Opinion ID: 2646577
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: P.R. L.Cv.R. 56(e) (emphasis added).

Text: Alberti argues she in fact complied with Local Rule 56 because she “did make specific references to the record for almost every statement she made to create a genuine issue of material fact.” This is demonstrably and blatantly false. A large portion of Alberti’s opposing statements leave obvious blanks where specific record citations should be, to the point of absurdity. For example, the citation clause for an assertion on page 11 of her -12- Opposing Statement reads: “See exhibit ___ compared to exhibit ___. See also contracts dated ___, identified herein as exhibits___, and Certification # 74 approved on ___, identified herein as exhibit ___.” Further, even where Alberti provides record citations, rather than cite a “specific page or paragraph” as Rule 56(e) requires, she often cites generally to multiple exhibits which are themselves voluminous. For example, at one point she attempts to deny one of Defendants’ specific statements of material fact by citing generally to two exhibits with a combined page count of 136 pages. We need not belabor the point. Given the vital purpose that [Local Rules 56(c) and (e)] serve, litigants ignore them at their peril. In the event that a party opposing summary judgment fails to act in accordance with the rigors that such a rule imposes, a district court is free, in the exercise of its sound discretion, to accept the moving party’s facts as stated. Cabán Hernández v. Philip Morris USA, Inc., 486 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir. 2007). Given Alberti’s egregious violations of Local Rule 56—indeed, the majority of her opposing statement clearly violated this rule—the district court did not abuse its discretion by deeming as uncontested most of Defendants’ Statement of Uncontested Material Facts. Alberti also argues she need not comply with Local Rule 56 because she filed her exhibits in hard copy. Therefore, she argues, she need only comply with Local Rule 7, which requires that one properly organize and tab exhibits filed in hard copy. She -13- cites no authority for this argument, and for good reason, as it is ridiculous. Of course, when one files exhibits in hard copy, the hard copies must be properly organized. But filing exhibits in hard copy also makes citing them precisely under Local Rule 56 that much more essential. Indeed, Alberti’s actions—filing an Opposing Statement of Material Fact with imprecise citations or no citations at all along with a voluminous hard-copy compilation of exhibits—strike us as the epitome of playing “a game of cat-andmouse,” and “leav[ing] the district court to grope unaided for factual needles in a documentary haystack.” Caban Hernandez, 486 F.3d at 7–8. Alberti also repeatedly argues the district court improperly considered as uncontested most of Defendants’ Statement of Uncontested Material Facts. She argues first that this implied some of the facts were contested and, and as such, summary judgment was improper. Although the district court’s phrasing may not have been ideal, Alberti misunderstands her burden in opposing summary judgment. Once Defendants advanced a statement of uncontested facts, Alberti had to point to specific facts that created a genuine issue of material fact. Not every factual dispute is sufficient to thwart summary judgment; the contested fact must be “material” . . . . In this regard, “material” means that a contested fact has the potential to change the outcome of the suit under the governing law if the dispute over it is resolved favorably to the nonmovant. -14- McCarthy v. Nw. Airlines, Inc., 56 F.3d 313, 315 (1st Cir. 1995). To the extent the court considered Alberti’s Opposing Statement, it also noted that she did not provide “specific facts sufficient to defeat the ‘swing of the summary judgment scythe.’” Alberti I, 818 F. Supp. 2d at 457 n.2 (quoting Noviello v. City of Boston, 398 F.3d 76, 84 (1st Cir. 2005)). The district court noted that, to the extent Alberti properly contested Defendants’ Statement of Facts, the facts contested were not material. Summary judgment is proper in these circumstances. See Suárez v. Pueblo Int’l, Inc., 229 F.3d 49, 53 (1st Cir. 2000). Alberti then argues—quite ironically, given the utter lack of precision in her court filings—that the court’s failure to explain which specific parts of Defendants’ Statement of Uncontested Material Facts it deemed uncontested prejudiced her case on appeal. Although we frown upon a district court’s failure to state specifically which parts of a plaintiff’s Opposing Statement it considered and which parts it did not, Sánchez-Figueroa v. Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, 527 F.3d 209, 214 n.8 (1st Cir. 2008), this error does not warrant reversal or remand. Indeed, in Sánchez-Figueroa, the district court deemed uncontested the defendant’s statement of material facts based on flaws in the plaintiff’s opposing statement that were nearly identical to the flaws in Alberti’s Opposing Statement. Yet the court nevertheless considered part of the plaintiff’s opposing -15- statement of material facts. On appeal, we affirmed the decision to treat the defendant’s statement as uncontested and simply excluded all of the plaintiff’s opposing statement from our consideration, treating the district court’s inconsistent consideration as troublesome, but harmless in that case. Id. at 214 & n.8. Because, as in Sánchez-Figueroa, we affirm the district court’s decision to deem Defendants’ Statement of Facts uncontested, we likewise remedy the district court’s inconsistency by excluding Alberti’s Opposing Statement in its entirety from our analysis. We see nothing in the record that suggests an “unreasoning and arbitrary insistence upon expeditiousness” by the district court. Cf. Cortes-Rivera, 626 F.3d at 25. Rather, it appears the district court understandably lost patience with Alberti’s constant disregard for its orders as well as her late and unorganized filings. In light of all of the flaws in Alberti’s Opposing Statement, combined with the fact that she filed her Memorandum of Law in Opposition at least three weeks late and in violation of the court’s orders, we cannot say that the district court abused its discretion when it deemed Defendants’ motion for summary judgment effectively unopposed and we review it as such. D. Alberti now attempts to show factual issues in her brief on appeal by citing to the first 1400 pages (1-1399) of the nearly -16- 4000-page “joint appendix.” Alberti’s initial presentation of these pages was incredibly disingenuous. In her opening brief, she asserted these pages were the hard copies of the exhibits she filed with the district court on July 8 which it should have considered in ruling on Defendants’ motion for summary judgment. Defendants, however, notified us they had not consented to the inclusion of these pages in the “joint appendix” and these pages were not in fact part of the district court record. Rather, Defendants pointed out, these documents were the translations of Alberti’s Spanish exhibits and, while she filed her Spanish exhibits two hours after the court’s final extension to her had expired, she did not file these translations with the district court until November 23, 2011.2 In other words, she submitted these translations nearly (1) five months after her Opposition was due in full, (2) three months after the deadline she had requested to submit translations, and (3) two months after the district court had already entered judgment against her. When confronted with this information, Alberti changed her tune. She now argues instead that (1) the parties agreed these pages would be part of the joint appendix, and (2) these translations are properly part of the record because she did not file them as part of her opposition but rather as part of her motion for reconsideration. 2 Although Alberti did file the first part of her translations on November 2, 2011, she did not finish submitting translations until November 23. -17- We have already concluded the district court properly rejected Alberti’s tardy filings, thus we need say no more in response to the argument in Alberti’s opening brief that she timely and properly filed these documents. As to Alberti’s argument that Defendants consented to include these pages, we need not consider the e-mails with defense counsel that Alberti attaches as an appendix to her reply brief because she filed this brief five months after it was due and with no excuse. Fed. R.App. P. 31(a); see also Fresenius Med. Care Cardiovascular Res., Inc. v. Puerto Rico & Caribbean Cardiovascular Ctr. Corp., 322 F.3d 56, 60 n.2 (1st Cir. 2003). Even were we to consider these e-mails, however, they are ambiguous at best, proving only that Alberti dumped on defense counsel a massive amount of files and docket entries which she wished to include in the appendix. These e-mails do not show defense counsel consented to adding 1400 pages to the record that should not be there. Furthermore, Alberti acknowledged at oral argument that she simply dropped all of these documents off in two boxes at defense counsel’s office without explaining the contents, and then e-mailed defense counsel stating those would be the pages included in the “joint appendix.” This strikes us as yet another attempt by Alberti to subvert the rules of the court and to perpetuate the game of cat-and-mouse she began in the district court, and we will have none of it. -18- Finally, we reject Alberti’s argument that these documents are properly part of the record as part of her motion for reconsideration. “A motion for reconsideration ‘does not provide a vehicle for a party to undo its own procedural failures and it certainly does not allow a party to introduce new evidence or advance arguments that could and should have been presented to the district court prior to the judgment.’” Marks 3 Zet-Ernst Marks GmBh & Co. KG v. Presstek, Inc., 455 F.3d 7, 15–16 (1st Cir. 2006) (quoting Emmanuel v. Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters, Local Union No. 25, 426 F.3d 416, 422 (1st Cir.2005)). Yet this is precisely what Alberti attempted to do before the district court and now attempts before us. As such, we will not consider pages 1–1399 of the joint appendix except where it is abundantly clear the page referenced was filed with the district court on time and in English and was therefore properly a part of the district court record.