Opinion ID: 593181
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: the petitions to compel consideration of summary

Text: JUDGMENT MOTIONS DISMISSED AS UNTIMELY 113 We next consider Petitions Nos. 91-2105, by W.R. Grace, and 92-1053, by Georgia-Pacific, both of which allege that the district court wrongly dismissed their motions for partial summary judgment as untimely. We believe that this issue remains ripe notwithstanding our decision regarding the vacatur of past pretrial orders. We begin by outlining the relevant procedural history.
114 In Pretrial Order 235, filed May 17, 1990, the district court ordered that trial be divided into various phases covering different issues, and ruled that Phase I would include the following: 115 A. The level at which various kinds of friable asbestos, in various forms, [are] hazardous in school buildings. 116
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122 As discovery and pretrial motions practice dragged on, however, the district court decided to limit Phase I further. In Pretrial Order 306, dated April 18, 1991, it ordered all pending motions relating to non-conspiracy counts held in abeyance and requested the parties to withhold future motions of that type. On September 5, 1991, the district court issued Pretrial Order 331 modifying Pretrial Order 235 by limiting the initial trial to the issue of whether any or all of the defendants conspired or acted in concert to fraudulently conceal from Plaintiffs information concerning the dangers of asbestos. 123 Pretrial Order 331 also ordered the plaintiffs to submit, within twenty days, a list identifying the defendants against which they intended to proceed in Phase I and the factual allegations against each such defendant. The defendants were told that they may respond to plaintiffs' list within fourteen days of service. The court's order did not specify that a response was required or that it should be in the form of a motion for summary judgment. On September 25, 1991, the plaintiffs duly submitted their list of core defendants and the allegations regarding each. That list included W.R. Grace but did not include Georgia-Pacific. On October 11, 1991, W.R. Grace filed a timely response contesting in detail the plaintiffs' allegations. The response, however, did not constitute a formal motion for summary judgment. Georgia-Pacific, not having been named by the plaintiffs, had no reason to respond and did not do so. 124 Recognizing the practical difficulties of a fifty-defendant conspiracy trial, the district court issued Pretrial Order 342, dated October 25, 1991, directing the plaintiffs and the defendants to select ten preferred defendants from an attached list of twenty-two identifiable defendants for the first of multiple Phase I trials. The court's list of identifiable defendants was drawn from those defendants which did not respond to the plaintiffs' September 25, 1991 submission and which had not filed summary judgment motions on issues of conspiracy and concert of action. The court, however, reserved the right to amend the lists for good cause shown. The court's list contained Georgia-Pacific but not W.R. Grace. 125 Just five days later, on October 30, 1991, Georgia-Pacific responded with a motion for summary judgment on these issues. On November 8, 1991, W.R. Grace, although not then listed for the initial trial, filed its motion for summary judgment on these issues as well. The plaintiffs responded on the merits to both motions and did not question their timeliness. 126 For various reasons (including bankruptcy), most of the defendants' on the court's list in Pretrial Order 342 were inappropriate candidates for trial. In the plaintiffs' submission dated November 12, 1991, they therefore could select only seven of the twenty-two listed defendants, including Georgia-Pacific. The defendants, however, could not agree on which of them would stand trial first. 127 With matters in this posture, on November 29, 1991, the district court issued Pretrial Order 352, founded on its discretionary powers, dismissing as untimely the pending motions for summary judgment by four of the seven companies on the plaintiffs' latest list of defendants for the Phase I trial, including Georgia-Pacific. The court explained in an accompanying memorandum opinion that, in its view, all defendants had long been on notice that the time for filing motions regarding Phase I would soon come to an end, memorandum opinion at 2, and that Pretrial Orders 331 and 342 had put them on notice that this matter was virtually on the eve of trial, id. at 4. The district court further noted that, while a date for trial of Phase I had not been set, the court had called for a final pretrial conference. Thus, it concluded, consideration of these motions would unduly delay Phase I. Id. 128 On December 3, 1991, a pretrial conference was held at which February 3, 1992, was set for the commencement of jury selection in the first trial. At that conference, the district court also abandoned its list from Pretrial Order 342 and told the plaintiffs that they had until 5:00 p.m. the next day to select twelve defendants for trial. The plaintiffs did so and picked both W.R. Grace and Georgia-Pacific for the first trial of Phase I. On December 16, 1992, in Pretrial Order 356, the district court dismissed W.R. Grace's motion for summary judgment as untimely for the reasons outlined in Pretrial Order 352. 