Opinion ID: 178211
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The 27 Unsworn Declarations

Text: Rule 56(e)2 requires district courts to rely on affidavits, discovery, and disclosure materials when ruling on a motion for summary judgment. An affidavit “is required to be sworn to by the affiant in front of an ‘officer authorized to administer oaths,’” Peters v. Lincoln Elec. Co., 285 F.3d 2 All references to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are to the rules in effect at the time of the orders below. 9 Nos. 08-2276/09-1920, Tenneco v. Kingdom Auto Parts 456, 475 (6th Cir. 2002) (quoting Blacks’ Law Dictionary 54 (5th ed. 1979)), and must be made on the affiant’s personal knowledge. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56. 28 U.S.C. § 1746 allows for unsworn declarations to take the place of affidavits, so long as those declarations are made “under penalty of perjury” and follow one of the statute’s stated formulas. Peters, 285 F.3d at 475. Summary judgment is appropriate where the nonmoving party fails to present admissible evidence to defeat the summary judgment motion. Dole, 942 F.2d at 968. In Dole, the defendants argued that the district court erred in granting summary judgment to the plaintiff when defendants introduced one affidavit based solely on hearsay and two unsworn statements that purported to undermine the plaintiffs’ evidence. Id. The defendants claimed they should have been allowed to proceed to trial to prove that plaintiff’s records were not accurate. We affirmed the district court, holding that the hearsay affidavit could not be considered and the unsworn statements “must be disregarded because a court may not consider unsworn statements when ruling on a motion for summary judgment.” Id. at 968–69. “Summary judgment for the [plaintiff] was appropriate because defendants failed to present admissible evidence to defeat the [plaintiff’s] properly supported motion for summary judgment.” Id. at 968. Regardless of the impact of Tenneco’s failure to produce documentation regarding these declarations, it was not an abuse of discretion for the district court to refuse to consider the 27 unsworn declarations that were not clearly made on personal knowledge nor made under the penalty of perjury. The declarations are basically identical, and each states that the signatory “declares that all statements made herein of my own knowledge are true and that all statements made on information and belief are true.” The documents, however, do not specify which statements were 10 Nos. 08-2276/09-1920, Tenneco v. Kingdom Auto Parts made under information and belief and which were made from personal knowledge. As in Dole, the declarations are unsworn and were not made under the penalty of perjury. The district court, limited to admissible evidence on summary judgment, did not abuse its discretion by refusing to consider these declarations.