Court Opinion

ID: 9384754
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-04 21:00:33.93908+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:56.277289
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                      For the First Circuit

No. 22-1153

                    SALVATORE MIRABELLA, JR.,

                      Plaintiff, Appellant,

                                v.

  TOWN OF LEXINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS; MARK CORR, FORMER CHIEF OF
                            POLICE,

                      Defendants, Appellees.

          APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
               FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

        [Hon. Allison D. Burroughs, U.S. District Judge]

                              Before

                       Barron, Chief Judge,
                 Selya and Lipez, Circuit Judges.

     Ronald W. Dunbar, Jr., with whom Dunbar Law P.C. was on brief,
for appellant.
     Gareth W. Notis, with whom Francesca L. Cone and Morrison
Mahoney LLP were on brief, for appellees.

                          April 4, 2023
           SELYA, Circuit Judge.     This appeal arises out of a suit

filed by plaintiff-appellant Salvatore Mirabella, Jr., a former

police officer, against the town of Lexington, Massachusetts (the

Town) and its retired chief of police, Mark Corr.               Mirabella

contends   that   the   defendants   denied   him   due   process   in   the

termination proceedings that ended his affiliation with the Town's

police department and that they intentionally interfered with his

efforts to gain employment elsewhere.         The district court entered

summary judgment for the defendants on all of Mirabella's claims.

See Mirabella v. Town of Lexington, No. 19-12439, 2022 WL 464188,

at *1 (D. Mass. Feb. 15, 2022).          It is from this order that

Mirabella now appeals.

           We need not tarry.    "We have explained before that when

a 'trial court correctly takes the measure of a case and authors

a convincing decision, it rarely will serve any useful purpose for

a reviewing court to wax longiloquent' merely to hear its own words

resonate."   Potvin v. Speedway LLC, 891 F.3d 410, 414 (1st Cir.

2018) (quoting Eaton v. Penn-Am. Ins. Co., 626 F.3d 113, 114 (1st

Cir. 2010)); accord Seaco Ins. Co. v. Davis-Irish, 300 F.3d 84, 86

(1st Cir. 2002); Ayala v. Union de Tronquistas de P.R., 74 F.3d

344, 345 (1st Cir. 1996).     This is such a case.        Consequently, we

affirm the judgment below for substantially the reasons explicated

in the district court's cogent rescript, adding only two comments

directed to Judge Lipez's dissenting opinion.

                                 - 2 -
              First.   Our dissenting colleague maintains that the

summary judgment record reveals a genuine dispute of material fact

as to whether the reason stated by the Bentley Police Department

(BPD)   for    refusing   to   hire   Mirabella   was   pretextual.    In   a

nutshell, our dissenting colleague insists that a reasonable jury

could find that BPD did not deny Mirabella employment because he

prevented BPD investigators from completing a required component

of their background check (as BPD has stated) but, rather, denied

him employment because BPD wanted no part of him after it learned

that he was a "union agitator."         See post at 14.    And because Corr

was the person who told BPD of these union proclivities, the

dissent's thesis runs, a reasonable jury also could find that

Corr's comments harmed Mirabella's employment prospects.                 For

these reasons, our dissenting colleague concludes that there is a

triable issue of fact regarding Mirabella's claim of intentional

interference with advantageous relations (IIAR).            This "pretext"

issue is doubly waived:        it was neither advanced by Mirabella in

the district court nor meaningfully developed               by him    in his

briefing in this court.         See McCoy v. Mass. Inst. of Tech., 950

F.2d 13, 22 (1st Cir. 1991) (explaining that "theories not raised

squarely in the district court cannot be surfaced for the first

time on appeal"); United States v. Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 17 (1st

Cir. 1990) (explaining that "issues adverted to in a perfunctory

                                      - 3 -
manner [on appeal], unaccompanied by some effort at developed

argumentation, are deemed waived").

