Ladd v. Chemonics Intern., Inc.
| Decision Date | 26 March 2009 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 07-1360 (CKK). |
| Citation | 603 F.Supp.2d 99 |
| Parties | Fred LADD, Plaintiff/Counterclaim-Defendant, v. CHEMONICS INTERNATIONAL, INC., Defendant/Counterclaim-Plaintiff. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
John Allen McCahill, Falls Church, VA, David L. Kofoed, Kofoed Law Firm, LLC, Centennial, CO, for Plaintiff/Counterclaim-Defendant.
James M. Mesnard, Seyfarth Shaw, LLP, Washington, DC, for Defendant/Counterclaim-Plaintiff.
Plaintiff Fred Ladd ("Plaintiff" or "Ladd") brings the above-captioned lawsuit against his former employer, Defendant Chemonics International, Inc. ("Defendant" or "Chemonics"), alleging that Chemonics breached the parties' employment agreement ("Contract"). In October of 2003, shortly after Plaintiff began working for Chemonics, he sustained significant injuries in an on-the-job automobile accident, as a result of which he is no longer able to work. Plaintiff's complaint alleges that: (1) Chemonics' contractually agreed to continue to pay Plaintiff his salary in the event he was injured and no longer able to work, and that Chemonics breached the parties' Contract by failing to pay Plaintiff his salary after his automobile accident; (2) Chemonics agreed to provide Plaintiff with life insurance benefits and to pay Plaintiff's COBRA premiums after he was terminated from Chemonics, but has failed to do so and is therefore in breach of the parties' agreement; (3) Plaintiff is owed additional compensation and/or benefits under the relevant workers' compensation scheme—the Defense Base Act, 42 U.S.C. § 151 et. seq. ("DBA"); and (4) Plaintiff is entitled to recover for intentional infliction of emotional distress based upon Chemonics' breach of contract. Chemonics in turn has filed a counterclaim against Plaintiff, alleging that Plaintiff breached the forum selection clause in the parties' Contract and that Chemonics is therefore entitled to liquidated damages as provided for in the Contract.
Currently pending before the Court are Plaintiff's [27] Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, in which Plaintiff seeks judgment in its favor only as to his claim for breach of contract based upon Chemonics' failure to continue to pay his salary after he was injured and no longer able to work, and Defendant's [28] Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment, in which Chemonics seeks judgment in its favor as to all of Plaintiff's claims as well as to its own counterclaim. After thoroughly reviewing the parties' submissions, applicable case law, statutory authority, and the entire record of the case as a whole, the Court shall DENY Plaintiff's Partial Motion for Summary Judgment and shall GRANT Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, for the reasons that follow.
As a preliminary matter, the Court shall address Plaintiff's continued and inexplicable failure to comply with the Local Civil Rules and this Court's orders, an issue which the Court has previously addressed in great detail in its September 4, 2008 Order, which is fully incorporated herein. See 9/4/08 Order, Docket No. [37]. The Court therefore sets forth only those facts necessary to provide context for Plaintiff's failure—yet again—to adhere to the Local Civil Rules and this Court's directives.
Local Civil Rules 7(h)(1) and 56.1 set forth the requirements that parties must follow when filing or opposing a motion for summary judgment:
Each motion for summary judgment shall be accompanied by a statement of material facts as to which the moving party contends there is no genuine issue, which shall include references to the parts of the record relied on to support the statement. An opposition to such a motion shall be accompanied by a separate concise statement of genuine issues setting forth all material facts as to which it is contended there exists a genuine issue necessary to be litigated, which shall include references to the parts of the record relied on to support the statement ... In determining a motion for summary judgment, the court may assume that facts identified by the moving party in its statement of material facts are admitted, unless such a fact is controverted in the statement of genuine issues filed in opposition to the motion.
LCvR 7(h)(1) & 56.1. The Court has repeatedly instructed the parties to comply with these local rules. See 10/15/07 Order, Docket No. [15] at 4-5 (); 5/28/08 Order, Docket No. [26] (instructing the parties to "comply fully with [] LCvR 7(h)," which requires the parties to "furnish precise citations to the portions of the record on which they rely").
