Opinion ID: 203275
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Scope of the Record Subject to Review

Text: Before proceeding to our substantive analysis of the applicability of the statute of limitations to Counts I and II of Trans-Spec's complaint, we must first clarify the scope of the record subject to our review. The controlling pleading is Trans-Spec's second amended complaint. Appended to this complaint is a document titled On-Highway Vehicle Engine Extended Service Coverage (hereinafter ESC), which Trans-Spec refers to in the complaint [2] and in its opposition to Caterpillar's motion to dismiss as the Caterpillar warranty that forms the basis of its claims. Neither party disputes that the appended ESC was incorporated into the complaint and properly considered at the motion to dismiss stage. However, Trans-Spec seeks to rely on several additional documents to defeat the motion to dismiss. First, Trans-Spec appended documents to its opposition to Caterpillar's motion to dismiss, including excerpts of deposition testimony and affidavits that Trans-Spec wished to use to establish that Caterpillar should be equitably estopped from asserting the statute of limitations. After the magistrate judge recommended that Caterpillar's motion to dismiss be granted without considering the additional documents submitted by Trans-Spec, Trans-Spec's objection to the magistrate judge's report and recommendation also included as an exhibit a copy of another document, titled Caterpillar Limited Warranty. Trans-Spec referred to this document as the two-year warranty, and asserted, for the first time in its objection to the magistrate judge's report, that this document formed the basis for an additional warranty claim that would not be barred by the statute of limitations. Caterpillar promptly asked the district court to strike all of the additional documents submitted by Trans-Spec. The district court deemed this motion moot because both the district court and the magistrate judge had explicitly disregarded the appended documents as outside the pleadings, and hence inapplicable to a Rule 12(b)(6) determination. Under Rule 12(b)(6), the district court may properly consider only facts and documents that are part of or incorporated into the complaint; if matters outside the pleadings are considered, the motion must be decided under the more stringent standards applicable to a Rule 56 motion for summary judgment. Garita Hotel, 958 F.2d at 18. Exhibits attached to the complaint are properly considered part of the pleading for all purposes, including Rule 12(b)(6). Fed.R.Civ.P. 10(c); Blackstone Realty, 244 F.3d at 195 n. 1. Additionally, we have noted that [w]hen . . . a complaint's factual allegations are expressly linked to  and admittedly dependent upon  a document (the authenticity of which is not challenged), that document effectively merges into the pleadings and the trial court can review it in deciding a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). Beddall v. State St. Bank & Trust Co., 137 F.3d 12, 16-17 (1st Cir.1998); see also Clorox Co. P.R. v. Proctor & Gamble Comm. Co., 228 F.3d 24, 32 (1st Cir.2000) (holding that, in ruling on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, a district court `may properly consider the relevant entirety of a document integral to or explicitly relied upon in the complaint, even though not attached to the complaint' (quoting Shaw v. Digital Equip. Corp., 82 F.3d 1194, 1220 (1st Cir. 1996))). At the discretion of the district court, a motion to dismiss may be converted to a motion for summary judgment if the court chooses to consider materials outside the pleadings in making its ruling. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(d); Garita Hotel, 958 F.2d at 18. However, if the district court chooses, as it did here, to ignore supplementary materials submitted with the motion papers and determine the motion under the Rule 12(b)(6) standard, no conversion occurs and the supplementary materials do not become part of the record for purposes of the Rule 12(b)(6) motion. Garita Hotel, 958 F.2d at 18-19. We review a motion to dismiss using the same criteria that obtained in the court below. Id. at 17. As a result, we review only those documents actually considered by the district court in its Rule 12(b)(6) analysis unless we are persuaded that the court below erred in declining to consider the proffered documents. See Coyne v. Cronin, 386 F.3d 280, 286 (1st Cir.2004). Trans-Spec does not argue in its opening brief that the district court abused its discretion by refusing to convert the motion to dismiss to a motion for summary judgment nor that it erred by choosing to disregard the documents appended to Trans-Spec's opposition to the motion to dismiss or included as an exhibit to Trans-Spec's objection to the magistrate judge's report and recommendation. Instead, Trans-Spec's opening brief marshals these documents in support of its argument as if they had been part of the record considered by the court below in deciding the Rule 12(b)(6) motion. Thus, rather than assigning error to the decision of the district court to disregard the supplemental documents, Trans-Spec's opening brief ignores that decision and, by doing so, misrepresents the state of the record. Caterpillar forcefully argued this misrepresentation in its responsive brief. Then, in Trans-Spec's reply brief and at oral argument, Trans-Spec finally argued that the district court erred in refusing to consider these supplemental documents in its review and it argued that we should consider them in our review. That argument came too late. See Pignons S.A. de Mecanique v. Polaroid Corp., 701 F.2d 1, 3 (1st Cir.1983) (In preparing briefs and arguments, an appellee is entitled to rely on the content of an appellant's brief for the scope of the issues appealed, and appellant generally may not preserve a claim merely by referring to it in a reply brief or at oral argument.). Accordingly, in our review of the motion to dismiss, we will consider, as the district court did, only the facts and inferences fairly gleaned from the text of Trans-Spec's second amended complaint and the ESC appended thereto. We pause further only to emphasize that, even if Trans-Spec had not waived its argument on appeal, it was well within the discretion of the district court to refuse to consider the Caterpillar Limited Warranty document, i.e. the so-called two-year warranty. Trans-Spec's complaint refers generically to the Caterpillar warranty, but then directs the court only to the ESC, which was attached as an exhibit. If Trans-Spec also wished to base its allegations on the Caterpillar Limited Warranty, Trans-Spec should have also referred the court to it specifically and attached it to the complaint. Then, the magistrate judge would almost certainly have treated the additional warranty as integral to the complaint, and she would have considered it. But Trans-Spec did not submit that document to the magistrate judge. Although Trans-Spec was aware of the Caterpillar Limited Warranty from the outset of the case, Trans-Spec decided to omit it from the magistrate judge's review. [3] The district court is permitted, at its discretion, to consider materials not before the magistrate judge. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1). However, that discretion must be exercised sparingly. We have previously noted that it would be fundamentally unfair to permit a litigant to set its case in motion before the magistrate, wait to see which way the wind was blowing, and  having received an unfavorable recommendation  shift gears before the district judge. Paterson-Leitch Co. v. Mass. Mun. Wholesale Elec. Co., 840 F.2d 985, 991 (1st Cir.1988). Moreover, [s]ystemic efficiencies would be frustrated and the magistrate's role reduced to that of a mere dress rehearser if a party were allowed to feint and weave at the initial hearing, and save its knockout punch for the second round. Id. Accordingly, it was well within the district court's discretion to decline to consider the Caterpillar Limited Warranty document in deciding the motion to dismiss. Thus, in our review of the motion to dismiss, we are limited to the text of Trans-Spec's complaint and the language in the ESC. We will not review the deposition testimony, affidavits, or additional warranty documents that were not considered by the magistrate judge and the district court.