Opinion ID: 1213759
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Prater

Text: Plaintiffs appeal the district court's decision to strike portions of the affidavit and other documentation filed at the summary-judgment stage by plaintiff Dallas Prater. The district court struck or otherwise disregarded paragraphs 6-9 of the affidavit as inadmissible hearsay; paragraphs 10-13 for violating the Best Evidence Rule; paragraphs 15-16 for being inconsistent with deposition testimony and thus barred by the rule discussed above; and exhibits 6 and 7 and paragraph 14 of the affidavit (which is based on exhibit 7) because the exhibits do not qualify as pedagogical devices, which is what the plaintiffs argued that they were. O'Brien, 2007 WL 4510246, at -10. We consider each in turn.
Paragraphs 6-9 of Prater's affidavit read as follows: 6. Throughout my employment with Defendants, I often noticed significant discrepancies on my paycheck as compared with the actual number of hours I worked for Defendants. 7. At the time I worked for Defendants, I wrote down the number of hours I worked in a ledger to compare with my paychecks. And, on at least four occasions, I noticed that my paychecks did not reflect all the hours I had noted working in my ledger. 8. As a result, I complained to Chad Totche, the restaurant manager at the North store, on at least two occasions about the apparent shortages in my pay. 9. On those occasions, Mr. Totche told me that he would look into the pay discrepancy and get back to me, or words to that effect. But, Mr. Totche never did follow up with me. J.A. 333. The district court struck these paragraphs as inadmissible hearsay. O'Brien, 2007 WL 4510246, at -6. The district court pointed to Prater's testimony, as characterized by the district court, that, without his ledger, he does not know whether he worked overtime in any given week, and he has no recollection of when he worked on any given day. Id. at  (citing Prater Dep. 83, 98). The district court also pointed to Prater's testimony that, as the district court put it, he cannot identify any overtime for which he claims he was not paid without referencing the ledger. Id. Thus, the district court concluded, Prater's testimony that he was underpaid is based entirely on his recollection of the information contained in the personal ledger. In 2003, however, Plaintiff Prater threw away his ledger and pay records. Consequently, Defendants argue that any testimony about the information stated in the ledger amounts to inadmissible hearsay. Id. (citations omitted). The district court agreed with defendants' argument that testimony about the contents of the ledger  beyond the fact that Prater kept a ledger  is inadmissible hearsay and should be stricken. [T]he Court can consider the statements to show that Plaintiff Prater created a ledger. The Court, however, will disregard Plaintiff Prater's attestations regarding the contents of the ledger. Id. at . The district court erred when it disregarded these paragraphs of Prater's affidavit. First, paragraphs 6 and 9 and most of paragraph 8 in Prater's affidavit do not discuss the ledger. Second, the statements in the affidavit are not hearsay. As plaintiffs argue, Prater's testimony merely describes the actions he personally took in the past.... Prater's affidavit properly describes that he personally wrote down the hours he worked in a ledger because he believed Appellees were shorting him hours and wages in his paychecks. Prater's testimony regarding his use of the ledger, which itself is not in evidence because Prater later misplaced it, is not an out of court statement made by someone other than the declarant that is offered for the truth of the matter asserted. Appellants' Br. 37-38 (citation omitted; emphasis in the original). The affidavit does not purport to introduce the contents of the ledger as evidence. Rather, it shows that Prater kept a ledger (a fact the district court said it could consider; see supra ), that he noticed at least four times that the ledger diverged from his paychecks as to the number of hours worked, and that, [a]s a result, he complained to Chad Totche. His affidavit provides a foundation for why Prater believes he was cheated by defendants; it might also be used to corroborate or dispute any testimony by Totche. Though the ledger's contents themselves may be inadmissible (for example, to prove that the ledger actually diverged from Prater's paychecks), what Prater remembers he noticed in the ledger is admissible for the purposes plaintiffs offer this portion of the affidavit. Thus, the district court swept too broadly when it declined to consider Prater's  attestations regarding the contents of the ledger. O'Brien, 2007 WL 4510246, at  (emphasis added).
