Opinion ID: 470059
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The City Council's Motion

Text: On July 3, 1980, the six Scottsdale city council members moved for partial summary judgment and noticed the motion for hearing under Arizona Local Rule 11(e). 1 In support of their motion, the defendants filed a Rule 11(h) statement 2 setting forth the specific facts upon which they intended to rely and the evidence in the record which supported their claim. Jacobsen did not respond to the motion with a written opposition, nor did he submit admissible evidence as required by Local Rule 11(h) and Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e). However, he contends that he did not know that he had to do these things. 3 Urging that rules applicable to pro se prisoners should be extended to all pro se litigants, see, e.g., Moore v. Florida, 703 F.2d 516 (11th Cir.1983); Roseboro v. Garrison, 528 F.2d 309 (4th Cir.1975); Hudson v. Hardy, 412 F.2d 1091 (D.C.Cir.1968), Jacobsen argues that it was the district court's duty to advise him of the measures he should take to oppose the defendants' motion; and that it was unfair to enter summary judgment without having done so. We reject Jacobsen's argument, for a number of reasons. First and foremost is that pro se litigants in the ordinary civil case should not be treated more favorably than parties with attorneys of record. Trial courts generally do not intervene to save litigants from their choice of counsel, even when the lawyer loses the case because he fails to file opposing papers. A litigant who chooses 4 himself as legal representative should be treated no differently. 5 In both cases, the remedy to the party injured by his representative's error is to move to reconsider or to set aside; 6 it is not for the trial court to inject itself into the adversary process on behalf of one class of litigant. 7 Imposing an obligation to give notice of Rule 56's evidentiary standards would also invite an undesirable, open-ended participation by the court in the summary judgment process. 8 It is not sensible for the court to tell laymen that they must file an affidavit without at the same time explaining what an affidavit is; that, in turn impels a rudimentary outline of the rules of evidence. 9 Unlike the conversion of a 12(b)(6) motion into a motion for summary judgment, which only requires notice of what the motion now is, 10 Jacobsen's proposal requires advice as to what the motion must mean. To give that advice would entail the district court's becoming a player in the adversary process rather than remaining its referee. Finally, even if a substantive notice requirement were desirable, it should be enacted through formal amendment rather than piecemeal adjudication. Rule 56's separate notice provision (compare Rule 56(c) with Rule 6(d) ) and description of summary judgment (compare Rule 56(e) 11 with Rule 12(b) ) indicate that the Supreme Court and its Advisory Committee have considered the special problems raised by the summary judgment procedure and, by failing to require specific notice of the nature of summary judgment, have concluded that the present federal rules (particularly when amplified by local rules such as Arizona Local Rule 11(h)) 12 already apprise litigants of their summary judgment obligations. Requiring additional notice to pro se litigants would be an accretion onto Rule 56(c), not an interpretation of it; 13 and as an ad hoc amendment it would not be standardized, codified, or subject to collective decision making. For all of these reasons, we decline to extend the Hudson rule and conclude that the district court did not have to inform Jacobsen of the need to file affidavits or other responsive matter before granting summary judgment against him.