Opinion ID: 1041239
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Motion for a Continuance Under FRCP 56(d)

Text: When we review the district court’s denial of Castro’s motion for a continuance for abuse of discretion,2 we conclude that the court did indeed abuse its discretion. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(d),3 “[i]f a nonmovant shows by affidavit or declaration that, for specified reasons, it cannot present facts essential to justify its opposition, the court may: (1) defer considering the motion or deny it; (2) allow time to obtain affidavits or declarations or to take discovery; or (3) issue any other appropriate order.” A motion for a continuance under Rule 56(d) is “broadly favored and should be liberally granted.”4 Indeed, when “the party opposing the summary judgment informs the court that its diligent efforts to obtain evidence from the moving party have been unsuccessful, 1 Castro does not challenge on appeal the district court’s conclusion that he had failed to assert a retaliation claim. 2 See Fontenot v. Upjohn Co., 780 F.2d 1190, 1193 (5th Cir. 1986). 3 The provisions in what is now Rule 56(d) were moved, without any substantial change, from 56(f) in 2010 when Rule 56 was rewritten. See 10B CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT & ARTHUR R. MILLER, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 2740 (3d ed. 2013) (hereinafter WRIGHT & MILLER). 4 Culwell v. City of Fort Worth, 468 F.3d 868, 871 (5th Cir. 2006). 4 Case: 12-20584 Document: 00512377950 Page: 5 Date Filed: 09/18/2013 No. 12-20584 ‘a continuance of a motion for summary judgment for purposes of discovery should be granted almost as a matter of course.”’5 But “the moving party must demonstrate how the requested discovery pertains to the summary judgment motion and must have diligently pursued the relevant discovery.”6 The district court did not give any reasons for denying Castro’s continuance, noting only that if he had appeared at the conference, his technical difficulties could have been addressed. Although a party’s failure diligently to pursue discovery may warrant denial of a motion for a continuance,7 there is no evidence indicating that Castro was dilatory in this instance. It was he who requested a conference to create a discovery plan, and it was TDCJ that had asked the court to continue the conference the first time. The purpose of the conference was to create a discovery plan, only after which might formal discovery begin.8 Instead, ostensibly as punishment for his counsel’s unexcused absence, the court not only denied Castro an opportunity for additional discovery, but also denied him an opportunity to review the limited information that the court had already ordered produced and which had been provided by TDCJ but only in an inaccessible format. Castro did not “occasion[] his own 5 Int’l Shortstop, Inc. v. Rally’s, Inc., 939 F.2d 1257, 1267 (5th Cir. 1991) (quoting Sames v. Gable, 732 F.2d 49, 51 (5th Cir. 1984)). 6 Silver Dream, L.L.C. v. 3MC, Inc., 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 5297,  (5th Cir. Mar. 18, 2013) (citing Wichita Falls Office Assoc. v. Banc One Corp., 978 F.2d 915, 919 (5th Cir. 1992); see also Enplanar, Inc. v. Marsh, 11 F.3d 1284, 1292 (5th Cir. 1994) (noting that opposing party does “not need to know the precise content of the requested discovery, but [must] give the district court some idea of how the sought-after discovery might reasonably be supposed to create a factual dispute”). 7 See Baker v. Am. Airlines, Inc., 430 F.3d 750, 756 (5th Cir. 2005); Wichita Falls Office Assoc., 978 F.2d at 919. 8 See WRIGHT & MILLER § 2046.1 (noting that under FEDERAL RULE OF CIVIL PROCEDURE 26(d), “no formal discovery may be undertaken until the parties have conferred pursuant to Rule 26(f) and discussed a discovery plan”). 5 Case: 12-20584 Document: 00512377950 Page: 6 Date Filed: 09/18/2013 No. 12-20584 predicament through sloth[,]”9 and the court’s indignation following the missed conference is not sufficient cause for blindsiding Castro with such an aggressive timetable for responding to a dispositive motion. Finally, a party seeking a continuance under Rule 56(d) typically must explain how the desired discovery could give rise to a genuine issue of material fact; such party “may not simply rely on vague assertions that additional discovery will produce needed, but unspecified, facts in opposition to summary judgment.”10 With his timely opposition to summary judgment, Castro submitted an affidavit in which he stressed that he had received no discovery other than preliminary disclosures.11 In his earlier motion for a continuance, Castro had explained that, although he had received TDCJ’s court-ordered disclosures on April 23, he had been unable to inspect the contents of the encrypted disc, despite his follow-up attempts to obtain a working password from TDCJ. Castro needed this encrypted information to rebut TDCJ’s assertions of non-discriminatory reasons for his demotion. The court had to have recognized this need; otherwise it would not have ordered the disclosures in the first place. Thus, although Castro did not explain in his affidavit exactly what he hoped to obtain from this discovery to help him demonstrate the presence of a fact issue and thus defeat summary judgment, we will not rigidly interpret this requirement, inasmuch as Castro had received no discovery in an accessible format as of the time of the court’s order. Our deference to the district court’s decision to deny Castro’s motion for a continuance “is limited by our presumption that such motions should be 9 Wichita Falls Office Assoc., 978 F.2d at 919. 10 Access Telecomm., Inc. v. MCI Telecomms. Corp., 197 F.3d 694, 720 (5th Cir. 1999). 11 Cf. Ashton-Tate Corp. v. Ross, 916 F.2d 516, 520 (9th Cir. 1990) (noting that “implication and logic require that a [motion for a continuance] be made prior to the summary judgment hearing.”); WRIGHT & MILLER § 2719. 6 Case: 12-20584 Document: 00512377950 Page: 7 Date Filed: 09/18/2013 No. 12-20584 liberally granted.”12 And here, the court’s abject refusal to permit Castro any time for discovery, or even to explain its reasons for denying the requested continuance, convinces us that the court abused its discretion.