Opinion ID: 793418
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Clams Against Defendant Bowdich

Text: 76 Finally, the Defendants maintain that the Plaintiffs have no evidence to support a claim against Defendant Bowdich for his supervision of Defendant Gonzales and therefore summary judgment should have been granted for Defendant Bowdich. The Plaintiffs contend that the district court was correct in applying Fed. R.Civ.P. 56(f), which states, [s]hould it appear from the affidavits of [the nonmoving party] that the party cannot ... present by affidavit facts essential to justify the party's opposition, the court may refuse... judgment or may order continuance to permit ... discovery. 77 The standard of review, despite the Defendants' assertion to the contrary, is abuse of discretion. See Weir v. Anaconda Co., 773 F.2d 1073, 1081 (10th Cir. 1985) (district courts have the discretion to permit additional discovery); Guthrie v. Sawyer, 970 F.2d 733, 738 (10th Cir. 1992)([T]he court did not abuse its discretion in granting summary judgment without permitting further discovery); Pasternak v. Lear Petroleum Exploration, Inc., 790 F.2d 828, 833 (10th Cir. 1986)([N]o abuse of discretion in deciding summary judgment). The Defendants assert that the mere declaration that discovery is incomplete or that specific facts necessary to oppose summary judgment are unavailable is not enough to invoke Rule 56(f). Pasternak, 790 F.2d at 832. This is true, albeit irrelevant. In Pasternak, no party filed an affidavit or notified the court of any necessity of conducting additional discovery. Furthermore, and most importantly, in Pasternak the court did not stay discovery. In the present case, the district court ruled that the Plaintiffs made a meritorious showing under Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(f) and [f]urther, discovery has been stayed pending a ruling on the other individual County Defendants' claims ... thereby precluding Plaintiffs from conducting necessary discovery. Order of 3/17/04 at 11, 12. Clearly, this is not a case involving a `mere assertion' of incomplete discovery. Consequently, we are unable to find that the district judge abused her discretion in denying the motion without prejudice.