Opinion ID: 676514
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: This duty is delegated by the principal or employer to the defendant.

Text: 18 3. The defendant officer, agent, or employee has breached this duty through personal (as contrasted with technical or vicarious) fault. The breach occurs when the defendant has failed to discharge the obligation with the degree of care required by ordinary prudence under the same or similar circumstances--whether such failure be due to malfeasance, misfeasance, or nonfeasance, including when the failure results from not acting upon actual knowledge of the risk to others as well as from a lack of ordinary care in discovering and avoiding such risk of harm which has resulted from the breach of the duty. 19 4. With regard to the personal (as contrasted with the technical or vicarious) fault, personal liability cannot be imposed upon the officer, agent, or employee simply because of his general administrative responsibility for performance of some function of the employment. He must have a personal duty towards the injured plaintiff, breach of which specifically has caused the plaintiff's damages. If the defendant's general responsibility has been delegated with due care to some responsible subordinate or subordinates, he is not himself personally at fault and liable for the negligent performance of this responsibility unless he personally knows or personally should know of its non-performance or mal-performance and has nevertheless failed to cure the risk of harm. 20 Id. at 721. 21 In claiming fraudulent joinder, Arcadian and Elsbury did not attempt to establish that no negligence whatsoever was involved in the plant explosion. Nor can Arcadian dispute that it had a duty to protect the general public from injuries resulting from the negligent operation of its plant. The district court ruled, and Arcadian does not dispute, that Arcadian would be liable as respondeat superior for the negligence of its employees. Looking to the state law criteria described in Canter, the liability of Elsbury based on his employment as plant manager turns on such factual issues as (1) whether Elsbury or others delegated with due care the responsibility of safe maintenance and operation of the urea reactor, 6 and (2) whether Elsbury was aware or should have been aware of a risk of harm and nevertheless failed to respond to the risk in the manner in which a reasonably prudent plant manager would respond in the same or similar circumstances. A supervisor's knowledge of the dangers present could give rise to the personal duty contemplated in Canter. Hayden v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 788 F.Supp. 285, 287 (E.D.La.1992). If the elements for imposing individual liability on the corporate employee are met, it does not matter that the corporation might also be liable. H.B. Buster Hughes, Inc. v. Bernard, 318 So.2d 9, 12 (La.1975). 2. Record to Be Reviewed 22 In reviewing the district court's ruling, we must first determine what evidence it should have considered. The evidence offered by the Ford plaintiffs in support of their motion to remand included expert affidavits and certain OSHA documents relating to the explosion, as well as excerpts from Elsbury's deposition. Appellees relied on Elsbury's affidavits and deposition testimony. This evidence was on file at the time the magistrate entered his report and recommendation, as well as when the district court entered its initial judgment and amended final judgment. After the entry of the amended judgment, the Ford Plaintiffs filed a document captioned Motion to Reurge Plaintiffs' Prior Motion for Leave to File Second Amending and Supplemental Complaint and Motion to Remand Because of Newly Discovered Evidence (motion to reurge). Submitted with the motion to reurge were five additional affidavits from Arcadian employees. The district court denied the motion. 23 The motion to reurge is best characterized as a motion to alter or amend judgment under FED.R.CIV.P. 59(e). We have held that a motion for reconsideration should be so treated, and see no reason to treat a motion to reurge differently. A motion for reconsideration filed within ten days of judgment is treated as a motion to alter or amend under Rule 59(e).... Rule 59(e) has been interpreted as covering motions to vacate judgments, not just motions to modify or amend. Edward H. Bohlin Co. v. Banning Co., 6 F.3d 350, 353, 355 (5th Cir.1993). 7 Here the motion to reurge was filed within 10 days of the amended judgment. 8 24 The motion to reurge asserted that the employee affidavits were newly discovered evidence. It did not attempt to show that with greater diligence the affidavits could not have been obtained earlier. However, a Rule 59(e) motion need not make such a showing: 25 Unlike Rule 60(b), Rule 59(e) does not set forth any specific grounds for relief. Nor can we discern any basis for engrafting the strict limitations of the former onto the latter. We conclude, therefore, that in order to reopen a case under Rule 59(e) on the basis of evidentiary materials that were not timely submitted, the mover need not first show that her default was the result of mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect or that the evidence is such as to show that the judgment was manifestly wrong. 26 Lavespere v. Niagara Mach. & Tool Works, Inc., 910 F.2d 167, 174 (5th Cir.1990), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 171, 126 L.Ed.2d 131 (1993). 27 The district court denied the motion to reurge and hence refused to consider the additional affidavits. 9 Of course, a district court must be allowed to enforce some limits on the timely submission of appropriate evidence. Bernhardt v. Richardson-Merrell, Inc., 892 F.2d 440, 444 (5th Cir.1990). In deciding whether to consider late-filed evidence, the district court must strike a proper balance between two competing interests: the need to bring litigation to an end and the need to render just decisions on the basis of all the facts. Lavespere, 910 F.2d at 174. 28 We conclude that the district court abused its discretion in refusing to consider the additional evidence proffered with plaintiffs' motion to reurge. Lavespere instructs that in striking the proper balance in these circumstances, the court should consider, among other things, (1) the reasons for the plaintiffs' default, (2) the importance of the evidence to the plaintiffs' case, (3) whether the evidence was available to plaintiffs before they responded to the summary judgment motion, and (4) the likelihood that the defendants will suffer unfair prejudice if the case is reopened. Id. 29 The first and third factors may weigh against plaintiffs, but we note that the motion to reurge was filed within the time for filing a motion to alter or amend judgment, and therefore plaintiffs were not required to make any particular showing of inadvertence or excusable neglect. Further, the circumstances here, as best we can glean from the record, cause us to question the extent to which plaintiffs were on notice that they were required to make an evidentiary showing in connection with the motion to remand. Only after plaintiffs filed their initial motion to remand, defendants filed their response, and both sides filed supplemental pleadings, did the magistrate recommend that the court sua sponte grant summary judgment in favor of the non-diverse defendants. The filing of a motion for summary judgment would have put plaintiffs on notice that they could not rely at all on their pleadings and were required to submit competent summary judgment evidence. Here, where no summary judgment motion was ever filed, the extent to which plaintiffs could rely on their pleadings was less clear. The court did instruct the parties to submit summary judgment-type evidence, but the decisions of our court are not crystal clear on this question. For example, although in some cases we state that parties may submit summary judgment-type evidence, 10 we have also indicated that the district court ordinarily should assume that all facts alleged in a plaintiff's state court petition are true. 11 We further note that in this case discovery was at an early stage and was beset by the usual share of discovery delays and squabbles. 30 The second factor weighs heavily in plaintiffs' favor, since the evidence offered with the motion to reurge, described further below, was highly relevant to the fraudulent joinder question. If considered it squarely contradicts the statements of Elsbury offered by defendants and establishes that plaintiffs have at least a possibility of establishing a state court cause of action against Elsbury. 31 The fourth factor--the likelihood that defendants will suffer unfair prejudice if the case is reopened--weighs in favor of plaintiffs because defendants could not have countered the evidence even if it had been timely presented. In other words, if plaintiffs had submitted the affidavits on time, a cause of action would have been at least possible regardless of defendants' evidence. 32 Considering all these circumstances we believe that the district court should have allowed the proffer of additional evidence.