129 W.R. Grace and Georgia-Pacific thereupon filed petitions for writs of mandamus asking that we direct the district court to consider and decide their summary judgment motions on the merits so that they may avoid the expense of trial. The limited nature of this inquiry should be noted: the petitions do not request us to review the merits of the motions for summary judgment, but only their timeliness. 130 B. Mandamus as a Remedy for Refusal to Consider a Summary Judgment Motion on the Merits 131 We first consider whether a writ of mandamus is a proper remedy when a district judge arbitrarily refuses to rule on a summary judgment motion, and we conclude that it is. 33 132 As we noted above, the traditional use of mandamus is to confine an inferior court to a lawful exercise of its prescribed jurisdiction or to compel it to exercise its authority when it is its duty to do so, Roche v. Evaporated Milk Association, 319 U.S. 21, 26, 63 S.Ct. 938, 941, 87 L.Ed. 1185 (1943). In our view, a district court's failure to consider the merits of a summary judgment motion is a failure to exercise its authority when it has the duty to do so. Although the type of authority envisioned by the traditional statement of the rule was probably jurisdiction over an entire case (see, for example, Will v. Calvert Fire Insurance Co., 437 U.S. 655, 661-62, 98 S.Ct. 2552, 2556-57, 57 L.Ed.2d 504 (1978)), we believe that the refusal to adjudicate a critical part of a case is comparable. 133 While mandamus is ordinarily inappropriate to review the merits of a denial of summary judgment, see, for example, Communication Workers of America, AFL-CIO v. American Tel. & Tel. Co., 932 F.2d 199, 210 (3d Cir.1991), the present claims are different in kind. We recognize that in both situations the chief harm to the unsuccessful moving party is that it must bear the expense of going to trial. But whereas it is inevitable that judges will make mistakes from time to time when ruling on summary judgment motions, the error of refusing to rule on the merits of such a motion is entirely avoidable. Moreover, review after final judgment cannot force a district judge to adjudicate, and interlocutory appeal is unlikely to be available--a ruling that a motion is untimely because it will unduly delay trial ordinarily suggests that the district judge believes that its resolution would not materially advance the ultimate determination of the litigation, as required for certification under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). See also Edwards v. Cass County, 919 F.2d 273, 276 (5th Cir.1990) (recognizing availability of mandamus in this situation but denying it on the facts of the case). 134 We therefore proceed to the merits of the petitions. 135 C. Timeliness Requirements for Summary Judgment Motions 136 Rule 56 contains few express time limitations. The relevant portions state: Rule 56. Summary Judgment 137 (a) For Claimant. A party seeking to recover upon a claim, counterclaim, or cross-claim or to obtain a declaratory judgment may, at any time after the expiration of 20 days from the commencement of the action or after service of a motion for summary judgment by the adverse party, move with or without supporting affidavits for a summary judgment in the party's favor upon all or any part thereof. 138 (b) For Defending Party. A party against whom a claim, counterclaim, or cross-claim is asserted or a declaratory judgment is sought may, at any time, move with or without supporting affidavits for a summary judgment in the party's favor as to all or any part thereof. 139 (c) Motion and Proceedings Thereon. The motion shall be served at least 10 days before the time fixed for the hearing. The adverse party prior to the day of hearing may serve opposing affidavits. The judgment sought shall be rendered forthwith if the pleadings depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.... 140 (emphasis added). 141 The plain text of the rule thus suggests that defendants may move for summary judgment at any time, so long as at least ten days remain before trial in which to hold a hearing on the motion. The literal words of Rule 56 do not impose a general requirement of timeliness, nor do they indicate any discretion on the part of a district judge to deny a motion once the prerequisites are shown. 142 On the other hand, Rule 1 states that the rules of civil procedure shall be construed to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action. We believe that to promote the Rules' purpose of efficient and fair disposition, a district judge must have considerable flexibility in case and calendar management, including the authority to set reasonable time limits on the filing of summary judgment motions. These considerations are compounded in complex cases such as this. See Manual for Complex Litigation, Second § 21.34 ([T]he judge at the initial conference (and at later conferences, as appropriate) should attempt to ascertain what issues are or may become appropriate for summary judgment and establish, at least tentatively, a schedule for filing and submitting such motions.); Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller, and Mary Kay Kane, 6A Federal Practice and Procedure § 1530 at 303-04 (The general concern over protracted litigation led to increased pressure for the development of regularized procedures to be employed in every 'big case.' ). 