            Our dissenting colleague suggests that there was no

waiver because the relevant components of the argument can be found

at   various   points   throughout     Mirabella's    opening      brief   (and

throughout his presentations in the district court).               See post at

11 n.3.   This suggestion is unpersuasive.          Appellate adjudication

is not a scavenger hunt, and a party cannot rely upon an appellate

court to rummage through the record and weave isolated facts into

a coherent theory.      See Zannino, 895 F.2d at 17.         For purposes of

preservation, it is not sufficient that either Mirabella's brief

or the district court record (or both, for that matter) contain

scattered   references    to   the   facts   from    which   our   dissenting

colleague has cobbled together the "pretext" theory that he now

introduces.    To hold otherwise would be to flout both the "bedrock

principle that appellate arguments must be presented face-up and

squarely," Moses v. Mele, 711 F.3d 213, 217 (1st Cir. 2013), and

the corollary principle that arguments made in the district court

must be presented in an equally forthright manner, see Iverson v.

City of Boston, 452 F.3d 94, 102 (1st Cir. 2006).

            The short of it is that Mirabella himself has made no

effort to explain — either below or on appeal — how his rendition

of the factual record demonstrates a basis for believing that BPD's

stated reason for not hiring him was pretextual.             It follows that

                                     - 4 -
he has doubly waived the issue, and we respectfully decline our

dissenting colleague's implicit invitation that we do his work for

him.

           Second.   In all events, Mirabella has not shown that the

summary judgment record contains "definite, competent evidence,"

Mesnick v. Gen. Elec. Co., 950 F.2d 816, 822 (1st Cir. 1991), from

which a reasonable jury could find that BPD's stated reason for

denying him employment was pretextual. The only competent evidence

directly addressing BPD's decision not to hire Mirabella is the

department's statement documenting the fact that Mirabella's "lack

of cooperation" had prevented investigators from "completing a

full home visit."     In light of the incomplete home visit, BPD

concluded that Mirabella "ha[d] disqualified himself from further

consideration" for employment.     That conclusion was relayed to

Mirabella in an email, in which BPD informed Mirabella of its

decision to "discontinue[]" the background investigation.

           Faced with this uncontroverted evidence, our dissenting

colleague points to the fact that, during the course of BPD's

background check, Corr told a BPD investigator that Mirabella had

expressed an intent to "stir things up" were he to be hired by

BPD.   Our dissenting colleague then suggests — without citation to

any record evidence — that a series of inferences can be drawn:

that BPD would have been generally reluctant to hire someone who

had expressed a desire to engage in union activities; that BPD

                                - 5 -
thus determined that it was not going to hire Mirabella; that

because BPD did not want to openly admit its real reason, it needed

to make up a facially plausible alternative story; and that such

a story line dropped into its lap when — weeks later — Mirabella

refused to allow BPD investigators full access to his home.           See

post at 14-15.   Simply describing this tortured chain of reasoning

vividly illustrates that it stacks "inference upon inference" in

a way that fails to show a genuine issue of material fact.           Gomez

v. Stop & Shop Supermarket Co., 670 F.3d 395, 398 (1st Cir. 2012).

That reasoning relies more on speculation and surmise than on

plausible parallel inferences drawn from competent evidence.          And

it is an uncontroversial proposition that "conjecture cannot take

the place of proof in the summary judgment calculus."        Bennett v.

Saint-Gobain Corp., 507 F.3d 23, 31 (1st Cir. 2007); see Zingg v.

Groblewski, 907 F.3d 630, 634 (1st Cir. 2018) (explaining that

"improbable   inferences[]    and    unsupported   speculation"    cannot

"establish a genuine dispute of fact" sufficient to withstand

summary judgment motion (quoting Ocasio-Hernández v.              Fortuño-

Burset, 777 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 2015))).        Although "we must draw

all reasonable inferences in [Mirabella's] favor at the summary

judgment   stage,"   Alston     v.     International   Association     of

Firefighters, Local 950, 998 F.3d 11, 31 (1st Cir. 2021), we are

not required to draw "unreasonable" inferences, Cabán Hernández v.

                                    - 6 -
Philip Morris USA, Inc., 486 F.3d 1, 8 (1st Cir. 2007) (emphasis

in original).

            We need go no further.   We affirm the judgment below for

essentially    the   reasons   elucidated   in   the   district   court's

rescript.

Affirmed.

