Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-88-02180/USCOURTS-ca10-88-02180-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 

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UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

. PILED 

Uattt'd Stat~ Co~rt of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

JAN 1 o 1eso 

DWAINE WRIGHT, ) 

) 

Plaintiff-Appellant, ) 

) 

v. ) 

) 

NATIONAL FOOTBALL SCOUTING INC.; ) 

BLESTO, INC.; NATIONAL/BLESTO, ) 

SCOUTING COMBINES, ) 

) 

Defendants-Appellees. ) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

ROBERT L. HOECK.ER 

Clerk 

No. 88-2180 

(D.C. No. 84-2650-T) 

(W.D. Okla.) 

Before ANDERSON, BALDOCK, Circuit Judges, and GREENE, District 

Judge.** 

**The Honorable J. Thomas Greene, United States District Judge for 

the District of Utah, sitting by designation. 

The dispositive issue in this personal injury diversity case 

is whether the district court properly granted summary judgment in 

favor of the defendants below. Plaintiff Dwaine Wright's knee was 

permanently injured while he was participating in a noncontact 

agility drill during a professional football scouting combine's 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

Appellate Case: 88-2180 Document: 01019959056 Date Filed: 01/10/1990 Page: 1 
tryout camp held outside New Orleans, Louisiana. He brought this 

personal injury action against the s couting organi zations which 

conducted the camp. We affirm the decision of the district court. 

Wright had played football from the time he was in junior 

high school, including four years in the high school football 

p r ogram in Dallas, Texas. He had a promising future as a 

professional football player after participating for five years as 

a member of the football team at Arizona State University. He 

attended the scouting combine's tryout camp, at the invitation of 

the Chicago Bears football team, because he thought it would 

enhance his status in the professional football draft. During a 

videotaped noncontact agility drill, he severely injured his knee, 

ending his hopes for a professional football career. 

Wright is a resident of Arizona. The clerical office of the 

three organizations which combined to provide scouting services to 

numerous professional football teams {collectively, the scouting 

service) is located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. One of the three 

organizations is an Oklahoma corporation, another is a 

Pennsylvania corporation, and the third is an Oklahoma joint 

venture. Wright sued in federal district court in the Western 

District of Oklahoma, basing jurisdiction on diversity between the 

parties. 

After extensive discovery, the case was submitted to an 

advisory jury, which returned a defense verdict. Three months 

later, the scouting service requested permission to submit a 

motion for summary judgment out of time, which the district court 

denied because the deadline for dispositive motions had passed and 

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Appellate Case: 88-2180 Document: 01019959056 Date Filed: 01/10/1990 Page: 2 
because "allowing the defendant to do so now would be prejudicial 

to the plaintiff,'' Vol. I tab 130, "due to the considerable 

resources already consumed in preparation for trial." Vol. I tab 

137 at 1. Three months later, the district court reversed itself 

and requested that the scouting service submit a motion for 

summary judgment. The scouting service submitted its motion for 

summary judgment relying on the defenses of assumption of risk and 

the absence of a duty to warn. The scouting service argued that 

the application of assumption of risk served to bar a personal 

injury suit. 

Under the direction of Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric 

Manufacturing Co., 313 U.S. 487, 496 (1941), the district court 

looked to Oklahoma law for guidance as to the choice of which 

state's substantive law controlled its analysis of the motion for 

summary judgment. Oklahoma law provides that to resolve a 

conflicts-of-law issue, the court should look to the law of that 

state with the most significant relationship to the occurrence and 

the parties. Brickner v. Gooden, 525 P.2d 632, 637 (Okla. 1974). 

The Brickner court established several factors to be applied if 

relevant: ''(l) the place where the injury occurred; (2) the place 

where the conduct causing the injury occurred; (3) the domicile, 

residence, nationality, place of incorporation and place of 

business of the parties; and (4) the place where the relationship, 

if any, between the parties occurred." Id. Accordingly, the 

district court noted that, while the business office of the 

scouting service is in Oklahoma, the injury had occurred in 

Louisiana, as did all of the scouting service's conduct in 

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conducting and supervising the drill in which Wright was injured, 

which were the most significant aspects of the relationship 

between the parties. The district court found that Louisiana law 

should apply, pursuant to the factors enunciated in Brickner. 

The district court then proceeded to its analysis of Wright's 

substantive claim under Louisiana law. The court found Wright to 

be an experienced player who knew that the risk of knee injury is 

inherent to the sport of football. It found Wright's voluntary 

participation in the scouting service's tryout camp demonstrated 

that he accepted the dangers of the agility drill so far as they 

were obvious and foreseeable. Further, it found that the risk of 

an injury such as the one Wright suffered was inherent to the 

activity itself. The court granted summary judgment in favor of 

the scouting service on the basis of the assumption of risk 

defense theory. 

