Amnesty America v. Town of West Hartford
| Decision Date | 17 April 2002 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 01-7686. |
| Citation | 288 F.3d 467 |
| Parties | AMNESTY AMERICA, suing in its representative capacity o/b/o arrestee victims of officially sanctioned, intentional and malicious physical brutality and excessive force to coerce the involuntary service of walking as arrestees and pre-trial detainees by police officers of the Town of West Hartford, CT on April 1, 1989 and June 17, 1989, Plaintiff, William E. Waugh, Suzanne C. Verdi, R.N., Harry M. Ong, Eleanor Brady, arrestees and pre-trial detainees, suing o/b/o themselves & others similarly situated and Edward Dombroski, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. TOWN OF WEST HARTFORD, Defendant-Appellee, Robert McCue, Chief of Police, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
John R. Williams, Williams & Pattis, LLC, New Haven, CT, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.
Marcia J. Gleeson, Sack, Spector & Karsten, LLP, West Hartford, CT, for Defendant-Appellee.
Before: WALKER, Chief Judge, F.I. PARKER, and SOTOMAYOR, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiffs-appellants ("plaintiffs") appeal from a decision of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Dorsey, J.), granting summary judgment to defendant-appellee Town of West Hartford ("Town") on the plaintiffs' 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988 action. Plaintiffs submitted papers in opposition to the motion for summary judgment. Although plaintiffs alleged the existence of disputed issues of material fact, they did not provide citations to the supporting evidence. The district court refused to review the evidence proffered by plaintiffs and dismissed the case. We hold that a district court may not grant summary judgment on the ground that the opposition papers did not contain record citations unless the nonmovants have been previously put on notice, through a local rule or otherwise, that such citations are required.
Plaintiffs are abortion protestors who were arrested for their participation in two demonstrations that took place in 1989 at the Summit Women's Center ("the Center"), an abortion clinic located in West Hartford, Connecticut. The demonstrators, who had blocked access to the Center, were charged with trespass, interfering with an officer, burglary, and criminal mischief. Because plaintiffs refused to cooperate with the arresting officers, going limp upon arrest, the officers used force to remove them physically from the building and surrounding area.
Plaintiffs allege that the police used unreasonable and excessive force during their arrests pursuant to a de facto municipal policy. Specifically, plaintiffs contend that they were deliberately beaten, kicked, or rammed into objects by the police officers who carried them out of the Center. Plaintiffs further allege that Chief of Police Robert McCue, the official in charge of setting law enforcement policy, was present at the scene of the arrests, that the Town had known in advance of the demonstrations and prepared its officers for them, and that the Town refused to investigate complaints of excessive force made after the first demonstration.
In September 2000, the Town moved for summary judgment. The Town proffered a Statement of Undisputed Facts in accordance with the District of Connecticut's Local Rule 9(c), which at the time provided in pertinent part:
1. There shall be annexed to a motion for summary judgment a document entitled "Local Rule 9(c)1 Statement," which sets forth in separately numbered paragraphs a concise statement of each material fact as to which the moving party contends there is no genuine issue to be tried. All material facts set forth in said statement will be deemed admitted unless controverted by the statement required to be served by the opposing party in accordance with Rule 9(c)2.
2. The papers opposing a motion for summary judgment shall include a document entitled "Local Rule 9(c)2 Statement," which states in separately numbered paragraphs corresponding to the paragraphs contained in the moving party's Local Rule 9(c)1 Statement whether each of the facts asserted by the moving party is admitted or denied. The Local Rule 9(c)2 Statement must also include in a separate section a list of each issue of material fact as to which it is contended there is a genuine issue to be tried.
3. The statements referred to above shall be in addition to the material required by these Local Rules and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
D. Conn. Local R. 9(c) (2000). Attached to the Town's Rule 9(c)1 Statement were five exhibits, including an affidavit from the chief of police in which he denied that excessive force had been used. The Town's Rule 9(c)1 Statement did not cite to this exhibit, however, and in fact made only one specific reference to a single document — a sheet of instructions given to the demonstrators explaining how to respond in the event of an arrest.
In response, plaintiffs tendered a Memorandum in Opposition to Motion for Summary Judgment ("Opposition Memorandum") accompanied by a Rule 9(c)2 Statement of Undisputed Facts and 500 pages of supporting evidence. The Opposition Memorandum and Rule 9(c)2 Statement pointed to certain facts that the plaintiffs claimed were in dispute and material, and referred generally to evidence in the record that allegedly supported this contention, but did not cite to the record to show where these documents could be found.
The district court, justifiably frustrated with the plaintiffs' submissions, refused to conduct an independent review of the record in order to find supporting proof:
Plaintiffs have submitted hundreds of pages of exhibits. Their Memorandum in Opposition occasionally mentions that something has been attached as an exhibit, but never cites to a particular exhibit. Rather, plaintiffs seem to expect the Court to search through voluminous pages and surmise which portions of which exhibits support which claim. This exercise is one that the Court refrains from doing as it is plaintiffs' obligation to demonstrate that there is a genuine issue of material fact.
Amnesty Am. v. Town of W. Hartford, Civ. No. 2:92cv214, at 5 n.1 . The district court did not give plaintiffs notice that specific record citations were required, nor did the district court give the plaintiffs an opportunity to remedy their omission. Rather, on May 15, 2001, the district court simply rendered its decision without considering any evidence offered by plaintiffs, except for a letter specifically referenced in the Opposition Memorandum. This appeal followed.
Summary judgment may be granted when "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). A party opposing a properly brought motion for summary judgment bears the burden of going beyond the pleadings, and "designat[ing] `specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.'" Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 324, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986) (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e)).
Effective November 1, 2001, the Local Rules for the District of Connecticut were amended to dictate that "[e]ach statement of material fact in a Local Rule 9(c) Statement by a movant or opponent must be followed by a citation to (1) the affidavit of a witness competent to testify as to the facts at trial and/or (2) evidence that would be admissible at trial." D. Conn. Local R. 9(c)3 (2001). At the time the district court granted the Town's motion for summary judgment, however, the Local Rules contained no such requirement. See ante at 469. The issues we are faced with, then, are whether in the absence of an applicable local rule a district court may refuse to conduct an independent review of the documents submitted in opposition to a motion for summary judgment, and under what conditions a district court may dismiss a complaint on the ground that the opposition papers do not cite specifically to the places in the record where the relevant evidence is located.
We agree with those circuits that have held that Fed.R.Civ.P. 56 does not impose an obligation on a district court to perform an independent review of the record to find proof of a factual dispute. See Carmen v. San Francisco Unified Sch. Dist., 237 F.3d 1026, 1030-31 (9th Cir. 2001) (); Guarino v. Brookfield Township Trs., 980 F.2d 399, 405-06 (6th Cir.1992) ( ); Nissho-Iwai Am. Corp. v. Kline, 845 F.2d 1300, 1307 (5th Cir.1988) (). But see Stepanischen v. Merchs. Despatch Trans. Corp., 722 F.2d 922, 931 (1st Cir.1983) (). Furthermore, because nothing in the federal...
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