Opinion ID: 558155
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Coats & Clark's and the District Court's Approach

Text: 14 This court is in a difficult position because of the way this case has been approached by both Coats & Clark, as the moving party, and the district court. The district court never discussed whether Coats & Clark met its burden as the moving party on summary judgment. The opinion discusses only what burden the plaintiffs had and why they did not meet it. We can surmise that the court believed Celotex changed the general rule so that under current summary judgment law whoever has the burden at trial (the plaintiffs here) has the burden on summary judgment. 8 As we have pointed out, that is not the law. 15 On appeal, Coats & Clark's brief states, in attempting to withstand summary judgment, not only does the non-moving party have the burden of proving the existence of every element essential to his or her case, but the non-moving party must produce sufficiently probative evidence upon which a jury could reasonably find in its favor. Brief of Appellee at 15. The brief cites Celotex and Anderson for this erroneous proposition. In arguing the ERISA claim, Coats & Clark's brief discusses only what the plaintiffs have not shown, instead of what Coats & Clark has shown. See, e.g., Brief of Appellee at 17 (plaintiffs have failed to raise material facts sufficient to create an inference that defendant acted with the specific intent to violate their right to pension benefits). 16 This court must answer the question whether there is a genuine issue of material fact so that summary judgment is inappropriate. To answer that question, we must decide if Coats & Clark met its initial burden on summary judgment. Unfortunately, the district court never determined whether Coats & Clark met its burden, and Coats & Clark's appellate brief does not address the question. This means that if we address the question we must do so in the first instance. 17 It is the general rule, of course, that a federal appellate court does not consider an issue not passed upon below. Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U.S. 106, 120, 96 S.Ct. 2868, 2877, 49 L.Ed.2d 826 (1976). An appellate court does, however, review summary judgment decisions de novo, Akins v. Snow, 922 F.2d 1558, 1560 (11th Cir.1991); Tackitt v. Prudential Ins. Co., 758 F.2d 1572, 1574 (11th Cir.1985), and we may in our discretion resolve questions not addressed by the district court. Singleton, 428 U.S. at 120, 96 S.Ct. at 2877; Fox v. Kelso, 911 F.2d 563, 569 (11th Cir.1990); Ross v. Kemp, 785 F.2d 1467, 1474-75 n. 15 (11th Cir.1986). In this case, we elect not to exercise our discretion to address in the first instance the question whether Coats & Clark has met its initial Rule 56 burden. To do so would require us to discharge the movant's Rule 56 responsibility of searching the record and identifying material in support of its motion. The record spans three volumes, contains 94 documents and is over 1100 pages long. We believe that in this case that task is best done at the district court level. 9