Court Opinion

ID: 9459151
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:11:54.964006+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:02.468668
License: Public Domain

SCHNACKE, District Judge
(concurring specially):
I concur in the conclusion that summary judgment was inappropriate in the situation as it stood when the court below ruled.
Provisions of the Federal Rules could have been invoked at earlier stages of the proceedings. Counsel for Moore had repeatedly failed to supply specifics pri- or to the trial, although repeatedly admonished to do so. Yet no sanctions for such failure were sought and none was imposed. The court contented itself with warnings and threats that were never carried out. Thus the trial commenced without pretrial presentation of the facts and issues and the court belatedly cast about for some appropriate form of meting out sanctions — hence the confusing remarks about just what the court was doing. None of the rulings proper at that stage fit the situation. It was too early to grant a directed verdict under Rule 50(a). or a Rule 41(b) dismissal, since plaintiffs had not completed their case. Summary judgment was out of time, it being the clear intendment of Rule 56 that it be invoked prior to the commencement of a trial — in fact it is a form of substitute for a trial.
I think it unnecessary to decide whether there has been any indication of plaintiffs’ ability to adduce proof sufficient to go to the trier of fact.
All I would hold is that the court’s justifiable vexation with the pretrial conduct of Moore’s counsel in repeatedly failing to define or bring forth proof of their contentions might have been dealt with by sanctions under Rule 37, but having let the case proceed to trial, the court could not make the summary disposition it attempted here.