Paragraphs 10-13 of the Prater affidavit read as follows: 10. As an opening shift crew member, I routinely reported to work for Defendants at the North store at 4:00 a.m. 11. When I reported to work at 4:00 a.m., I often times had to wait for an opening shift manger [sic]-including Chad Totche, Angela Tall and David Clark-to arrive at the North store to open the restaurant. 12. Once an opening shift manager had arrived at the North store, I would begin working right away without clocking in because the opening shift managers told me they would clock me in at 4:00 a.m., which was the time I arrived at the North store. 13. In this lawsuit, Defendants produced some of my timekeeping records relating to showing the times that restaurant managers clocked me in on Defendants' computer system. However, my beginning work times, as entered by the restaurant managers on Defendants' computer and reflected on Defendants' timekeeping records, are later than the time I usually reported to work for Defendants, which was 4:00 a.m. J.A. 333-34. In evaluating these paragraphs, the district court was mindful of Prater's previous deposition testimony  most importantly, it seems, the following colloquy: Q. Are you telling me, though, that every time that you worked it was in accordance with the schedule at the restaurant? A. Yes. J.A. 257 (Prater Dep. 73). Based on this deposition testimony, the district court ruled that paragraphs 10-13 of the affidavit violated the Best Evidence Rule, which states that [t]o prove the content of a writing ..., the original writing... is required, except as otherwise provided in these rules or by Act of Congress. Fed.R.Evid. 1002. The court acknowledged that plaintiffs correctly pointed out that Rule 1002 does not apply when the proponent of the evidence is not seeking to prove the contents of the writing. The court then characterized plaintiffs' argument as to Rule 1002's application to the instant case: Plaintiffs conclude that the Rule is inapplicable here because Mr. Prater's testimony is not offered to prove the contents of the schedule, but instead is offered to establish his actual hours of work, and to demonstrate that Defendants' timekeeping records are inaccurate. In other words, Plaintiffs assert that the Prater Affidavit is not disputing the content or accuracy of the schedules, but instead it attests to when Plaintiff Prater reported to work. O'Brien, 2007 WL 4510246, at  (citation omitted). The court rejected this argument: Plaintiffs' argument, however, ignores Plaintiff Prater's prior deposition testimony in which he testified that he always worked in accordance with the written schedules. If Plaintiff Prater always reported to work in accordance with the written schedules, the best evidence of when Plaintiff Prater reported to work on any given day is in the written schedule for the day. Consequently, Fed.R.Evid. 1002 operates to bar testimony that Plaintiff Prater's scheduled start time was anything other than what is presented in the written schedules. Id. (citation omitted). Alternatively, the court ruled that the testimony was barred as inconsistent with Prater's prior deposition testimony: Plaintiff Prater testified that he always reported to work in accordance with the written schedules. The written schedules reflect that Plaintiff Prater was never scheduled to begin work at 4:00 am during his first period of employment with Defendants. Accordingly, Plaintiff Prater's attestations that he routinely reported to work at 4:00 a.m. are inadmissible contradictions of his prior deposition testimony. Id. (citation omitted). The district court's decision to disregard these paragraphs in the affidavit was error. First, these averments themselves were not offered to prove the content of a writing. By its terms, that is the only time that Rule 1002 applies. The district court concluded that the averments in the affidavit were deficient because they were not the best evidence of when Plaintiff Prater reported to work on any given day. Id. (emphasis added). The best evidence to prove that contention may be the schedules, but requiring the best evidence available (here, apparently, the schedules) to prove something besides the content of the schedules is not what the Best Evidence Rule demands. See Allstate Ins. Co. v. Swann, 27 F.3d 1539, 1543 (11th Cir.1994) (Rule 1002 requires production of an original document only when the proponent of the evidence seeks to prove the content of the writing. It does not, however, require production of a document simply because the document contains facts that are also testified to by a witness.) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted); see also Simas v. First Citizens' Fed. Credit Union, 170 F.3d 37, 51 (1st Cir.1999) (quoting Allstate for the proposition that there is no general rule that proof of a fact will be excluded unless its proponent furnishes the best evidence in his power and reasoning that a plaintiff can prove he filed a loan application simply through his own trial testimony and does not need to furnish the application). Second, this affidavit does not contradict the deposition when the deposition is construed in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, as is required at the summary judgment stage. The questions immediately preceding the colloquy quoted above concerned any days that Prater was scheduled to work but did not work, and vice versa. Thus, when read in context, it seems Prater's statement that every time that Prater worked he worked in accordance with the schedule was only testimony as to the days he worked. By contrast, these paragraphs in the affidavit concern the hours that Prater alleges he worked on the days he worked. Thus, there is no contradiction  especially not one that would call for Prater's affidavit to be disregarded. The district court was in error when it ruled otherwise.
