Opinion ID: 200447
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Number of Shares.

Text: 36 We now reach the plaintiff's final assignment of error: his objection to the district court's calculation that, at the time of his ouster, he had a vested interest in options for only 25,002 shares. See Cochran, 2002 WL 1998248 at , , 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16204, at , . 37 We begin by summarizing what the record reveals. The defendant originally granted the plaintiff options for 60,000 shares. On November 30, 1999, a three-for-two stock split increased that number to 90,000. On March 23, 2000, options for 27,500 shares were rescinded, reducing the plaintiff's total to 62,500-a fact that was clearly indicated on the statement furnished to the plaintiff and which he signed on March 27, 2000. On March 31, 2000, Quest stock split two-for-one, doubling the plaintiff's holdings so that he held options for 125,000 shares. The next day, options for 25,002 shares vested. 38 The district court found that the record was clear as to these facts. The plaintiff's attack on that conclusion and on the resultant calculation has taken a variety of inconsistent forms. None has merit. 39 At the summary judgment stage, the plaintiff asserted that options for 45,000 shares had vested before his ouster. He arrived at this figure on the theory that he had options for 180,000 shares and that twenty-five percent of them had vested on April 1, 2000. As to this assertion, two observations suffice. For one thing, the plaintiff did not then hold options for 180,000 shares; that rodomontade ignores the partial rescission. For another thing, twenty-five percent initial vesting is neither referred to in any documentary exhibit nor borne out by any other probative evidence. The plaintiff's claim is, therefore, groundless. 40 After the district court rejected this initiative, the plaintiff shifted gears. In his motion for reconsideration, Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(e), he maintained for the first time that the option statements sent to him by the plan administrator showed that options for 30,502 shares had vested on April 1, 2000. The district court summarily rejected this new initiative. 41 Litigation is not a game of hopscotch. It is generally accepted that a party may not, on a motion for reconsideration, advance a new argument that could (and should) have been presented prior to the district court's original ruling. E.g., DiMarco-Zappa v. Cabanillas, 238 F.3d 25, 33 (1st Cir.2001); Aybar v. Crispin-Reyes, 118 F.3d 10, 16 (1st Cir.1997). This principle has deep prudential roots. Litigants normally must frame the issues in a case before the trial court rules. After that point, a litigant should not be allowed to switch from theory to theory like a bee in search of honey. Against this backdrop, the district court scarcely can be said to have abused its discretion in refusing to reconsider its decision based on the plaintiff's newly raised argument. 42 In all events, the conclusory assertion that the plaintiff was shortchanged by some 5,500 shares is belied by the record. Prior to the partial rescission, the plaintiff had options for 90,000 shares. After the partial rescission, the plaintiff had options for 62,500 shares. In accordance with the standard vesting schedule and the parties' agreements, twenty percent of these options (i.e., options for 12,500 shares) were due to vest on April 1, 2000. The two-for-one stock split, effective on March 31, doubled both of these numbers, giving the plaintiff options for 125,000 shares, of which 25,000 were due to vest the following day. 43 Although that arithmetic seems irrefutable, the plaintiff nevertheless tries to refute it. His challenge takes two paths. First, he extracts a figure from the plan administrator's November 30, 1999 statement (which showed that options for 18,000 shares were due to vest on April 1, 2000) and a figure from the March 23, 2000 statement (which showed that options for 12,500 shares were due to vest on April 1, 2000). He then adds the excerpted figures together to arrive at a total of 30,500 shares. This is voodoo mathematics: adding the 18,000 shares that were set to vest before either the partial rescission or the later stock split took effect to the 12,500 shares that were set to vest after the rescission had occurred matches two numbers that were never meant to be aggregated. The result is meaningless. 44 Alternatively, the plaintiff claims that after the two-for-one stock split, he had options for 180,000 shares, so that under the vesting formula options for 30,500 shares should have become irrevocable on April 1, 2000 (logically, the figure should be 36,000, but the plaintiff blithely ignores this discrepancy). This argument misconceives the effect of the partial rescission, which took effect before the stock split, not afterwards. The argument is, therefore, meritless. 45 On appeal, the plaintiff presses what could be regarded either as a variation on his second theory or as a third theory. In this court, he attempts to reinvent the chronology of events, suggesting that the two-for-one stock split occurred prior to the partial rescission of his stock options (and that, therefore, the partial rescission of 27,500 shares left him with options for 152,500 shares, of which twenty percent — 30,500 shares — were vested at the time of his dismissal). No matter how we view it, this suggestion is deeply flawed. 46 In the first place, it is a virtually ironclad rule that a party may not advance for the first time on appeal either a new argument or an old argument that depends on a new factual predicate. E.g., United States v. Bongiorno, 110 F.3d 132, 133 (1st Cir.1997); Teamsters Union Local No. 59 v. Superline Transp. Co., 953 F.2d 17, 21 (1st Cir.1992); Clauson v. Smith, 823 F.2d 660, 666 (1st Cir.1987). The record here contains no basis for a departure from this settled practice, and we see no reason to treat with a neoteric theory that was not seasonably advanced below. 47 Even if we were disposed to reach it, the plaintiff's new argument as to the timing of the stock split has no footing in the record. The supposed fact on which it hinges — the sequence of events — was never asserted before the district court. To the contrary, the defendant filed a statement of undisputed material facts in support of its motion for summary judgment in which it stated that the two-for-one stock split occurred on March 31, 2000 (a few days after the plaintiff had acknowledged the effectiveness of the partial rescission). Under the applicable local rule, it was incumbent on the plaintiff to include in his opposition to the defendant's motion a concise statement of the material facts of record as to which it is contended that there exists a genuine issue to be tried. D. Mass. R. 56.1. Here, however, the plaintiff chose not to contest the date of the stock split, and the local rule provides that material facts of record set forth in the statement required to be served by the moving party will be deemed for purposes of the motion to be admitted by opposing parties unless controverted by the statement required to be served by opposing parties. Id. Accordingly, the stock split date is deemed admitted. See Carreiro v. Rhodes Gill & Co., 68 F.3d 1443, 1446 n. 3 (1st Cir.1995); FDIC v. Anchor Props., Inc., 13 F.3d 27, 31 (1st Cir.1994). This admission places the sequence of events exactly as the district court determined it to be (and, thus, defenestrates the plaintiff's belatedly proffered theory).