Court Opinion

ID: 9460455
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:50:44.195128+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:37.394175
License: Public Domain

OAKES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting.):
I dissent. The granting of this petition for mandamus is an improper and *79unwarranted interference with docketing in the district court.
The purported basis for granting this petition is to preserve petitioner’s right to a jury trial in the Welch case even though in the Franklin case it has been waived. Were petitioner’s right to a jury trial in the Welch case actually in danger I would certainly countenance the remedy of mandamus to preserve that right, but such is not the case here.
No court has ever held, nor in my view will ever hold, that on the facts presented here petitioner would be foreclosed from litigating the facts before the jury in Welch. The only basis for petitioner’s fear is dictum in a footnote, totally unnecessary to the decision, in Crane Co. v. American Standard, Inc., 490 F.2d 332 (2d Cir. 1973), p. 343 n. 15. As the majority states, mandamus is still an extraordinary remedy, available only when it is necessary to compel the district court to do its duty. Were the footnote in Crane the law in this circuit, then the district court presumably might be under a duty to take measures to safeguard petitioner’s right to a jury trial in Welch, which otherwise would not be threatened. Yet no one has suggested that such is the law in this circuit. The majority goes no farther than to say that “some doubt arises” as to the applicability to these facts of the heretofore accepted and salutary rule that one who timely requests the right to a jury trial will not be collaterally estopped from exercising it by earlier resolution of the issues in a non-jury trial. Dairy Queen, Inc. v. Wood, 369 U.S. 469, 82 S. Ct. 894, 8 L.Ed.2d 44 (1962); Beacon Theatres, Inc. v. Westover, 359 U.S. 500, 79 S.Ct. 948, 3 L.Ed.2d 988 (1959); Rachal v. Hill, 435 F.2d 59 (5th Cir. 1970), cert, denied, 403 U.S. 904, 91 S. Ct. 2203, 29 L.Ed.2d 680 (1971). That “doubt” is in any event not sufficient to subject the district court to a duty to rearrange its schedule or to order a consolidation.
If indeed there were “doubt,” it should be resolved, something the majority does not do, finding that just the “potential” harm to petitioner is sufficient to warrant granting the petition. Had the district court actually collaterally estopped petitioner in Welch, which would not have been likely in light of its refusal to stay Franklin upon arguments identical to those presented here, then the issue would properly be before this court, and this court could reflect upon the footnote in Crane with sufficient repose and study to reach a reasoned decision. Here the court rushed to judgment, writing an opinion only thereafter, upon a petition alleging at best the most hypothetical of questions — hypothetical because there is no indication that the district court would have held petitioner collaterally estopped in Welch.
As it is, this decision is, to my view, an improper interference with the district court docket and the exercise of discretion on the part of a trial judge under Fed.R.Civ.P. 42. The mischief to the work of the district court in granting the writ in this way is hard to calculate from our point of vantage; the jury case may take much longer to pre-try — discovery in the jury case may delay the trial of the non-jury case far too long; if the cases are consolidated, (1) the jury case may take much longer to try and thereby subject the opposing party in the non-jury case (Franklin) to much additional expense; (2) there may be prejudice to the opposing party in the jury case (Welch) from the evidence adduced in the non-jury case; and (3) the judge’s instructions may be made more confusing to the jury as well as more difficult to draft. Moreover, here there are 15 cases involving the same party defendant in this jurisdiction alone and others apparently pending outside the jurisdiction; the order of the majority can in no event affect those other cases pending in other circuits.
I therefore voted, and hereby reaffirm that vote, to deny the petition.