Opinion ID: 4022381
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Leave to Exceed Local Page Limits

Text: Fontanillas's first claim of error is that the district court abused its discretion in declining to allow her Rule 59(e) motion and the memorandum in support of her Rule 60(b) motion to exceed the page limits established by the district court's local rules. Fontanillas recognizes that district courts' broad latitude in administering local rules entitles those courts to demand adherence to specific mandates contained in th[ose] rules. Air Line Pilots Ass'n v. Precision Valley Aviation, Inc., 26 F.3d 220, 224 (1st Cir. 1994). But Fontanillas seeks to turn this broad - 7 - discretion to her advantage, arguing that because the District of Puerto Rico's local rules permit a district court to waive the applicable page limits by prior leave, D.P.R. Civ. R. 7(d), the district court here had ample latitude to allow her overlength filings. Fontanillas's argument flips abuse-of-discretion review on its head by suggesting that we may reverse the district court merely because it could have exercised its ample latitude differently. This is not the prerogative of an appellate court. Cf. NEPSK, Inc. v. Town of Houlton, 283 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir. 2002) (finding it within the district court's discretion to enforce local rules where the result does not clearly offend equity). Fontanillas did not offer the district court any reason to grant an exception to the usual page restrictions beyond the bare assertion that her arguments required her to address numerous issues of fact and quote extensively from the evidence in the case. Nor does Fontanillas provide a more robust explanation on appeal as to why she required the extra pages she sought. Instead, she observes that the district court had previously granted the defendants' motion to file an overlength motion for summary judgment and suggests that [w]hat's good for the goose, is good for the gander. The district court, though, was within its discretion to find that the defendants, having the burden of persuasion in trying to prove a negative (i.e., that there are no - 8 - disputed issues of material fact supportive of a discrimination claim) and the need to anticipate arguments that might or might not be made in response, presented a more persuasive case for an exception to the usual page limits than did Fontanillas. Under these circumstances, the district court did not abuse its wide discretion in holding Fontanillas to the default standards the local rules establish as appropriate for the typical litigant.