Notwithstanding those instructions, and despite Plaintiff's Colorado counsel having sworn familiarity with the Local Civil Rules,1 Plaintiff failed to include a statement of material facts not in dispute in his motion for partial summary judgment. See Docket No. [27]. This error was immediately pointed out to Plaintiff by Chemonics in its cross-motion for summary judgment and opposition, filed in response to Plaintiff's motion. See Docket Nos. [28], [29]. Chemonics' filings thus clearly placed Plaintiff's counsel on notice that the failure to submit a statement of material facts constituted a violation of the Local Civil Rules. Nonetheless, Plaintiff's combined opposition to Chemonics' motion for summary judgment and reply in support of his own motion for partial summary judgment neither specifically responded to Chemonics' factual assertions, as required by the Local Civil Rules and this Court's repeated orders, nor attempted to belatedly proffer a statement of material facts in support of Plaintiff's own motion for partial summary judgment. See Docket No. [32].
Indeed, it was only after briefing on the parties' instant cross-motions had been completed that Plaintiff belatedly filed a motion for leave to file a statement of material facts in support of his cross-motion and a statement responding to Chemonics' statement of material facts in support of its cross-motion. Plaintiff did not attach either statement, but requested more time to prepare and file them. See Docket No. [25] (filed 9/2/08). The only excuse offered by Plaintiff's Colorado counsel for this flagrant omission was to explain that he practices in a variety of federal jurisdictions and "inadvertently overlooked the specific Local Rules in question for this Court." Id. at 2. As the Court emphasized in its September 4, 2008 Order granting-in-part and denying-in-part Plaintiff's motion for leave, "[t]his excuse is altogether unavailing." 9/4/08 Order at 6. Consequently, the Court refused to grant the complete relief requested in Plaintiff's belated motion for leave, permitting Plaintiff to respond to Chemonics' statement of material facts, but denying Plaintiff's request to submit a statement of material facts in support of his own motion for partial summary judgment. Id. at 7-8. Specifically, given Chemonics' agreement that the material facts bearing on Plaintiff's motion for partial summary judgment are not in dispute, the Court concluded that there was no need to allow Plaintiff to file an extraordinarily belated statement of material facts in support of his motion at such a late date after the briefing had already been completed without reference to a statement of facts. Id. With respect to the facts underlying Chemonics' motion for summary judgment, however, the Court required Plaintiff to file a statement responding to Chemonics' statement. Id. at 8. The Court therefore struck Plaintiff's [32] initial opposition/reply and required Plaintiff to file a revised pleading that included appropriate citations to Chemonics' statement and/or his own responsive statement. Id. In addition, the Court mandated that Plaintiff's local counsel "carefully review all filings prepared by Plaintiff's Colorado counsel in order to ensure strict compliance with the Local Civil Rules and this Court's orders." Id. Finally, the Court provided that Chemonics was permitted to file a revised reply, if it determined it was necessary in light of Plaintiff's revisions. Id. at 8. In the event Chemonics did so, the Court ordered that Plaintiff's Colorado counsel was required to pay all costs and attorney's fees incurred by Chemonics in connection with its revised reply.2 Id. at 8.
Incredibly, despite the Court's repeated instructions that both Plaintiff's Colorado counsel and local counsel must ensure future pleadings are in "strict compliance with the Local Civil Rules and this Court's orders," id., Plaintiff's counsel once again disregarded both the Court's order and the Local Civil Rules, filing a revised pleading that blatantly fails to conform with this Court's clear directives, as set forth in its September 4, 2008 Order. Specifically, Plaintiff's revised effort to provide a response to Chemonics' statement of material facts suffers from three main defects. First, the response does not comply with the Court's repeated instructions that "a party responding to a statement of material facts must respond to each paragraph with a correspondingly numbered paragraph, indicating whether that paragraph is admitted or denied," and "should include any information relevant to its response in that paragraph." See, e.g., 5/28/08 Order at 2. Plaintiff's response does not indicate whether he admits or denies each of Chemonics' factual assertions and, as Chemonics notes in its revised reply, "[t]he numbering of Ladd's statement of material facts that he contends are genuinely disputed...
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