143 The petitioners do not seriously quarrel with these principles. They note, however, that in this case the district court had set no explicit deadline for summary judgment motions, nor a specific trial date. These factors make all the difference. The district court may well have been correct that resolution of these motions in December 1991 would not have advanced the litigation from an overall perspective. Phase I would still have had to proceed with the other defendants, and if the district court had had to deal with more than a handful of these motions, trial might have been delayed. But fairness to defendants is as much a policy of Rule 56 as are fairness to plaintiffs and the convenience to the district court. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 327, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2555, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986): 144 Rule 56 must be construed with due regard not only for the rights of persons asserting claims and defenses that are adequately based in fact to have those claims and defenses tried to a jury, but also for the rights of persons opposing such claims and defenses to demonstrate in the manner provided by the Rule, prior to trial, that the claims and defenses have no factual basis. 145 Under the policy of Rule 56, movants are entitled to avoid the expense and tribulations of trial if they can prove that there is no triable issue. But if parties have been warned that they must move by a certain time and do not do so, they have waived their right to summary adjudication. Moreover, summary judgment motions within ten days of trial violate the plain words of Rule 56(c) and are unfair to opponents who may lack adequate time to respond. See Beck v. Borden, Inc., 724 F.2d 44, 44-45 (6th Cir.1984) (per curiam); Williams v. Howard Johnson's, Inc., 323 F.2d 102, 104-05 (4th Cir.1963). However, where, as here, parties are not given any deadline and do not violate the ten-day limitation of Rule 56(c), they cannot be said to have waived their right or to have been unfair to their opponents. District courts are entitled to broad deference regarding timeliness restrictions, but they are entitled to that deference only if they state those deadlines explicitly. 146 The dangers of not clearly setting deadlines in advance and the unfairness of imposing them retroactively are well illustrated here. According to the district court, W.R. Grace and Georgia-Pacific had long been on notice of the plaintiffs' claims and should not have waited until the eve of trial to file for summary judgment. But the proceedings with regard to the scope of Phase I were fluid from May 1990 to September 1991, and not until Pretrial Order 331 (September 5, 1991) were the plaintiffs required to specify the actions alleged to have been taken by each defendant in furtherance of a conspiracy or in concert of action. Moreover, the situation from September to December 1991 was rather confused. Lists of who was to be tried when were revised numerous times. We cannot fault these defendants for waiting to file motions for summary judgment until they knew specifically what they were supposed to have done and at what stage they were to face trial. 147 A motion for summary judgment could appropriately be dismissed where the movant has clearly engaged in calculated delaying tactics, but that was not the stated ground for denial, nor was it the case. In fact, both W.R. Grace and Georgia-Pacific filed their motions quite promptly upon learning that they were slated to stand trial during the first stage of Phase I. Georgia-Pacific moved for summary judgment within five days of being named on the plaintiffs' revised list of trial defendants, and W.R. Grace filed its motion within six weeks of being named on the first list (and at a time when it was no longer on the revised list). Moreover, neither petitioner filed for summary judgment on the true eve of trial: the trial date later selected was three months away. 148 We therefore hold that, although a district court may impose reasonable time limitations on summary judgment motions for purposes of judicial economy and fairness, it acts with impermissible arbitrariness and in clear excess of its authority where, as here, it dismisses a summary judgment motion as untimely without having previously set deadlines for the filing of such motions. Of course, a district judge may, without advance warning, dismiss motions for summary judgment made within ten days of trial under the express terms of Rule 56(c), but that exception does not apply in this case. While the conclusions we have reached on these points are holdings because they are immediately binding on the parties and address rulings that otherwise would govern the case (i.e., they are not merely advisory), upon reflection we realize that we cannot issue a writ of mandamus to a non-party, the newly assigned district judge. Accordingly, no writ of mandamus will issue with respect to the future consideration of the motions for summary judgment. We are confident, however, that the newly assigned district judge will consider these motions for summary judgment in light of the principles announced in this case. We have not reviewed, and we make no comment on, the merits of those motions. 149