Opinion ID: 770803
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Evidence We Consider in Reviewing a Grant of Summary Judgment

Text: 53 On March 5, 1997, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants on Chapman's ADEA claims but denied summary judgment on the ADA claims. On July 2, 1997, after the jury had returned its verdict against Chapman at the trial of the ADA claims, he filed a motion requesting the court to reconsider and vacate summary judgment on the ADEA claims. Chapman argued in his motion that evidence adduced immediately prior to and at the trial of his ADA claims created a genuine issue of material fact as to whether AIGCS's proffered nondiscriminatory reasons regarding his ADEA claims were pretextual. The district court denied Chapman's motion to reconsider and vacate, leaving intact the summary judgment previously entered on the ADEA claims. Chapman contends that the trial testimony demonstrates that the district court's grant of summary judgment on the ADEA claims was erroneous, and his en banc brief to this Court relies extensively upon trial testimony in arguing that we should reverse summary judgment. By our count, the brief's Statement of the Facts section contains sixty-seven citations to trial testimony and only one citation to the summary judgment record. 54 There are two closely related issues here. One is whether the district court abused its discretion in not re-opening summary judgment on the ADEA claims after the trial of the ADA claims based upon evidence that came out shortly before and during that trial. The other issue is whether we should consider that later evidence in reviewing the district court's decision to grant summary judgment on the ADEA claims. The two issues are inextricably intertwined and they require a consistent answer. If the district court did not abuse its discretion in failing to re-open summary judgment on the ADEA claims, then we cannot consider the evidence that would have been available if the court had re-opened summary judgment. 55 The rule is that a federal appellate court may examine only the evidence which was before the district court when the latter decided the motion for summary judgment. Welch v. Celotex Corp., 951 F.2d 1235, 1237 n. 3 (11th Cir.1992) (citations omitted) (emphasis added); see also 10A Charles Alan Wright et al., Federal Practice and Procedure § 2716 (3rd ed. 1998) (The appellate court is limited in its review.... [I]t can consider only those papers that were before the trial court. The parties cannot add exhibits, depositions, or affidavits to support their position.). The Tenth Circuit elaborated on the rule in United States v. Hardage, 982 F.2d 1436 (10th Cir.1992), stating that: 56 [n]either the evidence offered subsequently at the trial nor the verdict is relevant. One who loses on summary judgment cannot give a retroactive effect to a trial verdict, using it in an effort to create a genuine issue of material fact at the time the court was considering the motion for summary judgment. 57 Id. at 1444 (internal quotations and citations omitted). This universally followed rule is indispensable to the orderly processing of cases in the district courts. 58 We have frequently railed about the evils of shotgun pleadings and urged district courts to take a firm hand and whittle cases down to the few triable claims, casting aside the many non-triable ones through dismissals where there is failure to state a claim and through summary judgment where there is no genuine issue of material fact. See, e.g., Morro v. City of Birmingham, 117 F.3d 508, 515 (11th Cir.1997) (explaining that [t]he use of shotgun pleadings in civil cases is a ubiquitous problem, and [g]iven the seriousness of that problem, it is particularly important for the district courts to undertake the difficult, but essential, task of attempting to narrow and define the issues before trial. (internal quotation and citation omitted)). It would seriously impair the ability of district courts to pare down the issues in multi-claim civil cases if we required them to revisit and re-evaluate a summary judgment previously granted on one claim because of evidence that comes out later at the trial of other claims. 59 Moreover, the approach Chapman would have us follow would burden our already heavily burdened district courts with multiple trials in a single case where one should suffice. To vacate summary judgment on one claim after the trial of another claim would necessarily result in two trials instead of one. Indeed, that is precisely what Chapman's motion to reconsider and vacate requested. There is no good reason for inflicting that burden of multiple trials upon our system with its finite resources. Parties opposing summary judgment are appropriately charged with the responsibility of marshaling and presenting their evidence before summary judgment is granted, not afterwards. 60 The district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to re-open after the trial of the ADA claims the summary judgment it had previously granted in favor of the defendants on the ADEA claims. And because the district court did not have the testimony from the trial of the ADA claims before it when it granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants on the ADEA claims, any evidence offered at trial is not relevant to our review of the ADEA summary judgment and we will not consider it. See U.S. East Telecomm., Inc. v. U.S. West Communications Servs., Inc., 38 F.3d 1289, 1301 (2nd Cir.1994); Hardage, 982 F.2d at 1444-45; Nissho-Iwai American Corp. v. Kline, 845 F.2d 1300, 1307 (5th Cir.1988); Voutour v. Vitale, 761 F.2d 812, 817 (1st Cir.1985). 12 61