Court Opinion

ID: 9720415
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:29:44.307081+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:17.690136
License: Public Domain

Riley, J.
(concurring). I agree with the majority that the Court of Appeals erred in applying the six-month period of limitation to dismiss plaintiff’s *18attempt to enforce his arbitration award.1 I also agree with the majority that Walkerville Ed Ass’n v Walkerville Rural Communities School, 165 Mich App 341; 418 NW2d 459 (1987), was wrongly decided and must be overruled. As the majority has recognized, the only reference in the labor mediation act, MCL 423.1 et seq.; MSA 17.454(1) et seq., which applies to the enforcement of arbitration awards is § 9d(4), which provides:
An award rendered in a proceeding hereunder shall be enforceable at law or in equity as the agreement of the parties. [MCL 423.9d(4); MSA 17.454(10.3)(4).]
Two factors contribute to the conclusion that the six-year provision for breach of contract must apply here. First, as the majority recognized, the Legislature did not provide for an express time frame to enforce arbitration awards in the labor mediation act itself. Therefore, we are left with the belief that the Legislature intended for us to apply the existing six-year period of limitation for breach of contract actions to govern this issue. Second, we have held that "[a]n arbitrator’s jurisdiction and authority to resolve a particular dispute concerning the appropriate interpretation of a collective bargaining agreement derives exclusively from the contractual agreement of the parties . . . .” Port Huron Area School Dist v Port Huron Ed Ass’n, 426 Mich 143, 151; 393 NW2d 811 (1986). Given that an arbitrator is bound by the terms of the collective bargaining agreement, there is nothing that would have precluded the *19parties from establishing a time limitation shorter than six years.2
Because neither the labor mediation act nor the collective bargaining agreement (nor the arbitration award itself) provides a statute of limitation to enforce an arbitration award, the six-year period of limitation for breach of contract must apply. MCL 600.5807(8); MSA 27A.5807(8).
I write separately, however, to indicate my agreement with the decision of the trial court and the Court of Appeals to dismiss plaintiff’s second lawsuit, which arose out of the same facts that are involved in the instant case, pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(6).
i
After plaintiff was fired from his job as a bus driver with the University of Michigan, he took the matter to arbitration and won reinstatement without back pay. However, the university did not immediately reinstate him because, while the discharge grievance was pending, plaintiff had filed a workers’ compensation petition and another grievance. Plaintiff filed a claim in the Court of Claims, seeking to enforce the arbitrator’s decision ten months after that decision was made. In granting defendant’s motion for summary disposition, the Court of Claims applied the Walkerville six-month statute of limitation and concluded that the statute had begun to run at the time the award was rendered, and that, therefore, he had missed his opportunity to file this claim and enforce the arbitration award. Plaintiff then appealed that decision. While the appeal was pending, plaintiff *20filed a second lawsuit in the Court of Claims, alleging breach of contract, discrimination under the Workers’ Disability Compensation Act, race and age discrimination, and wrongful termination. These claims were based on facts arising out of his first suit to enforce the arbitration agreement.
Defendant then moved for summary disposition pursuant to MCR 2.1Í6(C)(6), which provides for dismissal of a subsequent lawsuit when there is another lawsuit that has been initiated between the same parties involving the same claims as the first suit.3 The Court of Claims concluded that because the same claims were raised in the first case as in the second, plaintiff’s second claim is precluded. The Court of Appeals joined both appeals, dismissed the first on the basis of the six-month Walkerville statute of limitation, and the second pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(6) for the reasons stated by the Court of Claims.4
ii
MCR 2.116(C)(6), a revision of GCR 1963, 116.1 and former Court Rule No. 18, § 1(d) (1945), is a codification of the former plea of abatement by prior action. Chapple v Nat’l Hardwood Co, 234 Mich 296, 297; 207 NW 888 (1926); Darin v Haven, 175 Mich App 144, 148; 437 NW2d 349 (1989). The rule is designed to stop parties from endlessly litigating matters involving the same questions and claims as those presented in pending litigation. Pinel v Campsell, 190 Mich 347, 351-352; 157 NW 271 (1916); Chapple, supra at 298; Rene J DeLorme, Inc v Union Square Agency, Inc, 362 *21Mich 192; 106 NW2d 754 (1961); Bisceglia Motor Sales, Inc v Studebaker-Packard Corp, 367 Mich 472, 474; 116 NW2d 884 (1962). In other words, its purpose is to prevent "litigious harassment” involving the same questions as those in pending litigation. DeLorme, supra at 195-196. See also Chapple, supra at 298; Ross v Onyx Oil & Gas Corp, 128 Mich App 660, 666; 341 NW2d 783 (1983); Sovran Bank v Parsons, 159 Mich App 408; 407 NW2d 13 (1987); Darin, supra at 148.
As noted above, plaintiff filed his second lawsuit against the same party, alleging exactly the same events in both suits, while his first lawsuit was pending before the Court of Appeals. Plaintiff argues that the two lawsuits could not involve the same claim "when the first Complaint sought only enforcement of an arbitration award, and the Second Complaint sought damages for breach of contract, wrongful discharge, discrimination under the Civil Rights Act, and discrimination under the Workers’ Disability Compensation Act.” I disagree.
A review of both complaints clearly demonstrates that in each case, plaintiff is in fact making the same claim, i.e., that the university wrongfully refused to reinstate him following the arbitration award.5
*22Over a century ago, Justice Cooley recognized that
when a court of competent jurisdiction has become possessed of a case, its authority continues, subject only to the appellate authority, until the matter is finally and completely disposed of; and no court of co-ordinate authority is at liberty to interfere with its action. [Maclean v Wayne Circuit Judge, 52 Mich 257, 259; 18 NW 396 (1884).]
See also Detroit Trust Co v Manilow, 272 Mich 211, 214; 261 NW 303 (1935); Zimmer v Byers, 319 Mich 410, 416; 29 NW2d 838 (1947).
In this case, the Court of Appeals had not disposed of plaintiff’s first claim when he filed the second lawsuit asserting the same claim. Because the same claim as was filed in the Court of Claims was being litigated by the plaintiff in the Court of Appeals, defendant was entitled to summary disposition pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(6) on the authority of Maclean, Manilow, and Zimmer.
In sum, I agree with the majority that the Court of Appeals erred in applying Walkerville’s six-month period of limitation, but did not err in affirming the Court of Claims dismissal of plaintiff’s second lawsuit under MCR 2.116(C)(6).