                     —Dissenting Opinion Follows—

                                 - 7 -
              LIPEZ, Circuit Judge, dissenting.               Like my colleagues,

I   believe    that   the    district       court    correctly      granted   summary

judgment on most of the claims asserted by Salvatore Mirabella,

Jr.   in   this    case.     We     part    ways    only   regarding    Mirabella's

contention that Mark Corr, the former Chief of Police for the Town

of Lexington, intentionally interfered with Mirabella's ability to

gain employment with the Bentley Police Department ("BPD").

              Indeed, the dispute here concerns only one of the four

elements      of   that    claim.      To    prove    that    Corr    intentionally

interfered     with   his    job     application      to     BPD,    Mirabella   must

establish, among other elements, that he "was harmed by [Corr's]

actions."1     Katz v. Belveron Real Est. Partners, LLC, 28 F.4th 300,

313 (1st Cir. 2022).        The district court determined that Mirabella

could not survive Corr's motion for summary judgment based solely

on this element of the tort, and my colleagues uphold the court's

determination that Mirabella has not generated a genuine dispute

      1In Massachusetts, a plaintiff can succeed on a claim of
intentional interference with advantageous business relations if:
      1) he or she has a contractual or advantageous
      relationship with another, 2) the defendant knowingly
      induced a breach of that contract or relationship, 3)
      the defendant's interference, in addition to being
      intentional, was improper in "motive" or "means" and 4)
      the plaintiff was harmed by the defendant's actions.
Katz v. Belveron Real Est. Partners, LLC, 28 F.4th 300, 313 (1st
Cir. 2022); see Blackstone v. Cashman, 860 N.E.2d 7, 12-13 (Mass.
2007).

                                        - 8 -
of material fact on the issue of whether Corr "harmed" Mirabella's

employment prospects with BPD.         The majority, however, fails to

acknowledge   the   ample   evidence    in   the   record   that    supports

Mirabella's argument.

          In reviewing a grant of summary judgment, we ask if there

is a genuine dispute of material fact for a jury to consider.            See

Lahens v. AT&T Mobility P.R., Inc., 28 F.4th 325, 333 (1st Cir.

2022).   A genuine issue of material fact exists when a reasonable

jury, presented with competing facts, could resolve the issue in

favor of the non-moving party.     See Zingg v. Groblewski, 907 F.3d

630, 634 (1st Cir. 2018).       Thus, a non-movant can successfully

overcome a summary judgment motion by "present[ing] definite,

competent evidence" establishing a factual dispute.                Murray v.

Kindred Nursing Ctrs. W. LLC, 789 F.3d 20, 25 (1st Cir. 2015).

          In this case, Mirabella's allegations rely heavily on

circumstantial evidence concerning the impact of Corr's conduct on

Mirabella's employment prospects.       But the "circumstantial" label

in no way circumscribes the force of Mirabella's evidence. Indeed,

trial courts routinely instruct juries about the types of evidence

they can consider in resolving a factual dispute.              Here is a

familiar instruction:

          "Direct evidence" is direct proof of a fact,
          such as testimony by a witness about what the
          witness said or heard or did. "Circumstantial
          evidence" is proof of one or more facts from

                                 - 9 -
               which you could find another fact.            You should
               consider both kinds of evidence.

3 Fed. Jury Prac. & Instr. § 101:42 (6th ed. Supp. Feb. 2023).

Critically, jury instructions routinely emphasize that "[t]he law

makes no distinction between the weight to be given to either

direct or circumstantial evidence."               Id.   That is, direct evidence

is no more valuable than circumstantial evidence.                   The trial judge

will       often   supplement   the    above   by   guiding    the    jury   on   the

permissible use of circumstantial evidence:

               [A]ny inference on which you rely in reaching
               your decision must meet two requirements.
               First, you may draw the inference for a
               conclusion only from facts that have been
               proved to you. Second, any inference that you
               use must be reasonable and natural, based on
               your common sense and experience in life.

General Instructions, Massachusetts Superior Court Civil Practice

Jury Instructions, Vol. I-1.

