Wojnar v. Bauermeister, 94-2256

• Decision Date: 24 April 1995
• Docket Number: No. 94-2256,94-2256
• Citation: 52 F.3d 309
• Parties: NOTICE: First Circuit Local Rule 36.2(b)6 states unpublished opinions may be cited only in related cases. Edward K. WOJNAR, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. Dr. Martin J. BAUERMEISTER, et al., Defendants, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 309

52 F.3d 309 NOTICE: First Circuit Local Rule 36.2(b)6 states unpublished opinions may be cited only in related cases.

Edward K. WOJNAR, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. Dr. Martin J. BAUERMEISTER, et al., Defendants, Appellees.

No. 94-2256.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

April 24, 1995.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island [Hon. Ernest C. Torres, U.S. District Judge ]

Edward P. Manning, Jr. on brief for appellant.

David W. Carroll and Roberts, Carroll, Feldstein & Peirce on brief for appellee.

D.R.I.

AFFIRMED.

Before TORRUELLA, Chief Judge, SELYA and STAHL, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM.

Appellant Edward K. Wojnar sued appellee Dr. Martin Bauermeister for injuries Wojnar allegedly sustained during the time he was held at the Rhode Island Adult Correctional Institutions. After a trial, the jury found for Dr. Bauermeister. Wojnar appeals a ruling by the trial court (Torres, J.) which granted Dr. Bauermeister's motion in limine to exclude evidence relating to a claim for medical negligence or medical malpractice. Dr. Bauermeister had asserted, and the district court agreed, that such evidence was inadmissable because Wojnar's amended complaint did not state a claim for negligence. Rather, the court found, the complaint charged Dr. Bauermeister with deliberate indifference to Wojnar's medical needs in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Wojnar makes three arguments on appeal.

1. Wojnar argues that Judge Torres' ruling directly contradicted an earlier order by a magistrate judge. This order denied Wojnar's motion to file a second amended complaint. ¹ According to Wojnar, the magistrate judge ruled that a second amended complaint was unnecessary because the amended complaint already stated a claim for negligence.

Judge Torres, however, determined that although the magistrate judge's order was ambiguous, the more reasonable interpretation was that the magistrate judge had denied the motion to amend because Dr. Bauermeister would have been prejudiced. Such a finding made sense, Judge Torres concluded, only if the magistrate judge had read the second amended complaint as setting forth a new theory for relief.

We agree. Wojnar ignores the magistrate judge's emphasis on the fact that Wojnar waited to file the motion to amend until the close of discovery. The magistrate judge relied on this "undue delay" to find that Dr. Bauermeister would have been prejudiced if Wojnar were allowed to file amended pleadings with "more substantial or different claims." Given the equivocal language in the magistrate judge's order, we cannot say that Judge Torres' reading of it was an abuse of discretion. See Independent Oil & Chem. Workers v. Procter & Gamble Mfg. Co., 864 F.2d 927, 929 (1st Cir. 1988) (abuse of discretion occurs when the district court "makes a serious mistake" in evaluating the factors relative to a decision).

Wojnar further argues that Judge Torres ignored the magistrate judge's recommendation, made in the same order, that Dr. Bauermeister's Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss the amended complaint be denied. Wojnar avers that the magistrate judge based this suggestion on the view that Wojnar's supplemental answers to Dr. Bauermeister's interrogatories put the latter on notice that the amended complaint stated a claim for malpractice.

Wojnar misconstrues this ruling. It appears that the magistrate judge was addressing a different motion, one based on the allegation that Wojnar had failed to file sufficiently detailed answers to Dr. Bauermeister's interrogatories. Dr. Bauermeister filed this motion under Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(b)(2)(C), not Rule 12(b)(6). The magistrate judge determined that Wojnar's supplemental answers (filed after the Rule 37 motion) "provide[d] substantially more detail" than the original answers and that a dismissal under Rule 37 was not warranted. He did not, as Wojnar avers, make any finding concerning the sufficiency of these answers as they related to a claim for negligence.

Wojnar makes a similar argument in regard to the order's denial of Dr. Bauermeister's motion for a protective order. Dr. Bauermeister had requested that the date for his responses to Wojnar's interrogatories be postponed until after Wojnar filed a complaint adequately setting forth the nature of Wojnar's claims against him. The magistrate judge stated that in recommending the denial of the Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, "I have in essence stated my opinion that the amended complaint adequately gives fair notice of the claim against defendant." Again, there is nothing in this language to suggest that the magistrate judge was addressing the question whether the amended...