Opinion ID: 866611
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Effect of Discovery Extension.

Text: The plaintiff has a fallback position: he complains that the district court should not have ruled on the summary judgment motion prior to the expiration of the extended discovery period. We review the district court's decision to proceed with the adjudication of the summary judgment motion for abuse of discretion. See Vélez v. Awning Windows, Inc., 375 F.3d 35, 41 (1st Cir. 2004). -10- We discern no abuse of discretion. To begin, the fact that discovery is still open does not bar a district court from resolving a fully briefed summary judgment motion. See, e.g., Dulany v. Carnahan, 132 F.3d 1234, 1238-39 (8th Cir. 1997); King v. Cooke, 26 F.3d 720, 725-26 (7th Cir. 1994); see also Fla. Power & Light Co. v. Allis Chalmers Corp., 893 F.2d 1313, 1316 (11th Cir. 1990) (explaining that it would be inappropriate to limit summary judgment to cases where discovery is complete in light of the valuable role served by summary judgment and the commitment of discovery issues to the sound discretion of the trial judge (internal quotation marks omitted)). Here, moreover, the plaintiff's request to reopen discovery was not coupled with a request to withhold adjudication of the pending summary judgment motion. Nor did the plaintiff inform the district court, at any time prior to the granting of summary judgment, that his discovery-extension request was tied to the pending summary judgment motion. Indeed, the timing of the plaintiff's motion to extend the discovery period suggests the absence of any link to the summary judgment motion. The discovery-extension motion was not filed until more than two months after the plaintiff filed his opposition to summary judgment. The new motion did not refer to summary judgment at all, nor did it suggest that additional discovery would bolster the plaintiff's ability to prove liability. -11- It is, therefore, unsurprising that the district court granted the discovery-extension motion by a simple docket entry, which made no reference to the pending summary judgment motion. To cinch matters, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(d) supplies a ready mechanism for a party to obtain more time to gather facts necessary to oppose a motion for summary judgment.3 See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 326 (1986) (explaining that [a]ny potential problem with [a] premature [motion for summary judgment] can be adequately dealt with under [this rule]). It provides, in relevant part, that if a party opposing summary judgment shows that for specified reasons, [he] cannot present facts essential to justify [his] opposition, the district court may grant appropriate relief. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(d). When properly deployed, this safety net guards against precipitous grants of summary judgment. See Rivera-Torres v. Rey-Hernández, 502 F.3d 7, 10 (1st Cir. 2007). For present purposes, it is important to emphasize that Rule 56(d) is not self-executing. A party seeking the shelter of the rule must invoke it. See Jones v. Secord, 684 F.3d 1, 6 (1st Cir. 2012); C.B. Trucking, Inc. v. Waste Mgmt., Inc., 137 F.3d 41, 3 Rule 56(d) was formerly Rule 56(f). This change in taxonomy is of no moment; the textual differences between current Rule 56(d) and former Rule 56(f) are purely stylistic. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 56 advisory committee's note; see also Godin v. Schencks, 629 F.3d 79, 90 n.19 (1st Cir. 2010). Thus, case law developed under former Rule 56(f) remains controlling, and we cite to it where applicable. See Jones v. Secord, 684 F.3d 1, 5 n.2 (1st Cir. 2012). -12- 44 (1st Cir. 1998). A party cannot have two bites at the cherry: he ordinarily cannot oppose a summary judgment motion on the merits and, after his opposition is rejected, try to save the day by belatedly invoking Rule 56(d). See C.B. Trucking, 137 F.3d at 44. Rather, he must stake his claim to protection under Rule 56(d) at the time he responds to the summary judgment motion (or, at least, at some time before the nisi prius court passes on that motion). The plaintiff did not seasonably invoke the protection of Rule 56(d). To invoke Rule 56(d), a party must furnish the district court with a timely statement that (i) explains his or her current inability to adduce the facts essential to filing an opposition, (ii) provides a plausible basis for believing that the sought-after facts can be assembled within a reasonable time, and (iii) indicates how those facts would influence the outcome of the pending summary judgment motion. Vélez, 375 F.3d at 40. Here, however, the plaintiff did nothing that, by any stretch of even the most fertile imagination, might be thought to satisfy these requirements. He opposed summary judgment head-on, and his opposition made no mention either of Rule 56(d) or of a need to obtain more information in order to contest summary judgment. In these circumstances, the district court had no sua sponte obligation to determine whether Rule 56(d) might be in play. See Secord, 684 F.3d at 6 (It is not the court's responsibility to dig through the record in a particular case unsolicited and determine -13- whether some timing problem might exist in connection with a summary judgment motion.). To be sure, once the district court granted summary judgment, the plaintiff attempted (for the first time) to forge a link between the discovery-extension motion and the summary judgment motion. This was too little and too late, and the plaintiff offered no convincing explanation for his failure to forge such a link earlier. The district court denied the motion for reconsideration out of hand and, given the circumstances, we cannot say that its ruling was an abuse of discretion. See Vélez, 375 F.3d at 41. When the court entered summary judgment, the extended discovery period had only a little more than three weeks left to run. There is no basis for a finding that the plaintiff detrimentally relied on these waning few weeks of the extended discovery period. For one thing, the record contains nothing to indicate that the plaintiff actually conducted discovery after the district court granted the discovery-extension motion. To the contrary, the plaintiff's motion for reconsideration of the summary judgment order, filed more than four weeks after the court had authorized the reopening of discovery, states that he has not been able to conduct discovery. For another thing, the plaintiff states his intention to take depositions of certain persons with knowledge, but it does not -14- appear that those depositions had even been scheduled — let alone taken — at the time when he sought reconsideration. Given that the plaintiff had already allowed most of his extended time to lapse without assiduously pursuing any additional discovery, any inference of reliance on the extension is simply implausible. Thus, any potential concern about unfairness in the timing of the court's entry of summary judgment is dissipated by the utter absence of any evidence that the plaintiff actually relied on the discovery extension. Actions have consequences; and inaction, too, has consequences. Because the plaintiff did not make the slightest effort either to comply with the requirements of Rule 56(d) or to conduct discovery diligently, the district court did not abuse its discretion in ruling on the fully briefed summary judgment motion prior to the conclusion of the extended discovery period. See, e.g., Secord, 684 F.3d at 6; United States v. San Juan Bay Marina, 239 F.3d 400, 408 (1st Cir. 2001); Meehan v. Town of Plymouth, 167 F.3d 85, 92 n.7 (1st Cir. 1999).