Court Opinion

ID: 9554194
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-08 00:00:30.558885+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:23:19.858030
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-20489          Document: 00516848308               Page: 1      Date Filed: 08/07/2023

              United States Court of Appeals
                   for the Fifth Circuit
                                                                                     United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                              Fifth Circuit

                                       ____________                                         FILED
                                                                                         August 7, 2023
                                        No. 22-20489                                     Lyle W. Cayce
                                       ____________                                           Clerk

   Carmen Ruiz,

                                                                        Plaintiff—Appellant,

                                               versus

   Fiesta Mart, L.L.C.,

                                                 Defendant—Appellee.
                       ______________________________

                      Appeal from the United States District Court
                          for the Southern District of Texas
                               USDC No. 4:21-CV-3301
                      ______________________________

   Before Duncan and Wilson, Circuit Judges, and Schroeder, District
   Judge. ∗
   Per Curiam: †
          This slip-and-fall litigation never got off the ground. The district
   court refused to allow the plaintiff to conduct sufficient discovery and then
   granted summary judgment to the defendant. This follows a pattern from
   this particular district court. E.g., Bailey v. KS Mgmt. Serv., L.L.C., 35 F.4th

          _____________________
          ∗
              District Judge of the Eastern District of Texas, sitting by designation.
          †
              This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 22-20489     Document: 00516848308          Page: 2    Date Filed: 08/07/2023

                                   No. 22-20489

   397 (5th Cir. 2022) (per curiam) (district court abused its discretion in
   denying discovery); Miller v. Sam Houston State Univ., 986 F.3d 880 (5th Cir.
   2021) (same); McCoy v. Energy XXI GOM, L.L.C., 695 F. App’x 750 (5th Cir.
   2017) (per curiam) (same). Again, we direct the district court to allow the
   litigants to conduct adequate discovery before entering summary judgment.
   We vacate the court’s summary judgment and remand.
                                         I.
          On March 31, 2020, Carmen Ruiz was shopping in a Fiesta Mart in
   Houston, Texas. While there, Ruiz slipped and fell in a puddle of water by a
   large freezer. In falling, Ruiz cut the back of her heel on a piece of metal
   hanging from the freezer.
          There was video surveillance of the store at the time Ruiz was injured,
   but Fiesta Mart never retrieved or viewed the video footage. The parties
   dispute the origin of the water on the floor. Ruiz contends that the freezer
   leaked more than half a gallon of water. Fiesta Mart contends that “no
   evidence was ever presented that the water on which she alleges she slipped
   was from a freezer,” but Fiesta Mart offers no other explanation for the
   puddle.
          In September 2021, Ruiz sued Fiesta Mart in state court in Harris
   County, Texas, for premises liability, negligence, and gross negligence.
   Fiesta Mart then removed the case to federal district court based on diversity
   jurisdiction.
          Immediately following removal, the district court entered a “Notice
   in a Removed or Transferred Case.” The notice directed the parties that
   “[n]o interrogatories, requests for admission, or depositions may be set
   without court approval.” The notice further warned that “[f]ailure to
   comply with [the] order may result in sanctions, including dismissal of the
   action, assessment of expenses, and prolonged tirades of this court.” The

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   district court then entered an “Order Setting Conference,” during which the
   district court would “decide motions, narrow issues, inquire about and
   resolve expected motions, and schedule discovery.”
           Prior to the conference, the parties submitted a “Joint
   Discovery/Case Management Plan,” and Ruiz represented that she intended
   to propound interrogatories and take depositions. But at the conference, the
   district court stated that Ruiz would only be allowed to discover a diagram of
   the store, the user’s manual for the freezer, and bills related to the freezer’s
   maintenance. 1 The court’s directives at the conference were memorialized
   in a November 2021 “Order to Disclose,” which directed the parties to
   provide specific documents that the court deemed relevant and gave Fiesta
   Mart leave to depose Ruiz. The order did not grant Ruiz leave to take any
   depositions or propound any discovery requests.
           In January 2022, Ruiz sought leave to take the deposition of Fiesta
   Mart’s corporate representative. The district court granted this request and
   later granted Ruiz’s request to depose Fiesta Mart’s fact witness, Frederico
   Rodriguez. Following the deposition of Fiesta Mart’s representative, Ruiz
   requested leave to subpoena maintenance records from a third party
   identified by the corporate representative. Fiesta Mart opposed this request.
   The district court ultimately denied Ruiz’s request to subpoena documents
   and stated that “issuing subpoenas to the third-party companies would be
   unnecessary and an inefficient use of resources.”
           In May 2022, Ruiz again requested permission to subpoena third-
   party documents and asserted that the deposition of Rodriguez, who worked
   as the store assistant manager, underscored the need to obtain repair and

           _____________________
           1
             Counsel for Ruiz noted repeatedly during the conference that this district court
   historically allowed him to discover only the diagram of the store in premises liability cases.

