Opinion ID: 1702553
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Contractual Status of the Form U-4

Text: As previously noted, Lewis moved to strike the Matisak affidavit authenticating the Form U-4 on the basis that it was filed after the deadline set by the court's July 31, 2000, order, whereby any law or supporting materials the parties wished the court to consider were to be filed at least five days in advance of the scheduled August 14 hearing date. This proposition was the sole ground asserted by Lewis in support of his motion. [6] As also previously noted, the hearing was continued from August 14 to August 21, and on August 21 no hearing on the motions to compel arbitration was conducted; rather, the trial judge elected instead to conduct a pretrial conference. There then followed various events, court filings, another hearing, and two interim court orders, and it was not until June 14, 2001, that the trial court, after noting that it had heard counsel for the parties argue the motion [to compel arbitration] on several occasions, ordered the dispute to arbitration. Lewis has never taken the position that his purported signature, appearing at four different places on the Form U-4, is not his; he has simply contended that the authenticating Matisak affidavit should be disregarded and that, without it, the defendants failed to prove he was a signatory to the Form U-4. He has never challenged the authenticity or effectiveness of the signing by Mr. Lubin on behalf of Merrill Lynch. Matisak's affidavit satisfies the standard for authentication stated in Rule 901, Ala. R. Evid., and was therefore sufficient to authenticate Lewis's signatures on the From U-4, if the affidavit was eligible for consideration by the trial court. The trial court never expressly ruled on Lewis's motion to strike the affidavit or on Merrill Lynch's August 28, 2000, motion for leave to file its reply, including the affidavit, if such leave were needed. This Court has held that Rule 6(d), Ala. R. Civ. P., allows the trial court discretion to permit the service of affidavits [in support of a motion for summary judgment] that might otherwise be untimely, and its decision to accept such affidavits will not be reversed absent an abuse of discretion. Middaugh v. City of Montgomery, 621 So.2d 275, 279 (Ala.1993). Rule 6(d) thereby qualifies Rule 56(c) [Ala. R. Civ. P.] by placing it within the trial court's discretion to permit, or refuse to consider, an affidavit that is untimely. Speer v. Pin Palace Bowling Alley, 599 So.2d 1140, 1142 (Ala.1992). Rule 6(b), Ala. R. Civ. P., provides as follows: (b) Enlargement. When by these rules or by a notice given thereunder or by order of court an act is required or allowed to be done at or within a specified time, the court for cause shown may at any time in its discretion (1) with or without motion or notice order the period enlarged if request therefor is made before the expiration of the period originally prescribed or as extended by a previous order, or (2) upon motion made after the expiration of the specified period permit the act to be done where the failure to act was the result of excusable neglect; but it may not extend the time for taking any action under Rules 50(b), 52(b), 59(b), (d), and (e), and 60(b), except to the extent and under the conditions stated in them. The text of Rule 6(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is identical to that of Rule 6(b) of the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure. In discussing its application to situations such as is involved in this case, federal treatise writers have commented as follows: According to Rule 6(d), any affidavits in support of the summary-judgment motion also should be served at the time the motion is served, unless the court exercises its discretion under Rule 6(b) and permits later service. Rule 6(b), which is a rule of general application, provides in part: `When by these rules... an act is required or allowed to be done at or within a specified time, the court for cause shown may ... upon motion made after the expiration of the specified period permit the act to be done where the failure to act was the result of excusable neglect....' This passage gives the judge authority to accept a tardy affidavit when it is appropriate to do so. One court has held that Rule 6(d) requires the court to strike an affidavit not served with the motion, but this holding does not comport with later decisions interpreting Rules 6 and 56. 10A Charles Alan Wright et al., Federal Practice and Procedure § 2719 (3d ed.1998) (footnotes omitted). An affidavit in support of a motion must be served with the motion. Opposing affidavits in response to a motion may be served until one day before the hearing, unless the court establishes a different time period for service. The court may use its discretion to accept late affidavits, but may require that cause or excusable neglect be shown to account for the delay. 