Court Opinion

ID: 9477004
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:10:57.622788+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:37.791729
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing
PER CURIAM.
Upadhya’s petition for rehearing calls to our attention an oddity in the transcript of the trial. He cited and relied on pages 56 and 60 of a transcript of July 20,1987. We read the transcript and found only arguments of counsel at those pages. It turns out that the court reporter produced two different sets of page numbers for the same transcript. The transcript for July 20 in the record on appeal contains two volumes, paginated 1-49 and 1-180. The July 20 transcript furnished to counsel for Upadhya contains three volumes, each starting at page 1. Pages 56 and 60 in the transcript in Upadhya’s possession turn out to be pages 171 and 175 of the transcript in the record.
Why the court reporter produced different paginations of the same testimony— why, indeed, there should be at least two sets of pages 1-49 in both versions of the transcript — is a mystery to us. This is not a practice to be emulated, and we trust that the district judge will ensure that it is not repeated. The transcript of a trial should be paginated sequentially from beginning to end; even a new set of numbers starting at 1 each day has the potential to cause confusion. Multiple volumes of a single day’s testimony each starting at 1, and different pagination in different editions of the same testimony, are bound to cause problems, as here they did. The confusion hindered our review. We file this supplemental order to provide the full review and explanation to which Upadhya is entitled.
We found and discussed, supra at 665, the testimony at page 60 (our 175) on which Upadhya relied — though we did not know it was the passage to which he had referred. We also found but did not discuss the passage at page 56 (our 171) on which Upadh-ya relied. The petition for rehearing quotes his testimony describing a promise by Wu, the department head:
“Well, for assistant professor, you get five years to bring research money.”
Upadhya insists that this is the missing unequivocal promise. But the full exchange given in the transcript is:
Q. All right. Was there any further discussion that you had with Dr. Wu during this meeting that you can recall?
A. The second I think then he told, “Well, for assistant professor, you get five years to bring research money.” Or —no. He told, “Before we consider you for tenure and for associate professor, we will consider you after two years.”
The full answer is rather different from the extract on which counsel relies. Upadhya takes back the five year figure and substitutes a two year period. This is why, though we had reviewed this transcript fully, we did not highlight this response as particularly favorable to Upadh-ya’s cause.
At all events, even the redacted version favored by Upadhya’s counsel does not carry the day. As our opinion observes, supra at 666, such a remark does not distinguish between the minimum guarantee and the maximum time available to Upadhya to make his case. Moreover, Wu did not have the authority under the University’s Statutes to promise more than two years as a guarantee. As Upadhya repeatedly emphasizes, he had actual authority to make an offer of employment. He did not have the authority to make an extended offer; under the Statutes (quoted supra at 663), only the President of the University and its Board of Trustees had such authority. The passage at page 56 (our 171) of Upadhya’s testimony therefore does not alter our conclusion that he lacked a property interest in employment beyond two years.
The petition for rehearing is denied.