At the outset, we find no error in the district court's 

choice of Louisiana substantive law. "A federal district court 

sitting in a diversity case must apply the choice of law rules of 

the state where it sits .. II Black v. Cabot Petroleum Corp., 

877 F.2d 822, 823 (10th Cir. 1989)(utilizing Brickner factors); 

Vandeventer v. Four Corners Elec. Co., 663 F.2d 1016, 1017 (10th 

Cir. 1981). In this case, the federal district court sits in 

Oklahoma, so Oklahoma's choice of law rules apply. This circuit 

has recently recognized Oklahoma's adoption of the "most 

s i gnificant relationship" test in determining which state's law is 

most appropriate to decide a case. Hess Oil Virgin Islands Corp. 

v. UOP, Inc., 861 F.2d 1197 , 1210 (10th Ci r. 1988)(citing 

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Appellate Case: 88-2180 Document: 01019959056 Date Filed: 01/10/1990 Page: 4 
Brickner); see also Mills v. State Farm Mutual Auto Ins. Co., 827 

F.2d 1418, 1420 (10th Cir. 1987)(recognizing Oklahoma's choice of 

law test as set forth in Brickner). Thus, we adopt the district 

court's application of Louisiana substantive law to the issue 

presented by this case. 

Concerning review of a grant of summary judgment, this 

circuit has recently reiterated that: 

Summary judgment is appropriate only when the 

documentary evidence before the court demonstrates that 

"there is no genuine issue as to any material fact." 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c). A fact is "material" if it 

"might affect the outcome of the suit" when applying the 

relevant substantive law. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, 

Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S. Ct. 2505, 2510, 91 

L.Ed.2d 202. In reviewing the trial court's entry of 

summary judgment for [the defendant], "[t]he evidence of 

the [plaintiffs] is to be believed, and all justifiable 

inferences are to be drawn in [their] favor." Id. at 

255, 106 S. Ct. at 2513. 

Chase v. Dow Chem. Co., 875 F.2d 278, 279 (10th Cir. 1989). 

Six days after the district court filed its memorandum 

opinion and order granting summary judgment, the Louisiana Supreme 

Court abolished use of assumption of risk in Louisiana tort cases. 

Murray v. Ramada Inns, Inc., 521 So.2d 1123, 1132-33 (La. 1988). 

Although Murray was directly applicable to the claim brought by 

Wright in the district court, and although the district court 

still had jurisdiction over the case, neither party raised the 

issue at the trial court level. Subsequent to the Murray 

decision, Wright submitted a lengthy brief in support of his 

post-judgment motion for reconsideration of summary judgment 

against him, Vol. I tab 152, to which the scouting service 

responded, Vol. I tabs 162 and 163. Wright submitted a reply to 

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Appellate Case: 88-2180 Document: 01019959056 Date Filed: 01/10/1990 Page: 5 
the scouting service's response, Vol. I tab 168. None of these 

documents raised Louisiana's repudiation of traditional assumption 

of risk analysis. 

Nor did Wright raise the issue in this court in a timely 

fashion. Neither the docketing statement, the opening brief, nor 

the reply brief makes any mention of it. Not until he submitted a 

letter of supplemental authority did Wright present the question 

of whether Murray affected his case. An issue which is not 

included in the docketing statement or the statement of issues in 

the opening brief is waived and cannot be raised thereafter. 

Jordan v. Bowen, 808 F.2d 733, 736 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 108 

S. Ct. 287 (1987); Bledsoe v. Garcia, 742 F.2d 1237, 1244 (10th 

Cir. 1984). Proper appellate advocacy requires prompt 

identification of the issues on appeal. See Braley v. Campbell, 

832 F.2d 1504, 1508 & n.2 (10th Cir. 1987). We therefore decline 

to rule on the issue, though we note that it is doubtful, even 

after Murray, that the scouting service owed Wright any duty to 

prevent the injury he sustained. 

Wright also complains that the district court abused its 

discretion when it requested that the scouting service submit a 

motion for summary judgment out of time, citing the prejudice of 

having completed so much of the discovery phase of the case prior 

to the court's request. However, the district court may enter 

summary judgment at any time in the pretrial proceedings, sua 

sponte, so long as the losing party was on notice·-to come forward 

with all of his or her evidence. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 

U.S. 317, 326 (1986). Indeed, in this case the district court did 

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' . 

not peremptorily order summary judgment. It afforded Wright the 

opportunity to respond and vigorously advocate his position when 

it requested that a motion for summary judgment be submitted by 

the scouting service, creating an opportunity for Wright to 

respond to the motion. There was no abuse of discretion in this 

action by the court. 

The judgment of the United States District Court for the 

Western District of Oklahoma is AFFIRMED. 

ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

PER CURIAM 

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