Grimes v. Dist. of Columbia

• Decision Date: 21 July 2015
• Docket Number: No. 13–7038.,13–7038.
• Citation: 794 F.3d 83
• Parties: Patricia GRIMES, as the Next Best Friend and Personal Representative of the Estate of Karl Grimes, Appellant v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

794 F.3d 83

Patricia GRIMES, as the Next Best Friend and Personal Representative of the Estate of Karl Grimes, Appellant

v.DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Appellee.

No. 13–7038.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued Sept. 16, 2014.

Decided July 21, 2015.

Gregory L. Lattimer argued the cause and filed the briefs for appellant.

Mary L. Wilson, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, argued the cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Irvin B. Nathan, Attorney General, Todd S. Kim, Solicitor General, and Donna M. Murasky, Deputy Solicitor General, at the time the brief was filed. Loren L. AliKhan, Deputy Solicitor General, Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, entered an appearance.

Before: GRIFFITH and PILLARD, Circuit Judges, and EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD.

Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH.

PILLARD, Circuit Judge:

Juvenile Detainee Karl Grimes allegedly was beaten to death in November 2005, at the District of Columbia's Oak Hill Juvenile Detention Facility. His mother, Patricia Grimes, has sued the District of Columbia on behalf of her son's estate. She claims the District of Columbia showed deliberate indifference to, and reckless disregard for, her son's safety, and that the District was negligent in hiring, training, and supervising its employees at Oak Hill in violation of District of Columbia tort law, the Eighth Amendment, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court granted the government's motion for summary judgment, and denied as moot Grimes's cross-motion to strike the summary judgment motion and to disqualify the Attorney General of the District of Columbia based on an asserted conflict of interest. Grimes contends that the district court should not have granted summary judgment before ruling on her motion to disqualify the Attorney General, and that the court incorrectly granted summary judgment as conceded before she had obtained necessary discovery.

The district court erred in the sequence in which it rendered its decisions. Because a claim of counsel's conflict of interest calls into question the integrity of the process in which the allegedly conflicted counsel participates, the court should resolve a motion to disqualify counsel before it turns to the merits of any dispositive motion. That procedure was not followed here. We therefore vacate the district court's grant of summary judgment and its denial of the motion to disqualify and remand this case for further proceedings. Because the district court will decide in the first instance whether there was a conflict of interest or an appearance of such a conflict in violation of applicable ethics rules and, if so, will determine the appropriate remedy, we offer only limited guidance on the remaining issues the parties briefed and leave to the district court to decide them in view of its ruling on the merits of the motion to disqualify.

I.

Our legal system is not at its finest when a mother's case seeking redress for the sudden and violent death in government custody of her healthy teenaged son is lost in a muddle of scheduling inattention, miscommunication, and lack of follow-up. Oak Hill juvenile detention facility was for decades notorious for overcrowding, inhumane and unsafe conditions, and unresponsiveness to the needs of incarcerated youth. The District of Columbia faced class action litigation over its failings at Oak Hill, entered a consent decree requiring court-appointed monitors, and violated the decree so systematically for so long that it paid millions of dollars in court-ordered fines. Oak Hill was the subject of critical findings by the Inspector General, a mayoral Blue Ribbon Commission, a court-ordered monitor, witnesses before the D.C. Council and Congress, and was ultimately put under a court-ordered receivership. The District closed Oak Hill in 2009.¹ That is the facility where Karl Grimes died.

Rigorous fact discovery and evidentiary testing by motion or trial might well have established that, despite public assertions of inadequate supervision and frequent violence among incarcerated youth at Oak Hill, none of it played any role in Karl Grimes's death. Had factual material been presented and scrutinized, we might better understand the District of Columbia government's denial of any “history of assaults on youth at Oak Hill.” Grimes v. District of Columbia, 923 F.Supp.2d 196, 198–99 (D.D.C.2013) ; see also Appellee's Br. 25, 26. Without evidentiary development there is no basis for judging the facts here. That is why the civil rules provide for discovery, motion practice and, where warranted, trial. But there is more reason here than in the typical case for concern that the facts have not been discovered. It is rare that a violent death occurs against a backdrop of seemingly relevant, severe, and systemic problems, yet—at least as the record reflects—so little is done to investigate.