 i join in Justice Griffin’s call to the Legislature to address this issue and provide a more appropriate period of limitation in keeping with its stated policy of encouraging expeditious resolution of labor disputes. (Ante, p 17.)

 Public policy does not preclude the parties to a contract to lengthen or shorten the statutory period that the grievant has to enforce an arbitration award. Camelot Excavating Co, Inc v St Paul Fire & Marine Ins Co, 410 Mich 118, 126-127; 310 NW2d 275 (1981).

 MCR 2.116(C)(6) expressly provides for dismissal of a case where "[a]nother action has been initiated between the same parties involving the same claim.”

 Unpublished opinion per curiam of the Court of Appeals, decided March 21, 1991 (Docket Nos. 114413, 118325).

 1 Restatement Judgments, 2d, § 24, p 196, sets forth a broad "transactional approach” where a single transaction will give rise to one claim. Comment a to § 24 explains:
The present trend is to see claim in factual terms and to make it coterminous with the transaction regardless of the number of substantive theories, or variant forms of relief bowing from those theories, that may be available to the plaintiff; regardless of the number of primary rights that may have been invaded; and regardless of the variations in the evidence needed to support the theories or rights. [Id. at 197. Emphasis added.]
The Restatement’s position is consistent with our broad approach to claim preclusion, Gose v Monroe Auto Equipment Co, 409 Mich 147, *22160; 294 NW2d 165 (1980), Gursten v Kenney, 375 Mich 330; 134 NW2d 764 (1965), and applicable in this issue.