Opinion ID: 2996370
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Grant of Denius’s Motion for JMOL

Text: The defendants claim that the district court erred in granting JMOL for Denius because a reasonable jury could have concluded that he did not establish that the First Authorization extended to medical records (the first of the 1 Defendants also appealed the district court’s award of attorneys’ fees, but they have abandoned that issue because they failed to address it in their opening brief. 2 Denius has withdrawn his cross-appeal from the district court’s order dismissing Sadler from the case. Nos. 01-3422, 01-3575, 02-1398 & 02-1460 9 six propositions that he was required to prove).3 In support of this argument, the defendants point out that Denius “presented no evidence that the NPRC maintained his medical records between July 1996 and August 1997, the period during which the Authorization was effective,” nor did he “adduce any evidence that the NPRC routinely maintained medical records of military personnel. Denius offered no evidence about the nature of the NPRC—what it is, how it operates, who runs it. He called no witness with any personal knowledge about the operations of the NPRC to testify that it routinely maintained medical records of military personnel.”4 The defendants also contend that the jury “may simply have disbelieved Denius when he testified that he obtained his medical records from the NPRC [in 2001]. The jury was free to do so.” In response Denius maintains that his testimony “at a minimum . . . demonstrated that [the] NPRC maintains medical records and created a rebuttable presumption [that] the NPRC had custody of his medical records in 1996, or might reasonably obtain custody during the life of the [First Authorization], which presumption [defendants] failed to rebut.” And, Denius argues, because his testimony was uncontradicted and unimpeached, the jury was required to take it as true. Denius also offers a number of alternative bases on which he says we can affirm the district court’s judgment. We find one of these alternative bases persuasive—that the district court abused its discretion in withdrawing its judicial notice of the information from NPRC’s official web- 3 This is the only ground on which the defendants challenge the court’s grant of JMOL to Denius. 4 Denius tried to call Ronald Hindman, Director of the NPRC, to establish this point, but the district court barred Hindman from testifying because Denius did not identify him during pretrial discovery. 10 Nos. 01-3422, 01-3575, 02-1398 & 02-1460 site, see Waid v. Merrill Area Pub. Sch., 130 F.3d 1268, 1272 (7th Cir. 1997)—and therefore see no need to address the parties’ remaining arguments. Federal Rule of Evidence 201 provides that, when requested by a party, a court “shall” take judicial notice of a fact that is “not subject to reasonable dispute in that it is . . . capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned.” Fed. R. Evid. 201(b), (d). We cannot agree with the court’s determination that judicial notice was unnecessary given Denius’s own testimony regarding his records. The information on the website was not duplicative of the testimony; rather, it would have provided essential corroboration. Further, the fact that the NPRC maintains medical records of military personnel is appropriate for judicial notice because it is not subject to reasonable dispute. As the agency’s website explains, The National Personnel Records Center, Military Personnel Records (NPRC-MPR) is the repository of millions of military personnel, health, and medical records of discharged and deceased veterans of all services during the 20th century. NPRC (MPR) also stores medical treatment records of retirees from all services, as well as records for dependent and other persons treated at naval medical facilities. Information from the records is made available upon written request (with signature and date) to the extent allowed by law. http://www.archives.gov/facilities/mo/st_louis/military _personnel_records.html; see Laborers’ Pension Fund v. Blackmore Sewer Constr., Inc., 298 F.3d 600, 607 (7th Cir. 2002) (taking judicial notice of information from official website of the FDIC); see also United States v. Chapel, 41 F.3d 1338, 1342 (9th Cir. 1994) (district court properly took judicial notice of FDIC-insurance status; the FDIC, “the insuring agency itself, is a source whose accuracy cannot be reasonably questioned”) (quotations omitted). Moreover, a Westlaw search of the Federal Register uncovered numerNos. 01-3422, 01-3575, 02-1398 & 02-1460 11 ous Notices disclosing the same information. E.g., 67 Fed. Reg. 69765, 69765 (Nov. 19, 2002) (“[T]he National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) administers military personnel and medical records of veterans after discharge, retirement, and death.”); 67 Fed. Reg. 55277, 55278 (Aug. 28, 2002) (“In accordance with rules issued by the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Transportation (DOT), the NPRC . . . administers military service records of veterans after discharge, retirement, and death, and the medical records of these veterans, current members of the Armed Forces, and dependents of Armed Forces personnel.”); 58 Fed. Reg. 10002, 10463 (Feb. 22, 1993) (“On separation/retirement the [health] records [of a U.S. military member] are forwarded to [the] National Personnel Records Center (NPRC/MPR) or other designated depository . . . such as . . . to [the] appropriate Veterans Administration Regional Office, if VA claim has been filed.”). Judicial notice may be taken at any time, including on appeal. Fed. R. Evid. 201(f); United States v. Burch, 169 F.3d 666, 671 (10th Cir. 1999); Green v. Warden, U.S. Penitentiary, 699 F.3d 364, 369 (7th Cir. 1983). We exercise that authority here to note that the NPRC and the VA do in fact maintain medical records of retired United States military personnel. See also 44 U.S.C. § 1507 (“The contents of the Federal Register shall be judicially noticed . . . .”); City of Charleston v. A Fisherman’s Best, Inc., 310 F.3d 155, 172 (4th Cir. 2002) (appeals court can take judicial notice of proposed rule published in Federal Register even if the proposed rule was not called to the attention of the trial court); Poindexter v. United States, 777 F.2d 231, 236 (5th Cir. 1985) (appeals court is required to take judicial notice of information contained in agency regulations). The defendants have simply caused additional judicial work by contesting a factual issue that, according to information readily available in the public domain, cannot be reasonably 12 Nos. 01-3422, 01-3575, 02-1398 & 02-1460 disputed. The district court was therefore right to grant JMOL for Denius.5