Court Opinion

ID: 9486658
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:55:20.877718+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:51.245194
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join the judgment of the court. I also join that part of the opinion that addresses the merits of the case. I write separately to elaborate on why I believe that we ought to discharge the rule to show cause issued by the motions panel to the plaintiffs attorney.
The motions panel granted two successive motions to strike the brief of the appellant on the ground that it referred to depositions that were not part of the appellate record. It appears that reference was made to those depositions in the district court but that, as permitted by local rule, those depositions were not actually filed with the court. Before submitting his original brief on appeal, counsel had filed a motion asking that the district court supplement the record on appeal by adding those depositions. The motion was denied; days later, a similar motion was presented to this court and denied. When counsel nevertheless referred to this material in his brief, the brief was stricken and counsel was required to pay the additional expenses incurred by the opposing party *170in conforming its briefs to those later filed by the appellant in response to the court’s directive.
Counsel does not ask that we revisit the decisions of the motions panel and, although I see no inequity in not revisiting them on our own motion, I am doubtful as to the correctness of those decisions. It is indeed ambiguous whether, when a local rule does not require the filing of a deposition to ensure its consideration in the disposition of a motion, it is necessary to include the text of that deposition in the record on appeal in order for this court to consider it.1 The leading authority on this issue is Henn v. National Geographic Society, 819 F.2d 824, 831 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 964, 108 S.Ct. 454, 98 L.Ed.2d 394 (1987). It simply requires that only depositions that have been filed before the court, or to which the district court’s attention has been invited, be considered as parts of the record on appeal. A deposition to which the district court’s attention has been drawn but has not been filed pursuant to a local rule would appear to fall within the ambit of Henn’s holding.
Unfortunately, neither the motion to supplement the record before the district court nor the motion before this court adequately apprised the courts that counsel was simply asking that the depositions be part of the appellate record on the ground that reference had been made to them in the district court pursuant to the local rule.2 While a motion to supplement the record appears to have been unnecessary, the ambiguity of the motion did misfocus the court’s attention.
This miscommunication is hardly a basis for further disciplinary action. At the very least, the matter ought to be taken no further. Clarification of the rules to ensure that the holding of Hewn is not misinterpreted by court or counsel is certainly indicated.

. Indeed our Circuit Rule 10 provides that depositions will not be included in the record "unless specifically requested by a party by item and date of filing within ten days after the notice of appeal is filed or unless specifically ordered by this court[.]”

. Counsel appears to have first informed the motions panel of his reliance on local practice in his answer to the motion to strike the amended brief. The court addressed the matter as follows:
The amended brief contains still more references to depositions that are not part of the record on appeal, as indeed they were not part of the record in the district court. The explanation given in the response to the latest motion to strike is that similar references were contained in plaintiff's papers filed in the district court, so that now plaintiff is referring not to the depositions, which are not in the record, but to the earlier references, which are. That one has referred to extra-record materials in the past is no excuse for doing it again. Otherwise one could smuggle any extra-record material into the record by the simple expedient of referring to it twice. Our order was clear. One who wishes to use depositions must get them into the record. Appellant did not. The references are improper.