               Respectfully, I suggest that my colleagues have failed

to appreciate how a reasonable jury could consider and credit the

circumstantial         evidence       Mirabella     offers     to     support     his

intentional interference claim.            Indeed, Mirabella's assertion of

pretext would be compelling if the jurors believed his explanation

for BPD's incomplete home visit -- a credibility determination

that is for them to make, not us.2                To emphasize the majority's

       To assist jurors in their factfinding role, trial judges
       2

typically will instruct them on how to evaluate a witness's
credibility:

                                        - 10 -
error, I offer a closing argument that Mirabella's attorney might

make       to   the   jury   on   the   causation   prong   of   his   intentional

interference claim against Corr, drawing solely on facts in the

record.3

                You may believe everything a witness says,
                part of it, or none of it. In considering the
                testimony of any witness, you may take into
                account many factors, including the witness'
                opportunity and ability to see or hear or know
                the things the witness testified about; the
                quality of the witness' memory; . . . other
                evidence that may have contradicted the
                witness' testimony; and the reasonableness of
                the witness' testimony in light of all the
                evidence.

       3 Fed. Jury Prac. & Instr. § 101:43.
       My colleagues assert that Mirabella has waived his argument
       3

that BPD's stated reason for not hiring him was pretextual and
that Corr's comments provide the true reason behind BPD's decision.
While I acknowledge that Mirabella did not develop his position as
fully as he could have, a fair reading of the record demonstrates
that the pretext claim was adequately raised in both the district
court and on appeal.
     In his deposition, which is part of the summary judgment
record, Mirabella testified that BPD's stated reason for not hiring
him -- his refusal to allow BPD officers to undertake a home visit
-- was fabricated. He stated that, in fact, he told the officers
he could not complete the visit that day because his children were
home. Mirabella claimed that BPD, using the incomplete home visit
as a pretext, did not hire him because Corr had told BPD officers
Mirabella was a union sympathizer and so would be disruptive. The
district court understood that Mirabella was making a pretext
claim.   In rejecting that claim, the court stated: "[a]lthough
Plaintiff proffers that he did not comply [with the home visit]
because his children were present in his home at the time, this
does not change the fact that BPD's own stated reason for not
hiring him was his own lack of cooperation." Mirabella v. Town of
Lexington, No. 19-CV-12439-ADB, 2022 WL 464188, at *10 (D. Mass.
Feb. 15, 2022).

                                         - 11 -
                               ***

              Members of the jury. The question before
         you today is whether Chief Corr's comments to
         BPD   officers   about   my  client's   union
         sympathies harmed my client's employment
         prospects. Corr would have you believe that
         BPD's written report on Mirabella's job
         application resolves this question simply
         because   it   states   that  Mirabella   was
         disqualified for refusing to cooperate with a
         home visit to check that his firearms were
         safely stored. But this statement is only one
         side of the argument.

              My client insists that BPD's stated
         reason for not hiring him is a pretext. The
         real reason, he says, was Corr's disclosure to
         BPD officers that Mirabella would "stir things
         up" if hired because of his union experience.
         We have presented ample evidence from which
         you can, and should, conclude that BPD's
         stated reason was indeed a pretext. Do not
         fall into the trap of doubting Mirabella and
         the reasonable inferences you draw from the
         evidence simply because of BPD's report.
         Remember, the judge has instructed you that
         these reasonable inferences are every bit as
         good as the document from BPD.

              Consider the following:

              1. My client testified that he explained
         to the officers why he could not complete the
         home visit when they appeared, without advance
         notice, at his door. His children were home

     Mirabella reprised his pretext argument on appeal. In his
brief, he contends that BPD's stated reason for not hiring him is
false, outlines his own competing account of the home visit, and
argues that Corr's "fabricat[ed] stories about Mirabella's desire
to unionize [BPD]" are, in fact, the "real reason" for BPD's
decision. See Appellant Br. at 22-23. Mirabella's allegation of
pretext was sufficiently stated for the district court to
understand his claim, and it is likewise sufficiently stated in
his appellate brief to deserve consideration on the merits.

                             - 12 -
from school and he did not want them to see
either his guns or the location of his guns.

     So why does BPD make no reference to
Mirabella's explanation in its report on the
background investigation and home visit? Why
does BPD's report instead give a wholly
different   account   of   the   home   visit,
attributing words to my client that he denies
ever saying?      BPD's report states that
Mirabella refused to let officers inspect the
second floor of his home, telling them "you're
not going up there . . . that's just how I
operate. . . . If this costs me the job, so be
it." Mirabella says he never said anything of
the sort. Think about it for a moment. Do
those statements sound like something a job
applicant would say after going through the
trouble of trying to secure a job? We have
two competing narratives here, and it is your
role to determine which one is true.

