Learnard v. Inhabitants of Town of Van Buren, No. 01-CV-34-B-S.

• Decision Date: 29 January 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01-CV-34-B-S.
• Parties: Robert LEARNARD, Plaintiff, v. The INHABITANTS OF THE TOWN OF VAN BUREN, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maine

182 F.Supp.2d 115

Robert LEARNARD, Plaintiff, v. The INHABITANTS OF THE TOWN OF VAN BUREN, et al., Defendants.

No. 01-CV-34-B-S.

United States District Court, D. Maine.

January 29, 2002.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Daniel G. Lilley, Daniel G. Lilley Law Offices, P.A., Portland, ME, for Plaintiff.

Linda D. McGill, Esq., Robert M. Hayes, Esq., Matthew Tarasevich, Esq., Moon, Moss, McGill, Hayes & Shapiro, P.A., Portland, ME, for Defendants.

ORDER GRANTING SUMMARY JUDGMENT

SINGAL, District Judge.

A former municipal employee claims that town officials violated his procedural due process rights and committed state torts against him when they fired him without first providing him a constitutionally adequate hearing. Three interrelated motions are presently before the Court: Plaintiff's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (Docket # 26), Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (Docket # 28), and Defendants' Motion to Deem Defendants' Statement of Material Facts Admitted (Docket # 37). For the following reasons, the Court GRANTS IN PART Defendants' Motion to Deem Material Facts Admitted, DENIES Plaintiff's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, GRANTS IN PART Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment and DISMISSES the remaining claims WITHOUT PREJUDICE.

I. SUMMARY JUDGMENT

A. Legal Standard

Summary judgment is warranted 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 fact is "material" if it has "potential to change the outcome of the suit under the governing law." McCarthy v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 56 F.3d 313, 315 (1st Cir.1995). An issue is "genuine" if "a reasonable jury could resolve it in favor of either party." Basic Controlex Corp. v. Klockner Moeller Corp., 202 F.3d 450, 453 (1st Cir.2000). If the nonmoving party bears the ultimate burden of persuasion on a claim and fails to introduce evidence from which a reasonable jury could find in its favor on even one element of that claim, then the moving party is entitled to summary judgment. McCarthy, 56 F.3d at 315.

B. Local Procedure

The scope of the evidence that the Court may consider in deciding whether genuine issues of material fact exist is carefully circumscribed by the Local Rules of this District. Local Rule 56 plainly sets out local summary judgment procedure. See Local Rule 56. The moving party is to file a separate statement of material facts that it claims are not in dispute. Local Rule 56(b). Each fact must be set forth in a numbered paragraph and supported by a specific record citation. Id. The nonmoving party is then required to submit a responsive "separate, short and concise" statement of facts in which it must "admit, deny or qualify the facts by reference to each numbered paragraph of the moving party's statement of material facts." Local Rule 56(c). The nonmovant likewise must support each denial or qualification with an appropriate record citation. Id. The moving party may then respond with a reply statement of material facts in similar format. Local Rule 56(d). Failure to comply with the Rule results in potentially serious consequences: "Facts contained in a supporting or opposing statement of material facts, if supported by record citations as required by this rule, shall be deemed admitted unless properly controverted." Local Rule 56(e).

Both parties have moved for summary judgment. In addition, Defendants contend that Plaintiff has failed to follow the procedural requirements of Local Rule 56.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Motion to Deem Defendants' Facts Admitted

On October 18, 2001, Defendants moved for summary judgment on all counts and submitted a Statement of Material Facts in conjunction with their Motion. See Local Rule 56(b). On November 8, 2001, Plaintiff filed his responsive factual statement. On November 19, 2001, when Defendants submitted a reply factual statement, they also filed a Motion pointing out the ways in which Plaintiff's responsive statement had violated the Local Rule and requesting that the Court deem their facts admitted because the Plaintiff had failed properly to controvert them.¹ See Local Rule 56(e). Before reaching the merits of Defendants' summary judgment arguments, the Court must address this objection to Plaintiff's pleadings.

Defendants' original Statement of Material Facts contains sixty-nine numbered paragraphs and accompanying record citations. Although Plaintiff's responsive statement coincidentally also contains sixty-nine paragraphs, the organization of Plaintiff's responsive facts bears little relation to the organization of Defendants' facts. Instead of admitting, denying or qualifying each of Defendants' facts, as Local Rule 56(c) requires, Plaintiff's pleading offers a two-column table. One column of the table lists paragraphs numbered one through sixty-nine, many of which contain a mélange of supported and unsupported facts, legal conclusions, speculations and hearsay. The other column is titled "Plaintiff's [sic] Numbered Paragraphs Directly Controverted."² It contains lists of numbers, presumably corresponding to the paragraphs in Defendants' factual statement that each of Plaintiff's paragraphs is intended to "controvert."