The court granted defendants' motion to strike paragraphs 15 and 16 of the Prater affidavit as being inconsistent with prior deposition testimony. The affidavit states: 15. On approximately nine occasions, I arrived for work at the North store in the morning and was instructed by one of the North store managers that I was needed to work at the South store because it was short staffed. Then, on thee [sic] occasions, I traveled to the South store to work a shift as a grill cook. But, I did not clock in at the South store to record my hours of work. 16. Instead, I was told by the South store managers that one of the North store managers would clock me in and out at the North store. However, none of the records Defendants produced in this lawsuit show any of my work hours at the South store, which averaged ten hours per shift. J.A. 334. The district court ruled that these paragraphs conflict with Prater's deposition testimony  that, as the district court put it, Prater admitted that he has no independent recollection of when he worked or of how much time he worked on any given day. He also admitted that he has no knowledge of ever having worked off the clock at the South store. Finally, Plaintiff Prater testified that he never worked ten hours without pay[.] O'Brien, 2007 WL 4510246, at  (citations omitted). The district court erred. Prater at his deposition answered Well, yeah to the question about whether it would be very hard sitting here today [i.e., at the deposition] for me [i.e., opposing counsel] to ask you particular days of the year back in 2002 how many hours you worked or when you showed up that day, wouldn't it? J.A. 261 (Prater Dep. 83). Thus, the question was whether it would be very hard to  ask  such a question. (Emphasis added.) [11] This question followed a query to which Prater acknowledged he did not know the answer and that it would be hard to remember, but that query was worded as follows: And other than that generalized recollection, if I asked you a particular week, like, the first week in November of 2002, do you know whether you worked overtime that week from your memory? Id. (emphasis added). Later in the deposition, the following colloquy occurred: Q. And for any of the days that we would go through here in these time punch records, you don't have any independent recollection of when you worked on those days, do you? A. No. Not right offhand, no. J.A. 262 (Prater Dep. 98). First, we note the qualification that Prater does not have any such independent recollection right offhand. This is not a clear admission that Prater has no independent recollection. Second, it is not clear what an independent recollection is or why a recollection of events of several years ago that is not independent would be insufficient. Third, and probably most importantly, the question involves a potential day-by-day inquiry  for each date, Prater would be asked when he worked  but the paragraphs of Prater's affidavit in question do not allege any specific dates. Indeed, the affidavit implicitly acknowledges that Prater does not know the specific dates, as it states that Prater arrived at the North store and was instructed to go to the South store on  approximately nine occasions. (Emphasis added.) Finally, Prater disputed an exhibit shown to him at his deposition that said he worked 10 hours off the clock on September 18, 2002: Q. Do you have any understanding of why someone would say you worked 10 hours on that day off the clock? A. No, I wasn't working no 10 hours off the clock without getting paid for it. Maybe 5, 10, even 15 minutes, but not 10 hours. J.A. 269-70 (Prater Dep. 107-08). After a brief discussion off the record, Prater then testified as follows: A. That's why I ain't got no records. That might be when I worked at south store. Q. What do you mean, when you worked at the south store? A. There was times I went down to the south to work for them down there. When I went in they needed  they would call and said they needed somebody down there, so I would go down there and work. And whoever the manager was in charge would say that they would punch us  punch me in, I  because I would ask them if I would wait until I got down there