Not for Publication in West's Federal Reporter 

United States Court of Appeals

For the First Circuit 

No. 14-1809 

CRAIG WILLIAMS, 

Plaintiff, Appellant, 

v. 

TECHTRONIC INDUSTRIES OF NORTH AMERICA, INC. and 

HOME DEPOT U.S.A., INC., 

Defendants, Appellees. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSSETTS 

[Hon. Denise J. Casper, U.S. District Judge] 

Before 

Howard, Thompson, and Barron, 

Circuit Judges 

Ethan C. Stiles for appellant. 

Anthony V. Agudelo, with whom William F. Benson and Sugarman, 

Rogers, Barshak & Cohen, P.C. were on brief, for appellee. 

April 21, 2015 
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PER CURIAM. This case concerns a products liability 

suit brought under Massachusetts law. The plaintiff, Craig 

Williams, alleges that a cordless drill, battery, and charger that 

he purchased from defendant Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., and that 

defendant Techtronic Industries of North America, Inc., 

manufactured, caused a fire that destroyed a barn on his property. 

The District Court granted summary judgment for the defendants, 

and we review de novo. See Tropigas de P.R., Inc. v. Certain 

Underwriters at Lloyd's of London, 637 F.3d 53, 56 (1st Cir. 2011). 

After a careful review of the record, we affirm for substantially 

the reasons given by the District Court. 

As the District Court explained in granting the 

defendants' motion for summary judgment, Williams provided 

insufficient "specific, admissible" record evidence to identify 

the type of drill, battery, and charger involved in the fire or to 

show that the drill, battery, and charger were defective in any 

respect. The District Court also ruled that Williams failed to 

provide expert testimony to show that some defect in the drill, 

battery, and charger caused the fire. Each of those failures alone 

meant that Williams's products liability claims -- for negligence 

and a breach of the implied warranty of merchantability -- could 

not survive the defendants' summary judgment motion. See Hochen 

v. Bobst Grp., Inc., 290 F.3d 446, 451 (1st Cir. 2002) (granting 
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summary judgment under Massachusetts law to defendants where 

plaintiffs provided insufficient evidence of "the nature of the 

defect or breach of warranty and its causal relation to the 

accident"); Enrich v. Windmere Corp., 616 N.E.2d 1081, 1084-85 

(Mass. 1993) (affirming directed verdict for a product 

manufacturer on negligence and implied warranty of merchantability 

claims where "there was no [expert] evidence that some defect in 

the [product] caused the fire"). And, on appeal, Williams offers 

no basis in the record for overturning the District Court's 

conclusions on any of those points, much less on all of them. 

Williams, citing Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(d), 

does argue on appeal that the District Court should have given him 

more time for discovery. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(d) ("If a nonmovant 

shows by affidavit or declaration that, for specified reasons, it 

cannot present facts essential to justify its opposition, the court 

may: (1) defer considering the motion or deny it . . . ."). But 

even assuming that argument was preserved below, we have held that 

a party invoking Rule 56(d) must provide more than "speculative 

assertions" that future discovery would "influence the outcome of 

the pending summary judgment motion." C.B. Trucking, Inc. v. Waste 

Mgmt., Inc., 137 F.3d 41, 44-45 (1st Cir. 1998) (quoting Resolution 

Trust Corp. v. N. Bridge Assocs., 22 F.3d 1198, 1203 (1st Cir. 

1994)) (discussing the former version of Rule 56(d)). In this 
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case, the record supports the District Court's conclusion that 

Williams made only an inadequate "bald assertion" that the 

discovery he sought would have that effect. The District Court 

therefore did not abuse its discretion in declining to defer its 

summary judgment ruling.1 See id. 

The District Court's grant of summary judgment for the 

defendants is therefore affirmed. 

 1 Moreover, we have held that to obtain the benefit of Rule 

56(d), a party must show that he had been "diligent in pursuing 

discovery" prior to the summary judgment motion. C.B. Trucking, 

Inc., 137 F.3d at 44. The record provides no support for such a 

showing here. Williams made no formal discovery requests at all 

during the initial discovery period, and attempted to serve only 

a single, incomplete subpoena during a 30-day extension.