Plaintiff's counsel apparently finds this table to be a convenient alternative format for summary judgment pleadings. It should come as no surprise to Plaintiff's counsel, however, that the format that the Court finds convenient is the one spelled out in Local Rule 56. Plaintiff's pleading violates this Rule in myriad ways. For example, many of Plaintiff's numbered facts are far from "short and concise" and contain several distinct facts organized into a brief, argumentative narrative.³ See Local Rule 56(c). Some of the statements are not facts at all.⁴ Futhermore, many of Plaintiff's statements do not actually controvert the Defendants' facts that they purport to address.⁵ Most importantly the words "admit," "deny" and "qualify" simply do not appear in Plaintiff's pleading. The Court is not required to pore through the record and try to glean which of the Plaintiff's statements admits, denies, or qualifies which of the Defendants'. See Local Rule 56(e) ("The court shall have no independent duty to search or consider any part of the record not specifically referenced in the parties' separate statement of facts."); see also Cantin v. Maine Sch. Admin. Dist. Number 6, No. 99-271-P-H, 2000 WL 760987, at *1 n. 2 (D.Me. Apr. 24, 2000) (criticizing responsive statement that did not admit, deny or qualify moving party's facts). The Local Rule requires the litigants to perform that task.

Plaintiff defends his pleading not on the basis that it follows the Rule but rather on the basis that Plaintiff's counsel has used the same format in other courts and has received no complaints. Plaintiff's attorney is an experienced litigator and his decision to flout this District's Local Rules is inexcusable. Even if other courts have opted to forgive his violation of the Rules, the Court declines to do so here.

Moreover, Plaintiff's counsel's casual approach to the rules and orders of the Court is already an unfortunate pattern in this litigation. Earlier in this litigation, Plaintiff moved for default judgment claiming that Defendants had missed a filing deadline. The Court denied the motion in part because it was, in fact, Plaintiff who had miscalculated the time periods allowed under the Local Rule. (See Order Den. Defs.' Mot. to Strike and Pl.'s Demand for Default J. at 5 (Docket # 25).) Elsewhere in the same Order, the Court chastised Plaintiff's counsel for filing an amended complaint after the date for filing amendments without asking the Court's prior permission to do so. (See id. at 3.) Plaintiff now argues that the Court should tolerate this latest failure to adhere to pleading rules because failure to do so "would be a miscarriage of justice." (See Pl.'s Opp. to Defs' Mot. at 1 (Docket # 40).) Unfortunately for Plaintiff, the Court's charitable attitude toward procedural violations was exhausted in the last round of pleadings. For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiff's responsive factual statements will be disregarded.

That Defendants' facts are the only ones before the Court does not, however, automatically entitle Defendants to summary judgment. See Bailey v. McCarthy, Civ. No. 01-82-P-C, 2002 WL 91886 (D.Me. Jan. 25, 2002) (citing Lopez v. Corporacion Azucarera de Puerto Rico, 938 F.2d 1510, 1517 (1st Cir.1991)). "Rather ... the court must inquire whether the moving party has met its burden to demonstrate undisputed facts entitling it to summary judgment as a matter of law." Id.

B. Background

In accordance with Local Rule 56(e), for the purposes of Defendants' Motion, the facts in Defendants' statement are admitted to the extent they are supported by the record. Those facts reveal the following events:

Between 1996 and 2000, Plaintiff, Robert Learnard, worked full time as the public works director for the Town of Van Buren, Maine ("the Town"). On February 28, 2000, Learnard had a conversation with the Van Buren Town Manager, Defendant Larry Cote, the contents of which are disputed.⁶ Cote claims that he advised Learnard that he intended to recommend to the Van Buren Town Council ("the Council") that it terminate Learnard's employment. Learnard argues that the Town Council acting through Cote, actually terminated his employment during the February 28 conversation.

In any event, Learnard thereafter filed a grievance to challenge his termination. Attorneys for the Town and Learnard were unable to agree upon a date for the grievance hearing. The Council ultimately scheduled a hearing for March 29, 2000. Although neither Learnard nor his attorney attended the hearing on that date, the Council nevertheless met and, at the end of the session,...