Opinion ID: 71892
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The City's Failure to Preserve Its Monell Defense

Text: 43 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(e) provides for the effect that pretrial orders shall have: 44 After any conference held pursuant to this rule, an order shall be entered reciting the action taken. This order shall control the subsequent course of the action unless modified by a subsequent order. The order following a final pretrial conference shall be modified only to prevent manifest injustice. 45 Fed.R.Civ.P. 16(e). The use of shotgun pleadings in civil cases is a ubiquitous problem. See, e.g., Ebrahimi v. City of Huntsville Bd. of Educ., 114 F.3d 162, 168 (11th Cir.1997) (noting that the complaint in that case was typical of the sort of shotgun notice pleading we have encountered in scores of cases brought before this Court). Given the seriousness of that problem, it is particularly important for district courts to undertake the difficult, but essential, task of attempting to narrow and define the issues before trial. Id. Critical to proper discharge of that duty is effective use of pretrial orders, which in turn requires that such orders be firmly (but fairly) enforced. 46 We have not hesitated to back up district courts when they put steel behind the terms of pretrial orders and hold parties to them. We held in Hodges v. United States, 597 F.2d 1014, 1017 (5th Cir.1979), that a defendant can waive a potential defense by failing to ensure that the issue is clearly preserved in the pretrial order. Hodges involved a suit brought by two taxpayers who sought a refund of taxes they had paid on behalf of a defunct corporation. See id. at 1015. At trial, the primary defense of the IRS was that the taxpayers had no standing to sue because they had paid the corporation's taxes as mere volunteers who had no legal obligation to pay. See id. at 1016. However, the IRS also sought to introduce evidence related to an alternative defense that the taxpayers were in fact liable for the amounts paid. See id. The district court refused to allow the IRS to assert that alternative defense at trial. It held that the defense was not preserved in the pretrial order, even though the order listed as an issue for trial [w]hether or not [the taxpayers] can recover the amount sued for on the ground that they had no legal liability to pay.... Id. at 1017 n. 5. 47 On appeal, the IRS contended that the foregoing statement in the pretrial order encompassed its alternative defense and, alternatively, that the district court should have modified the pretrial order to conform to the proffered evidence. We upheld the district court's construction of the order, as well as the court's refusal to modify it during the trial. We explained: 48 We don't believe the trial judge should, for fear of appellate correction, be forced into an overbroad interpretation of such orders.... Without the above rule all litigants would have the burden of anticipating issues whose possible presence in an obfuscated pretrial order is overshadowed by the opposing party's active assertion of totally inconsistent issues. We cannot hold that the district court acted arbitrarily in viewing the unclear pretrial order as not fairly apprising the taxpayers of the defense which the IRS later sought to assert. 49 We now turn to the IRS's contention that the district court should have allowed the pretrial order to be modified.... [W]e ascribe to the trial court a broad discretion to preserve the integrity and purpose of the pretrial order, and in reviewing trial court decisions which prevent the introduction of otherwise competent and relevant evidence we will not disturb the trial court's ruling unless it is demonstrated that the trial court has so clearly abused its discretion that its action could be deemed arbitrary. Under the particular facts of this case we cannot say that the district court's actions were arbitrary.... We also take note that any injury resulting from our [decision], putting aside issues of surprise and inconvenience ... is a direct result of the IRS's own failure to properly present its case. 50 Id. at 1017-18 (citations and footnote omitted). 51 The standard enunciated in Hodges is the law of this circuit, and we have not been shy about applying it. See Santiago v. Lykes Bros. S.S. Co., 986 F.2d 423, 427 (11th Cir.1993); Walker v. Anderson Elec. Connectors, 944 F.2d 841, 844 (11th Cir.1991); Braswell v. ConAgra, Inc., 936 F.2d 1169, 1176 (11th Cir.1991); Lexington Ins. Co. v. Cooke's Seafood, 835 F.2d 1364, 1368 (11th Cir.1988). Applying that standard to this case, we cannot say that in interpreting the pretrial order as not including the final policymaker defense, the district court so clearly abused its discretion that its action can be deemed arbitrary. 52 Likewise, we cannot say that the district court abused its discretion by failing to modify the pretrial order to accommodate presentation of the Monell defense at the late stage of the case at which the City chose to press it. That is particularly so in view of the fact that the City successfully convinced the district court to exclude Morro's pattern and practice witnesses on grounds of relevancy and then stood silent in the face of the district court's observation that the City had conceded at the pretrial conference that the Chief was a final policymaker. As in Hodges, we take note that any injury resulting from our [decision], putting aside issues of surprise and inconvenience ... is a direct result of the [defendant's] failure to properly present its case, 597 F.2d at 1018. 3