Opinion ID: 798849
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Denying Conciliation

Text: Smith argues that failure to conciliate can be raised through motions, even when not raised with particularity in previously filed pleadings, and that the district court therefore erred by requiring Smith to have pleaded it specifically in its answer to the complaint. We review this legal question, stemming from a summary judgment ruling, de novo. [12] FED.R.CIV.P. 9(c) permits a plaintiff in its pleadings to aver generally that all conditions precedent have been satisfied, but it requires that when denying a condition precedent has occurred or been performed, a party must do so with particularity. This Court has held that conciliation is a condition precedent. [13] It would seem to follow, then, that Smith was required to raise failure to conciliate specifically in its answer. Because it did not, [14] the district court held, Smith was precluded from asserting it in a subsequent motion for summary judgment. To refute the district court's analysis, Smith points to a quotation from EEOC v. Klingler Electric Corp., stating that Klingler's motion to dismiss ... was sufficient to raise the [conciliation] issue. [15] Presumably, Smith is arguing that a motion to dismissand, by extension, any motionis appropriate for raising failure to conciliate even when the pleadings did not. That argument ignores that Klingler filed its motion to dismiss in lieu of an answer. [16] Unlike Smith, Klingler had not previously filed an answer that failed to raise the conciliation issue. Klingler is no succor for defendants who would use motions to deny conditions precedent after failing to do so with particularity in their answers. Smith also points to Moore's Federal Practice (Moore's), which infers from two cases that [d]enial of performance or occurrence of a condition precedent may... be made in a motion for summary judgment. [17] But neither of the courts cited by Moore's was faced with a summary judgment motion, [18] and in any event, they do not answer our ultimate question: whether a defendant can raise the absence of a condition precedent in a summary judgment motion if he first responded to the complaint with an answer that failed to raise it and was not amended to include it. Nevertheless, more recently, two Circuits have relied on the statement in Moore's to answer that question in the affirmative. In one of the cases, the only support cited besides Moore's is this Circuit's case, Klingler, which, as we explained, is no support at all. [19] The other case, which is unpublished, relies on the Seventh Circuit dicta cited in Moore's, which in turn relies on Klingler. [20] Thus, in neither case does the chain of citations and authorities lead to any substantive support for the proposition that those courts apply. [21] In fact, those Circuits had earlier expressed rules to the contrary, [22] as have other Circuits. [23] Smith shows us no reason that the district court erred in denying Smith's summary judgment motion as a long-shot attempt to cure a defect in its answer. Rule 9's scope, by its very title (Pleading Special Matters), is limited to pleadings. For special matters like conditions precedent, Rule 9's requirements dictate what must appear in certain pleadings. Here, the Rule requires that a party must deny the occurrence or performance of a condition precedent, with particularity, in the operative pleadings. It does so for several reasons of orderliness and efficiency. It is no surprise that there is no support in the text of Rule 9 or the relevant case law [24] for the proposition that the author of a deficient pleading should be afforded the disruptive opportunity at the summary judgment stage to explain for the first time why the case should not have proceeded in the first place. Moving for leave to amend the pleadings is the obvious and proper method for repairing pleadings that failed to raise such preliminary matters. The Rule's insistence upon leave of court for amendment is of a piece with the duties of management imposed upon district judges by Rule 26. In sum, the district court correctly held that, to deny that a nonjurisdictional condition precedent like conciliation had been performed, Smith was required to do so with particularity in its answer.