Opinion ID: 204027
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Renewed Proceedings in the District Court

Text: In light of our decision, the district court re-opened the case on June 22, 2006. Approximately two months later, on August 30, 2006, the Municipality filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, arguing that plaintiffs failed to state a theory of political discrimination that, even with evidentiary support, would constitute a violation of said parties' First Amendment rights. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(c). Plaintiffs opposed the motion and asked the court to impose sanctions pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1927, because of defendants' unreasonable and vexatious multiplication of proceedings. [2] On December 1, 2006, the district court denied the Municipality's motion for judgment on the pleadings, noting our ruling in the first appeal that the complaint adequately pleaded a First Amendment retaliation claim. It also granted plaintiffs' motion for sanctions because we had already decided that defendants' arguments lacked merit. [3] Quoting our decision in Cruz v. Savage, 896 F.2d 626, 632 (1st Cir. 1990), it noted that [t]his is the type of multiplying of proceedings that § 1927 is designed to avoid.... Counsel for the Municipality acted `in disregard of whether his conduct constitute[d] harassment ... thus displaying a serious and studied disregard for the orderly process of justice.' The court went on to say: Filing a motion for judgment on the pleadings, based in arguments already rejected by a court of higher level is clearly vexatious conduct that disregards the orderly process of justice and must be sanctioned.... If the Municipality, or its Counsel, disagreed with the First Circuit's decision, it should have filed a [petition for] certiorari before the United States Supreme Court. [4] The district court ordered the defendants to pay $2,000 to the plaintiffs in satisfaction of excess costs, expenses, and attorneys' fees they reasonably incurred in relitigating an issues previously ruled on by a higher court.
On September 18, 2006, October 11, 2006, and January 9, 2007, plaintiffs moved to compel the production of requested discovery and for sanctions based on defendants' consistent failure to provide discovery, as well as their alleged failures to appear at scheduled depositions and to respond to a subpoena duces tecum. Defendants opposed the motions, arguing, inter alia, that they had not answered the discovery requests because they had objected to them. On April 19, 2007, the district court granted plaintiffs' motions to compel and denied their motions for sanctions. Because the response to plaintiffs' motions to compel depended on the merits of defendants' objections to the requests for discovery, the court painstakingly addressed each of defendants' objections. Before compelling the production of any of the objected-to materials, it explained why it disagreed with the defendants that the requested information was either irrelevant or privileged. In rejecting plaintiffs' request for sanctions, the court explained that it did not fault the defendants for refusing to produce the objected-to documents until the court had ruled on those objections. It did, however, admonish the defendants for not producing other documents to which it had not objected. It went on: We refuse ... to make an account here of each document requested and produced, and those which remain to be produced. Defendants are to make such an exercise and comply with this order by the time provided below.... Should counsel continue to have differences of this sort, the Court will schedule such a conference and will not hesitate to impose sanctions upon the party engaging in professional misconduct, or both parties if the Court finds both responsible.
Despite the district court's admonishment, defendants failed to respond to the discovery requests on time. Instead, approximately two weeks after the new deadline for the discovery responses, defendants, according to plaintiffs, delivered... a hodgepodge of documents, unnumbered, unidentified, and without any attempt to specify which document related to which request. Plaintiffs then asked the court to impose a default judgment as a sanction for defendants' failure to provide responsive discovery. On December 6, 2007, the district court granted that motion. Again, the court carefully explained its reasoning. It said that the defendants' failure to respond adequately was just the cherry on top of the sundae, in light of defendants' many other failures to abide by its orders. It described the troubled history of the discovery process in this case and how it had previously sternly warned defendants that it would issue sanctions for failure to comply with its April 19, 2007 order. The court also listed four separate orders it had issued during the course of the litigation warning defendants that it would issue sanctions if they failed to cooperate with discovery, and also cited its December 1, 2006 order imposing sanctions for defendants' vexatious and stubborn conduct.
A hearing on damages was set for March 24, 2008. On Easter Sunday, the eve of trial, the Municipality moved in the district court to set aside the default judgment, arguing that the recent decision of Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007), mandated that result. In fact, Twombly had been decided in May 2007 ten months before the Municipality's motion to set aside default and two months before the entry of default judgment. In their motion, defendants once again argued that the complaint did not state a claim for relief. This time, they added the new twist that under Twombly, plaintiffs' complaint would never have survived defendants' Rule 12(b)(6) motion. On March 24, 2008, the district court rejected the eleventh hour motion as both untimely and without merit. The court characterized the motion as a misnamed motion for reconsideration of the defendants' earlier motion for judgment on the pleadings, because it only argued the sufficiency of the pleadings and did not otherwise argue that the default was an abuse of discretion. The court stated that: [U]nder the more stringent Twombly standard, Plaintiffs still plead a cause of action. They argue that they were entitled to some payments under a contract with the Municipality and that the new Mayor, a member of the PDP, refused to pay them only because of Plaintiffs' association with the former Mayor, a member of the NPP. Citing our earlier decision in this case, the court remarked that said discrimination is exactly what the First Amendment is designed to protect, and therefore, [plaintiffs] have plead enough to show plausible entitlement to relief under the First Amendment. After the damages hearing, the court entered judgments of $180,000, plus pre- and post-judgment interest, for both Remexcel and Kortright. This appeal followed.