Chrysler Intern. Corp. v. Chemaly

• Decision Date: 01 February 2002
• Docket Number: No. 00-16087.,00-16087.
• Citation: 280 F.3d 1358
• Parties: CHRYSLER INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION, a Delaware corporation, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. John CHEMALY, individually, Michael Del Marmol, individually, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

280 F.3d 1358

CHRYSLER INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION, a Delaware corporation, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. John CHEMALY, individually, Michael Del Marmol, individually, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 00-16087.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

February 1, 2002.

Thomas Tallerico, Bodman, Longley & Dahling, Troy, MI, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Bonnie Joyce Losak-Jimenez, Hugo L. Black, Jr., P.A., Richard M. Bales, Jr., Bales & Sommers, Miami, FL, for Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Before EDMONDSON and CARNES, Circuit Judges, and MUSGRAVE^*, Judge.

EDMONDSON, Circuit Judge:

In the past, Appellant Chrysler International Corporation brought suit, in federal district court in Michigan, against Appellees John Chemaly, Michael del Marmol, and Cherokee Export Company ("CEC") over a dispute arising out of an automobile distribution contract. Chrysler, in the earlier case, obtained a judgment against CEC. The case now before us is a separate, follow-on suit. In this case, Chrysler sought to pierce the corporate veil and to hold Chemaly and del Marmol personally liable for the earlier judgment. The jury found in favor of Chemaly and del Marmol. Chrysler appeals, challenging the district court's rulings on admissibility of several pieces of evidence and challenging the court's rulings on the issue of laches. We affirm.

DISCUSSION

• Chrysler's Deposition in South Africa

Chrysler argues that the district court erred in issuing a protective order preventing it from deposing Archie Sinclair. Sinclair owned the company to which some of the automobiles involved in the Michigan litigation were sold. Del Marmol testified that Sinclair had not paid for the automobiles and that Sinclair claimed the automobiles were defective. Chrysler, on the other hand, claimed that Sinclair had always maintained that he had paid for the automobiles but that the funds had been diverted into Defendants' personal accounts.

Because Sinclair lived in South Africa, Chrysler asked the district court for a letter of request¹ to obtain Sinclair's testimony for use at trial:² what Chrysler calls a de bene esse deposition.³ The district court granted the request, but set a deadline for its taking: specifically warning the parties that "the pendency of [South Africa's] decision whether to execute the letter of request and the execution thereof" would not serve to extend the discovery deadline.

Chrysler moved for the letter of request on 4 January 2000, about fifteen months after filing this lawsuit. The motion was granted on 20 January. When the letter of request was issued by the district court, the discovery period was scheduled to end on 4 February. The trial was itself already set for 3 July. The district court later extended the discovery period several times: the final discovery deadline was 25 April. The South African authorities, however, did not execute the letter of request until 28 April and scheduled the deposition for 6 June: less than a month before the trial was then scheduled to begin (on 22 June, the district court — acting sua sponte — rescheduled the start of trial for October 2000).

Upon learning that the deposition had been scheduled outside of the 25 April discovery deadline, Defendants moved for a protective order to prevent Chrysler from taking the deposition. The district court granted the protective order. When Chrysler's motion for reconsideration was denied, Chrysler took the deposition anyway. But, when Chrysler sought to introduce the deposition testimony at trial, the district court would not allow it.

At the heart of this case is the authority of the district court to control the pace of litigation before it. At the outset, we stress the broad discretion district courts have in managing their cases. See Johnson v. Bd. of Regents of Univ. of Georgia, 263 F.3d 1234, 1269 (11th Cir. 2001) ("[W]e accord district courts broad discretion over the management of pretrial activities, including discovery and scheduling."). Given the caseload of most district courts and the fact that cases can sometimes stretch out over years, district courts must have discretion and authority to ensure that their cases move to a reasonably timely and orderly conclusion. Cf. Johnson Enterprises of Jacksonville, Inc. v. FPL Group, Inc., 162 F.3d 1290, 1333 (11th Cir.1998) ("We recognize the time pressures that the federal district courts face because of crowded dockets...."). This discretion is not wholly unfettered, see Chudasama v. Mazda Motor Corp., 123 F.3d 1353, 1367 (11th Cir.1997); but it is and must be broad.

