. § 301, 302, do not preempt state law protection of employee pension rights prior to the ERISA preemption date.

. My brethren attempt to account for the apparent redundancy of “cause of action” and “act or omission” by stating that “an act or omission” leads to “legal proceedings other than causes of action.” 642 F.2d at 971. They do not consider the right to initiate a legal proceeding a cause of action. A cause of action, however, is not a type of proceeding, but a right to relief in some form. It is impossible to differentiate a “cause of action” and an “act or omission” in this fashion. The two phrases may be tautologous. However, all we need decide at present is that there was no pre-1975 “act or omission” that did not create a “cause of action.”