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   maintenance records for the plumbing and freezers in the store. The district
   court directed Fiesta Mart to produce all repair and maintenance records for
   the store, but denied the subpoena request, stating that “[t]his court has
   already ruled that subpoenas to the third-party companies [are] inefficient, a
   waste of resources, and needlessly increase[] the cost of this lawsuit.” By the
   end of this truncated discovery process, Ruiz was never allowed to propound
   any written discovery, never allowed to subpoena third-party documents, and
   only granted permission to take two depositions.
          Fiesta Mart moved for summary judgment in July 2022. Following
   briefing from both parties, the district court granted Fiesta Mart’s motion.
   The district court’s memorandum opinion discounted Ruiz’s testimony that
   the freezer was leaking as “self-serving testimony” that failed to create a
   genuine dispute of fact. The court also stated that
          Ruiz spend[s] most of her response yelling generalized legal
          principles rather than responding to the motion itself. Her goal
          is to show a genuine dispute of material fact, not present a law
          review article on slip-and-fall theories. . . . If Ruiz would have
          spent time arguing the facts rather than pontificating, her
          response would have been more persuasive.
   The district court concluded that Ruiz had not provided evidence that the
   freezer was leaking or that Fiesta Mart had notice of the water or the jagged
   metal that injured her foot. The court entered judgment in favor of Fiesta
   Mart and dismissed the case.
          Ruiz timely appealed.
                                         II.
          “We review a district court’s decision to cut off discovery in order to
   rule on summary judgment for an abuse of discretion.” Brown v. Miss. Valley
   State Univ., 311 F.3d 328, 332–33 (5th Cir. 2002). “[W]hen a party is not
   given a full and fair opportunity to discover information essential to its

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                                      No. 22-20489

   opposition to summary judgment, the limitation on discovery is reversible
   error.” Id. at 333 (quoting Access Telecom, Inc. v. MCI Telecomm. Corp., 197
   F.3d 694, 720 (5th Cir. 1999)). “Summary judgment is only appropriate ‘as
   long as the plaintiff has had a full opportunity to conduct discovery.’” McCoy, 695
   F. App’x 758–59 (quoting Brown, 311 F.3d at 333).
                                          III.
          In most cases, parties may “obtain discovery regarding any
   nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and
   proportional to the needs of the case.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). District
   courts are afforded wide discretion in handling discovery matters, but they
   must also “adhere to the liberal spirit of the Rules.” Coughlin v. Lee, 946
   F.2d 1152, 1159 (5th Cir. 1991) (quoting Burns v. Thiokol Chem. Corp., 483
   F.2d 300, 305 (5th Cir. 1973)). And while the Federal Rules of Civil
   Procedure grant district courts the power to limit discovery, the rules start
   with the presumption that parties will at least be given an opportunity to
   conduct discovery. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2) (enumerating instances
   in which district court may limit frequency or extent of discovery).
          Here, Ruiz’s discovery efforts were “suffocated” by the district
   court’s overly restrictive discovery orders. Miller, 986 F.3d at 892. Ruiz was
   never allowed to propound basic written discovery, and her repeated requests
   to subpoena third-party records were likewise rebuffed by the district court.
   Fiesta Mart contends that none of this was erroneous because “the evidence
   Ruiz sought would not have aided in her attempt to avoid summary
   judgment.” But such an argument is entirely speculative, as Ruiz was never
   given a full and fair opportunity to develop her claims.
          At the end of the day, Ruiz still may be unable to overcome summary
   judgment. We forecast no predictions on that score. But it was reversible
   error for the district court to grant summary judgment in Fiesta Mart’s favor

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   without allowing Ruiz to obtain evidence that bears on her ability to do so.
   See McCoy, 695 F. App’x at 759 (“[R]efusing to allow [plaintiff] to conduct
   sufficient discovery in this case to support the allegations he has fairly
   raised . . . [is] reversible [error] on its own.”). Summary judgment was, if
   nothing else, premature because the district court’s discovery restrictions
   stunted Ruiz’s ability to adduce a complete record—either substantiating a
   material fact dispute, or, quite possibly, showing there is not one. 2
           We have repeatedly admonished the district court for its undue
   discovery restrictions. It is beyond peradventure that the parties should be
   allowed to conduct fulsome discovery as to their claims and defenses, in
   accordance with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, before the district
   court considers whether to enter summary judgment. Because the court
   abused its discretion in restricting Ruiz’s ability to do so, the district court’s
   summary judgment is vacated, and this case is remanded for further
   proceedings consistent with this opinion.
                                                   VACATED and REMANDED.

           _____________________
           2
             We need not address the gamut of the parties’ summary judgment arguments
   because we reverse based on the district court’s discovery restrictions. But we note that
   the district court should refrain from making credibility determinations at the summary
   judgment stage, such as discounting Ruiz’s testimony as “self-serving” and “inadequate.”
   See Seigler v. Wal-Mart Stores Tex., L.L.C., 30 F.4th 472, 476 (5th Cir. 2022) (“On
   summary judgment, all facts and reasonable inferences are construed in favor of the
   nonmovant, and the court should not weigh evidence or make credibility findings.”).

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