Opinion ID: 170275
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: I don’t remember more.

Text: Id., Vol. II at 638-39, 645-46. After Ms. Juarez’s deposition, Family Dental asked her to produce her journal, but she refused to do so, asserting that all of the information in it was privileged and not subject to discovery because it was prepared in anticipation of litigation. Then, after discovery was closed, and in responding to defendant’s summary judgment motion, Ms. Juarez relied on the entries in her journal as the bases for her affidavit statements regarding racist remarks. She now argues that this portion of her affidavit did not change her prior testimony, but only provided information that she testified she could not recall at her deposition. Therefore, she contends that the district court abused its discretion because the threshold determination under the sham affidavit standard is the existence of prior deposition testimony that was subsequently changed by an affidavit. While Ms. Juarez is correct that the evidence of racial slurs in her affidavit did not directly contradict her deposition testimony, we disagree that the district court abused its discretion in excluding those statements under the circumstances presented. We have upheld the exclusion of affidavits in other cases with similar facts. For example, in Mitchael v. Intracorp, Inc., 179 F.3d 847, 854 (10th Cir. -14- 1999), after the close of discovery, plaintiff submitted an affidavit from a witness “in which he arguably contradicted his deposition, or at least more clearly recalled discussions and meetings.” The district court excluded the affidavit because it “represent[ed] an attempt to create a sham issue of fact” and “plaintiffs were deliberately sandbagging defendants.” Id. at 855 (quotations omitted). We held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the affidavit. Id. at 855. Here, the district court considered Family Dental’s attempts to obtain discovery of every racial slur that Ms. Juarez alleged, both during her deposition and afterward, as well as her decision to claim that the journal was privileged after she had testified that it contained her only notes memorializing additional racial comments. The court observed that the timing of her affidavit “places the defendant at a disadvantage, depriving Family Dental of any chance to pursue discovery on the subjects covered in the affidavit.” Under the circumstances presented in this case, the district court did not make “a clear error of judgment or exceed[] the bounds of permissible choice” in excluding Ms. Juarez’s affidavit statements detailing additional racial slurs. Lantec, 306 F.3d at 1016. Ms. Juarez also argues that the district court erred in excluding her affidavit because each of the Franks factors weighs against striking it. We have reviewed the record and find no abuse of discretion in the district court’s application of these factors. -15-