1 James W. Moore et al., Moore's Federal Practice § 6.08[1] (3d ed.1997)(footnotes omitted). Furthermore, Rule 6(e), Ala. R. Civ. P., provides: (e) Additional Time After Service by Mail. Whenever a party has the right or is required to do some act or take some proceeding within a prescribed period after the service of a notice or other paper upon the party and the notice or paper is served upon the party by mail, three (3) days shall be added to the prescribed period. Merrill Lynch's filing of its reply to Lewis's Opposition must also be viewed in light of this rule and Rule 6(a), which excludes intermediate Saturdays and Sundays from the computation of time when the time prescribed or allowed is less than 11 days. We will assume that the trial court considered the Matisak affidavit in ruling on the motions to compel arbitration. We deem it to have properly exercised its discretion in that regard, given the cumulative effect of the following considerations: the moving target of hearing dates to which the court's initial order requiring filings to be made five days in advance of the hearing could relate; the eleventh hour service of Lewis's Opposition; the discretion a trial court has to amend provisions of interlocutory orders; the filing by Merrill Lynch of its request for leave to file reply, stating grounds; the fact that the affidavit raised no new issue and that Lewis never actually challenged the authenticity of his signatures appearing on the Form U-4; Lewis's filing of additional evidentiary submissions with the court as late as September 12, 2000; and the trial court's express finding in its June 14, 2001, order that [i]n December of 1990, while employed at Merrill Lynch, Milton Lewis executed a Uniform Application for Securities Industry Regulation (Form U-4). (Emphasis supplied.) Thus the trial court acted within its discretion in considering the Matisak affidavit and in concluding, based on it, that the Form U-4 had been executed by Lewis. That being so, we proceed to analyze the entirety of the contract it created. Concerning the existence of that contract, composed of, in Lewis's words in his Opposition, a Form U-4 purportedly signed by Milton Lewis and regulatory provisions of the National Association of Securities Dealers (`NASD') and the New York Stock Exchange (`NYSE'), we note that before the trial court Lewis challenged only the authentication of the Form U-4. At no place in his Opposition and at no time over the course of his numerous other submissions to the trial court did he suggest to the trial court that the NASD and NYSE regulatory provisions exhibited to Merrill Lynch's motion to compel arbitration were not in full force and effect, or that any pertinent associated regulatory provisions had been omitted. Likewise, he raises no argument in this Court to the effect that those regulatory provisions were not properly established as parts of the contract effected by execution of the Form U-4. Rather, in that regard, he argues on appeal only that the Form U-4 was not properly authenticated. Therefore, we consider the Form U-4 and the NYSE provisions placed in the record in analyzing the contract thereby created. One can infer from the record that after the Form U-4 was signed by Lewis and Merrill Lynch, it was submitted to both the NASD and the NYSE in due course and that Lewis was accepted for registration by both organizations. Among other things, when Merrill Lynch filed its motion to compel arbitration on June 8, 2000, more than two years after Lewis's retirement, it described him as a former NASD and NYSE Registered Representative. When Lewis filed his opposing affidavit approximately two months later, he stated he had been a securities broker with Merrill Lynch from 1966 until 1998, but denied that the dispute between the parties arose out of his previous affiliation with the National Association of Securities Dealers or the New York Stock Exchange. Because, for the reasons previously explained, the NASD Code of Arbitration Procedure cannot be looked to as a basis for the arbitration the trial court ordered, we will consider in the remainder of this opinion only NYSE constitution article XI, section 1, and NYSE Rule 347. The Form U-4 arbitration provision committed Lewis to arbitrate any dispute, claim or controversy between him and Merrill Lynch or any other person that was required to be arbitrated under the rules, constitution, or bylaws of the NYSE, as those documents may be amended from time to time. Thus, a contract of a continuing nature, and potentially evolving over time, was created between Lewis and the NYSE.