Opinion ID: 2651135
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Motion to strike Henry's affidavit

Text: Pina next argues that the district court erred by denying her motion to strike Henry's affidavit, which Appellees filed along with their motion for summary judgment after the close of discovery. Pina argues that Henry was not listed as a potential person with knowledge in Appellees' initial disclosures as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(1), which instructs parties to provide to the other parties . . . the name . . . of each individual likely to have discoverable information . . . that the disclosing party may use to support its claims or defenses. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(1)(A). Because Appellees did not disclose Henry's identity, Pina claims that she was unable to test Henry's -13- assertions via cross-examination at deposition. Pina believes she was prejudiced as a result, and thus the district court abused its discretion when it denied her motion to strike Henry's affidavit.7 Pina's claims are unavailing. First, the parties' initial disclosures preceded Pina's amendment of her complaint to include the retaliatory failure to rehire claim. Thus, Appellees cannot be faulted for failing to list Henry before she became relevant to the case when the district court allowed Pina's amended complaint on January 5, 2012. Second, although Pina argues that Appellees should have supplemented their disclosures to include Henry once she became relevant to the case, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(e) exempts a party from the supplementation requirement where the additional or corrective information has . . . otherwise been made known to the other parties during the discovery process or in writing. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(e)(1). TCP first identified Henry as an individual relevant to Pina's failure to rehire claim on July 29, 7 Pina also argues that Henry would have made a better 30(b)(6) witness than Raymond because Henry could have testified regarding the availability of ASM positions at other TCP stores and the conversations Pina had with TCP employees about her application. We have already disposed of Pina's claim that Raymond was an unprepared 30(b)(6) witness, see n.6, and Pina's argument that Henry had greater personal knowledge such that Appellees' selection of Raymond was sanctionable conduct similarly finds no basis in the law. See Briddell v. St. Gobain Abrasives Inc., 233 F.R.D. 57, 60 (D. Mass. 2005) (observing that a 30(b)(6) witness may properly be expected to prepare to testify as to matters beyond [those] personally known to that designee or to matters in which that designee was personally involved (internal citations omitted)). -14- 2011 in its MCAD position statement, which was signed and verified by Henry and stated that [t]he decision to transfer [a TCP employee] into the open A[S]M position in [the Downtown Crossing store] was made by, among others, Cindy Henry, the district Manager for the Boston North District. Raymond likewise testified as to Henry's role in the hiring process during his deposition on January 24, 2012, two days prior to the close of discovery. The district court thus concluded that there was no discovery violation because Pina knew of Henry's role, at the very latest, on January 24, 2012, so the Rule 26(e) exception to the supplementation requirement applied. Even assuming for a moment that we were inclined to view Appellees' failure to supplement their initial disclosures as a discovery violation, Pina has shown only that the district court could have stricken Henry's testimony, not that such a sanction was necessary in this case. Poulin v. Greer, 18 F.3d 979, 985 (1st Cir. 1994) ([E]ven if defendants did commit a discovery violation, the district court could reasonably determine that plaintiffs did not suffer any prejudice, and, given defendants' plausible explanation for their failure to supplement, that any violation was not willful. The district court did not, therefore, abuse its discretion when it . . . allowed [the witness's] testimony.). In order to establish an abuse of discretion meriting reversal, Pina must show that she was substantially prejudiced by the district -15- court's plainly wrong discovery ruling. Curet-Velázquez v. ACEMLA de P.R., Inc., 656 F.3d 47, 55-56 (1st Cir. 2011) ([T]he court's abuse of discretion must have resulted in prejudice to the complaining party. (internal quotation marks omitted)). She is unable to meet this burden. To show prejudice, Pina complains that she was unable to test the veracity of Henry's sworn assertions that she did not know of Pina's MCAD charge and that no ASM positions were available at the time of Pina's application.8 This argument falls well short of the mark. As previously discussed, both statements appear not only in Raymond's deposition testimony from January 24th but also in the July 29, 2011 MCAD position statement that was signed and verified by Henry. Pina's suggestion that she was surprised and prejudiced by the statements when they appeared for a third time in Henry's affidavit is thus disingenuous. Cf. Williams v. City of Boston, CIV.A. 10-10131-PBS, 2012 WL 3260261,  (D. Mass. Aug. 7, 2012) (finding insufficient prejudice to merit exclusion where [witness] was identified in police records as the victim such that the defendants knew of her existence, and knew that she was a key witness in the case). Accordingly, the district court did not 8 Pina also argues that the district court improperly afforded weight and credibility to Henry's affidavit, but that claim is properly considered alongside Pina's other arguments that the court erred in granting summary judgment to Appellees. -16- abuse its discretion when it denied Pina's motion to strike Henry's affidavit.