This case is on its second trip to this court, and Grimes's claims have not been considered, even preliminarily, on their merits. Litigation and management of this case have not been vigorous or efficient. It appears that no lay or expert depositions have been taken, nor has documentary evidence been submitted to the district court. It is difficult to conclude that the general goal of federal court procedure—that cases should be decided on their merits rather than through procedural stumbling—has been served in this case.

Grimes filed her complaint more than six years ago. The court set a scheduling order and the parties exchanged some written discovery, but, due in large part to delays while the government moved for and obtained a protective order, discovery remained incomplete as the original discovery deadlines approached. The parties had not conducted depositions or submitted expert reports, nor had they otherwise followed up on the initial written materials they had exchanged. Grimes and the government accordingly moved in January 2010 to extend discovery before it closed. Grimes did not designate any expert while the motion was pending. Nor did she take any depositions or seek information from the government by way of interrogatories or requests for admission.

In June 2010, the district court granted the requested extensions nunc pro tunc, retroactively setting March 20, 2010, as the deadline for expert disclosures, and July 29 as the deadline for all other discovery. Now facing a new but already-expired deadline to identify experts and an imminent overall discovery deadline, counsel conferred and informally agreed to seek further extension of the discovery schedule; government counsel informed Grimes's counsel that he would file a motion seeking such extension.

The government did not follow through and move for a revised scheduling order, nor did it inform Grimes's counsel of its change of plans. At the same time, Grimes's counsel apparently relied on the government seeking an extension and the court granting it; the record reflects no action on his part in pursuit of discovery or protection of discovery rights during that summer. In September 2010, a month and a half after the court's second overall discovery deadline had passed, the government moved for summary judgment on the ground that Grimes lacked evidence to support the essential elements of her claims.

The District of Columbia argued that Grimes lacked evidence showing (a) deliberate indifference to a known risk of the kind of violence that resulted in Grimes's son's death, needed to support her Eighth Amendment claim, see Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 835, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994), (b) a policy, custom, or practice of the District of Columbia, such as is required to establish municipal responsibility under Monell v. New York, 436 U.S. 658, 694, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978), and (c) negligence in hiring, training, or supervision of staff at Oak Hill needed to establish tort liability of the district for actions by violent youth in its custody. Grimes also had not identified any expert, and the government contended that she could not establish her claim of negligent hiring, training, and supervision without one.

Grimes's response did not focus on her need for discovery to oppose the motion for summary judgment, but on the Attorney General's apparent conflict of interest. Grimes's counsel had learned of the potential conflict only after the government filed its summary judgment motion. Grimes moved to strike the motion on the ground that “it was filed by improper and inappropriate counsel in violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct of the District of Columbia.”

The government opposed the motion to strike on the merits and moved the court to treat its summary judgment motion as conceded in view of Grimes's failure to submit evidence in opposition to summary judgment. The district court, without discussion, granted summary judgment as conceded, and denied as moot Grimes's motion to disqualify the Attorney General and her motion for additional time within which to oppose the government's motion to treat its summary judgment motion as conceded.

Grimes timely moved to alter or amend the judgment, arguing that summary judgment should have been denied because she had not had an adequate opportunity to complete discovery to support her opposition. Grimes's motion was accompanied by an affidavit contending that additional fact discovery by deposition was needed before Grimes could submit her expert report. The district court denied that motion, and Grimes timely filed her first appeal.

An earlier panel of this court summarily vacated the district court's order. The Court of Appeals directed the district court on remand to “consider the effect of the 2010 amendments to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56 and ‘state on the record the reasons for granting or denying the summary judgment motion,’ ” as...