Opinion ID: 614653
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The District Court's Assessment of Rojas's Testimony

Text: The District Court granted summary judgment after concluding that Rojas had offered sham evidence in opposition to the defendants' motions. In other words, it concluded that no reasonable juror could believe certain of Rojas's factual averments in opposition to summary judgment, given contradictory statements she had made in prior sworn testimony and pleadings. Although a district court generally should not weigh evidence or assess the credibility of witnesses, Hayes v. N.Y. City Dep't of Corr., 84 F.3d 614, 619 (2d Cir.1996), we have held that in the rare circumstance where the plaintiff relies almost exclusively on his own testimony, much of which is contradictory and incomplete, it will be impossible for a district court to determine whether `the jury could reasonably find for the plaintiff,' ... and thus whether there are any `genuine' issues of material fact, without making some assessment of the plaintiff's account. Jeffreys v. City of New York, 426 F.3d 549, 554 (2d Cir.2005) (quoting Anderson, 477 U.S. at 252, 106 S.Ct. 2505). It appears from the record before us that this is such a case. Rojas's opposition to summary judgment relied almost entirely on her own testimony, in the form of an affidavit and excerpts from her depositions. [9] In contrast, the Diocese submitted competent and persuasive evidence, including contemporaneous letters and meeting notes suggesting that, to the extent Rojas made complaints regarding her relationship with Enyan-Boadu, they related to the general friction between the two and made no reference to sexual harassment. Therefore, in order to determine whether there were any genuine issues of material fact to be tried by a jury, the District Court was entitled to assess Rojas's factual averments. Jeffreys, 426 F.3d at 554. The District Court scrupulously detailed plain inconsistencies between the facts advanced by Rojas in opposition to summary judgment and those alleged in her original and amended complaints, in sworn interrogatory responses, in portions of her deposition testimony, in her complaints before the EEOC, and in prior sworn testimony against Enyan-Boadu at his criminal trial. See Rojas II, 783 F.Supp.2d at 387-409. In particular, the District Court observed that Rojas had repeatedly alleged that Enyan-Boadu was her co-worker and not her employer or supervisor in her earlier sworn statements and in her complaints, only to abruptly describe him as one of her supervisors in her papers opposing summary judgment. Id. at 407-08. In addition, the District Court noted that, despite expressly testifying in Enyan-Boadu's criminal trial that she made no complaint about his sexual harassment of her to the Diocese, and despite having made no allegation to the contrary in the civil complaints filed in the District Court, Rojas suddenly asserted in her opposition papers and portions of her deposition testimony that she had indeed made such a complaint on August 8, 2006. Id. at 407-09. These new allegations, directly contradicted by her prior sworn statements and judicial admissions, were properly rejected by the District Court after a careful consideration of the record before it. See Jeffreys, 426 F.3d at 555 (affirming district court's entry of summary judgment where (1) the District Court found nothing in the record to support plaintiff's allegations other than plaintiff's own contradictory and incomplete testimony, and (2) the District Court, even after drawing all inferences in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, determined that no reasonable person could believe Jeffreys's testimony (internal citation and alteration omitted)); see also Bellefonte Re Ins. Co. v. Argonaut Ins. Co., 757 F.2d 523, 528-29 (2d Cir.1985) (A party's assertion of fact in a pleading is a judicial admission by which it normally is bound throughout the course of the proceeding. Accordingly, the district court properly disregarded Universal's affidavits seeking to controvert its own pleading. (internal citations omitted)). In so holding, we do not suggest that district courts should routinely engage in searching, skeptical analyses of parties' testimony in opposition to summary judgment. As we observed in Jeffreys, if there is a plausible explanation for discrepancies in a party's testimony, the court considering a summary judgment motion should not disregard the later testimony because an earlier account was ambiguous, confusing, or simply incomplete. 426 F.3d at 555 n. 2 (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). However, in certain extraordinary cases, where the facts alleged are so contradictory that doubt is cast upon their plausibility, the court may pierce the veil of the complaint's factual allegations and dismiss the claim. Id. at 555 (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). To hold otherwise, and require district courts to allow parties to defeat summary judgment simply by testifying to the allegations in their pleadings (or, as here, to facts not alleged in their pleadings), would license the mendacious to seek windfalls in the litigation lottery. Arrington v. United States, 473 F.3d 329, 344 (D.C.Cir.2006) (Brown, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Here, Rojas and her counsel were given ample opportunity to explain or reconcile Rojas's inconsistent and contradictory statements, but no such explanation was provided. Rather, Rojas simply maintained that credibility determinations are left to the jury. However, as explained above, in certain cases a party's inconsistent and contradictory statements transcend credibility concerns and go to the heart of whether the party has raised genuine issues of material fact to be decided by a jury. This is such a case. Therefore, the District Court did not err in concluding, in effect, that the evidence introduced by Rojas was not of such a character that it would warrant the jury in finding a verdict in favor of that party. Anderson, 477 U.S. at 251, 106 S.Ct. 2505 (internal quotation marks omitted).