Court Opinion

ID: 9456697
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:00:25.910951+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:58.338208
License: Public Domain

Not for Publication in West's Federal Reporter

          United States Court of Appeals
                       For the First Circuit

No. 22-1350

                            KEVIN S. CLAPP,

                        Plaintiff, Appellant,

                                     v.

               TROOPER BRUCE TOBIN, ETC., ET AL.,

                       Defendants, Appellees.

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

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

                                  Before

                   Gelpí, Selya, and Montecalvo,
                          Circuit Judges.

     Robert C. Johnson, Jr., with whom Johnson & Associates was on
brief, for appellant.
     Brian Rogal, with whom Rogal & Donnellan, P.C. was on brief,
for appellee Tobin.
     Joseph G. Donnellan, with whom Rogal & Donnellan, P.C. was on
brief, for appellee Kearns.
     Lorena Galvez, with whom Joseph P. Kittredge and Rafanelli
Kittredge, P.C. were on brief, for appellee Brooks.
     Joseph P. Kittredge, with whom Lorena Galvez and Rafanelli
Kittredge, P.C. were on brief, for appellee Tully.
August 4, 2023
            SELYA, Circuit Judge.      Not every appeal produces a need

for a full-dress opinion.      Some appeals present only issues that

are either factbound or context-specific and involve nothing more

than the application of settled principles of law to particular

circumstances.     This is such a case.

            In the district court, plaintiff-appellant Kevin S.

Clapp    brought   suit   against   seventy-nine         defendants.    After

compendious   pretrial    proceedings,      the   herd    of   defendants   was

thinned out substantially to four.1          The district court presided

over the ensuing trial with care and circumspection, and the case

went to the jury against        the remaining       four defendants (all

Massachusetts state troopers).        The gravamen of the plaintiff's

amended complaint was the allegation that the troopers, jointly

and severally, had acted under color of state law so as to violate

the plaintiff's civil rights through, inter alia, the use of

excessive force.     See 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

            The jury found in favor of all of the defendants,

returning take-nothing verdicts.         The plaintiff did not move for

     1 The plaintiff has not appealed from any of the district
court's rulings regarding any of the other seventy-five
defendants.

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a new trial but, rather, filed this notice of appeal advancing

what he describes as seven separate claims of error.2

          We have reviewed the entire record and the parties'

briefs.   In addition, we have heard oral argument.    After careful

consideration, we conclude that the appeal presents no substantial

issue of law and that, therefore, summary disposition is in order.

We explain briefly.

          All of the plaintiff's claims of error implicate the

same standard of review:     abuse of discretion.     See, e.g., Ira

Green, Inc. v. Mil. Sales & Serv. Co., 775 F.3d 12, 18 (1st Cir.

2014) (rulings admitting or excluding evidence are reviewed for

abuse of discretion); Aponte-Torres v. Univ. of P.R., 445 F.3d 50,

58 (1st Cir. 2006) (ruling on motion to file amended complaint is

reviewed for abuse of discretion).     Abuse of discretion is by any

measure a deferential standard of review.      See United States v.

Padilla-Galarza, 990 F.3d 60, 80 (1st Cir. 2021).       As we noted

many years ago, "'[a]buse of discretion' is a phrase which sounds

worse than it really is."     Aggarwal v. Ponce Sch. of Med., 745

F.2d 723, 727 (1st Cir. 1984) (quoting In re Josephson, 218 F.2d

174, 182 (1st Cir. 1954)).

     2 Refined to bare essence, some of the plaintiff's claims of
error overlap, that is, they hinge on the same evidentiary
predicate.

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             Here, the challenged rulings, without exception, rest on

well-established precedent.        See, e.g., Palmer v. Champion Mortg.,

465 F.3d 24, 30-31 (1st Cir. 2006) (motion to amend may be denied

on grounds of undue delay); United States v. Marrero-Ortiz, 160

F.3d 768, 775 (1st Cir. 1998) ("[A] district court has discretion

to exclude from evidence acquittals or other favorable outcomes of

prior    state     court   proceedings       involving   the   same    subject

matter.").        Moreover, the district court's interpretation and

application of these authorities were both sound and within the

compass of its discretion.         Given the unexceptional nature of the

district court's rulings, it would serve no useful purpose to

recite book and verse.

             We need go no further.           For aught that appears, the

plaintiff had a fair trial before an impartial jury, presided over

even-handedly by a conscientious judge.           And he has had a full and

fair opportunity to air his claims of error before this court.              We

have found those claims wanting:         they are context-specific, they

implicate    no    new   legal   principles,    and   the   district   court's

challenged rulings must be viewed, on appeal, through a deferential

glass.   Thus, we readily conclude that the plaintiff has failed to

identify any abuse of the district court's wide discretion, and we

summarily affirm the judgment below.

Affirmed.     See 1st Cir. R. 27.0(c).

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