and punch in or what. And they say, no, we'll punch you in here. So, you know, I went on down and worked. J.A. 270 (Prater Dep. 108). Opposing counsel accused Prater of changing his testimony, but Prater explained: A. Well, because I forgot about me going down to the south store and working. Q. Do you know whether or not you were punched in when you went to the south store to work? A. No, I do not. Q. So you don't know of having ever worked 10 hours off the clock at the south store, do you? A. That's right. I don't mind giving them a few minutes, but ten hours, not [sic]. J.A. 271 (Prater Dep. 109). Here, Prater is testifying in the present tense: as of his deposition, he does not know whether someone else punched him in when he went to the South store and whether he worked off the clock at the South store for ten hours. Such testimony is admittedly not helpful for plaintiffs' case. But the affidavit does not contradict this testimonyparagraph 16 of the affidavit only says that none of the records Defendants produced in this lawsuit show any of his work hours at the South store. In other words, Prater may not personally know whether he was punched in, but he could still discern whether the records produced by the defendants reflect the hours that he asserts he worked. Moreover, paragraphs 15 and 16 are consistent with Prater's deposition testimony explaining needing to go down to the South store, that he would not punch in himself, and that he was told that a North store manager would clock him in at the North store. The district court's characterization that Prater alleges in his affidavit that he is claiming he worked ten-hour days without pay at the South store ( O'Brien, 2007 WL 4510246, at  (emphasis added; citing paragraph 16 of affidavit)) is technically erroneous. For all these reasons, the district court erred when it struck these paragraphs in the Prater affidavit.
The district court disregarded plaintiffs' exhibits 6 and 7, and thus paragraph 14 of Prater's affidavit which was based on exhibit 7, because the exhibits do not qualify as pedagogical devices as defined by United States v. Bray, 139 F.3d 1104, 1111 (6th Cir.1998), [12] which is what the plaintiffs claimed they are. [13] The court found that the portions of the exhibits that were based on portions of plaintiffs' affidavits that the court already found to be inadmissible were themselves inadmissible. The court also observed that the exhibits are not accurate representations of the evidence. O'Brien, 2007 WL 4510246, at . Since these exhibits are pedagogical devices and are not themselves evidence, it does not matter whether the district court considered them or not. Any decision by a district court to strike or otherwise not consider a pedagogical device at the summary-judgment stage would be, at most, harmless error. A pedagogical device is not evidence. On a motion for summary judgment, such a device is offered merely to aid the court. If a district judgefor whatever reason believes that a pedagogical device would not help him or her to rule on a motion for summary judgment, such a device is, by definition, useless. [14]
Plaintiffs articulate two theories of recovery: that plaintiffs' time records were changed to their detriment and that plaintiffs worked off the clock. The first theory fails as to Prater, and the district court was not in error when it entered summary judgment for defendants as to that claim. Prater has testified that managers would fix[] the time-in and time-out when necessary, but he was not aware of any such changes being inaccurate. See J.A. 256 (Prater Dep. 67); see also J.A. 268 (Prater Dep. 106). He also testified that he has no knowledge of anyone intentionally altering his hourly time records or anyone else's hourly time records. J.A. 274 (Prater Dep. 141); see also J.A. 258 (Prater Dep. 77). As stated, though, we vacate the district court's grant of summary judgment, because the spoliation issue remains open for the district court to consider on remand. However, given the evidentiary rulings above, the district court erred when it granted defendants' motion for summary judgment as to Prater's off the clock claim. We reverse and remand.