     If you do not believe the testimony of my
client then his case is over. It is as simple
as that. But you have heard the judge tell
you how to evaluate the credibility of witness
testimony. If you apply those instructions,
I suggest that you will conclude that
Mirabella's account is both credible and
perfectly reasonable. Who among you would not
want to shield your children from firearms?
And if you believe Mirabella, you are entitled
to draw the inference that BPD had a reason
for not wanting to acknowledge Mirabella's
reasonable explanation for not completing the
home visit.

     2. The question for you then becomes what
is that reason -- why would BPD not
acknowledge   Mirabella's   explanation,   but
instead create a false narrative of the home
visit to justify not hiring him, otherwise
known as a pretext?      There is compelling
circumstantial   evidence   to   answer   that
question. Consider how events unfolded with
respect to Mirabella's application to BPD.

                   - 13 -
     On February 6, 2018, two BPD officers
visited the Lexington Police Department to
speak with Corr about Mirabella's application.
During this conversation, Corr indisputably
made a damaging disclosure about Mirabella's
union sympathies.     Corr testified that he
spoke with a BPD background officer about
Mirabella's union activities, telling the
officer that "[Mirabella] was going to use his
union experience to go [to BPD] and improve
the contract and improve all the benefits, and
he was going to stir things up a bit." This
comment cannot be viewed as anything but
damaging to Mirabella's candidacy -- who would
want to hire a troublemaker?     Corr himself
even recognized that he was making a sensitive
disclosure at the time he made it.          He
volunteered the information about Mirabella's
union activities only after inquiring into the
BPD officers' union status and asking the
unionized officer to leave the room.

     Critically, the sensitivity with which
Corr treated his disclosure about Mirabella's
union troublemaking reflects an indisputable
inference grounded in experience and common
sense -- police departments are cautious about
union-related activity and are careful about
how they handle union members. As you know
from your own life experiences, union activity
can be a divisive issue in workplaces and
unions can cause headaches for employers. So
ask yourselves: would BPD want to state on
Mirabella's background investigation report
that they chose not to hire him because of his
union activity? Surely not.

     By the end of the conversation with Corr,
then, BPD had a problem: officers had heard
that Mirabella was a union agitator, they did
not want to hire him because of this
information, but they could not reveal that
they rejected his candidacy on that basis.
They needed a pretext.    And they got one a
month later when they visited Mirabella at
home.

                   - 14 -
               3. On March 8, 2018, two BPD officers
          attempted to complete a visit of Mirabella's
          home to inspect his firearms. As you know,
          Mirabella says he did not want them to
          complete the inspection because his children
          were home.   BPD's inability to complete the
          home visit therefore became lucky for them.
          They attributed to Mirabella implausible
          statements about why he would not allow the
          inspection, and the incomplete inspection
          provided BPD with a reason to reject
          Mirabella's candidacy without mentioning his
          union activities.

               In summary, putting all of this together,
          we have credible evidence in Mirabella's
          testimony, along with reasonable inferences,
          that lead to one common-sense conclusion:
          BPD's stated reason for not hiring Mirabella
          was a pretext, and the real reason was Corr's
          indisputably    damaging   disclosure    about
          Mirabella's union activities. Therefore, you
          should find that Corr's statements harmed my
          client's employment prospects with BPD.

                                  ***

          Could the jury reject this argument?        Sure.   I am not

suggesting   that   Mirabella's    position    is   necessarily   more

persuasive than the competing evidence offered by Corr.       But it is

important to recognize that there is competing evidence, and it is

a jury's role to resolve the material factual dispute this evidence

generates.   In disregarding the circumstantial evidence supporting

Mirabella's pretext claim, my colleagues in fact draw inferences

in favor of the moving party, Corr, by taking BPD's stated reason

for not hiring Mirabella at face value.       They are wrong to do so.

Because the majority opinion disregards a genuine issue of material

                               - 15 -
fact and the role of juries in resolving such a dispute, I

respectfully dissent.

                          - 16 -