Evidentiary rulings and the entry of a protective order are likewise subject to review for abuse of discretion. See Preserve Endangered Areas of Cobb's History, Inc. v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 87 F.3d 1242, 1245 (11th Cir.1996); Ad-Vantage Tel. Directory Consultants, Inc. v. GTE Directories Corp., 37 F.3d 1460, 1463 (11th Cir.1994). Chrysler argues that the district court abused its discretion in granting the protective order because—Chrysler says—a difference exists between a discovery deposition and a de bene esse deposition. Chrysler argues that discovery deadlines cannot apply to the latter.

Chrysler's reliance on Charles v. Wade, 665 F.2d 661 (5th Cir. Unit B 1982),⁴ is misplaced. Chrysler is correct that the Charles court saw an abuse of discretion in the trial court's denial of a request to take, after the discovery deadline, a deposition of testimony for use at trial. But the facts of Charles are materially different from this case.⁵ So, we are not being asked to follow Charles; we are being asked to extend Charles to different circumstances. In Charles, the reason given by the district court for denying permission to take the deposition was simply that the discovery period had closed. Id. at 664. Nothing in Charles suggests that the plaintiff delayed in setting the deposition of a known witness. Also, at no time before the discovery period had closed had the district court in Charles given any indication to the parties that it intended to treat all depositions — whether for discovery or for use at trial — in the same fashion for timing purposes. In addition, the potential deponent in Charles was an incarcerated prisoner in an immediately adjoining state, not — as here — a free businessman located on a different continent.

In this case, Chrysler did delay in acting — by moving for the letter of request more than a year after filing this lawsuit — to obtain the testimony of Sinclair in a form usable at trial. The trial date was set. And as the district court noted in its order granting the letter of request, Chrysler had known that Sinclair resided on a different continent and had known of the importance of Sinclair's testimony for some time: "as early as August 1999."⁶

Because the district court, before the discovery deadline expired, warned the parties that all depositions — including the potential South Africa deposition — would be subject to the discovery deadline, the issuance of the later protective order should have come as no real surprise to Chrysler. When the district court granted permission to Chrysler to take the deposition in South Africa, the district court had stated its intention to place a limit on the date by which the deposition could be taken. The initial order granting the letter of request stated that the pendency of the execution of the letter would not serve to extend the discovery deadline: a clear indication that the South African deposition would be barred if not taken before the time set for the end of discovery.⁷ Moreover, in the order (dated 17 March 2000) in which it granted its last extension of the discovery period, the district court explicitly warned the parties of the importance of the deadlines imposed by the court and noted that an appropriate sanction for violation of the discovery deadline would include "striking witnesses deposed or testimony obtained outside the discovery period." (emphasis added). This language is also a clear indication that the district court was treating the so-called de bene esse deposition as subject to the same deadline as all other depositions.

Chrysler on appeal does not argue that the district court abused its discretion in not again extending the discovery deadline. Instead, Chrysler asserts on appeal — as it did before the trial court in its motion opposing the protective order — that it was intrinsically a legal error to treat de bene esse depositions as subject to the discovery deadline. We cannot agree.

In allowing or disallowing a deposition to be taken for use at trial, it is appropriate that the district court consider all the circumstances, including fairness to the adverse party and the amount of time remaining before the date set for trial. The district court can set a definite time limit for the taking of the very deposition it is permitting to be taken. And the district court can make that time limit the same as the time limit for discovery depositions. Nothing about this approach to the setting of time limits is inherently unlawful.⁸ The only question is whether the specific time limits that are selected are themselves an abuse of discretion.

Given the circumstances in this case, we are unconvinced that the district court's discretion has been abused. At least when, as here, the district court — more than three months before the discovery deadline finally expired — has warned that all depositions will be subject to the same timing restrictions and when the district court has also determined that the party seeking to take a deposition for use at trial has unduly delayed in undertaking to obtain it, we cannot consider the grant of the protective order or the exclusion of the deposition at trial to have been an abuse of discretion.⁹

• Evidence of the Altered Bills of Lading

Chrysler also challenges the district court's granting of the...