Morales v. Orssleffs

• Decision Date: 07 March 2001
• Docket Number: No. 00-1707,P,MORALES-VILLARUBI,00-1707
• Parties: (1st Cir. 2001) FRANCO MORALES; GLORIA VILLARUBIO; CONJUGAL PARTNERSHIPlaintiffs, Appellants, v. A. C. ORSSLEFF'S EFTF, Defendant, Appellee. Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 32

246 F.3d 32 (1st Cir. 2001)

FRANCO MORALES; GLORIA VILLARUBIO; CONJUGAL PARTNERSHIP MORALES-VILLARUBIO, Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. A. C. ORSSLEFF'S EFTF, Defendant, Appellee.

No. 00-1707

United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit

Heard March 7, 2001

Decided April 11, 2001

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

[Hon. Daniel R. Dominguez, U.S. District Judge]

Harry A. Ezratty for appellants.

William A. Graffam, with whom Patricia A. Garrity was on brief, for appellee.

Before Torruella, Chief Judge, Coffin, Senior Circuit Judge, and Selya, Circuit Judge.

COFFIN, Senior Circuit Judge.

This is a maritime tort action in which plaintiff-appellant Franco Morales, a San Juan harbor pilot, appeals from a summary judgment in favor of defendant-appellee, owner of the vessel M/V Malene. Morales seeks damages for an injury occasioned by a fall as he was disembarking from the Malene and boarding the plaintiff's pilot boat after guiding the Malene out of San Juan Harbor. The complaint alleged that defendant was negligent for failing to "make a lee," i.e., to turn the Malene perpendicular to the waves as requested in order to minimize pitching on the leeward side of the boat from which plaintiff was disembarking. Morales also claimed that the rope ladder used to exit the Malene was not in a safe position, and that the area was not properly illuminated. On the basis of facts deemed admitted because they were not controverted by the plaintiff, and his own deposition testimony, the district court held that the sole cause of the accident was Morales' own negligence. We affirm.

This case is a lesson in summary judgment practice. As might be expected, the various motion papers, memoranda, exhibits, affidavits, and depositions of parties, witnesses, and experts produced an appendix of two thick volumes. In such a case, the filing of a motion for summary judgment signals a formidable search for a genuine issue of material fact. If this is not to impose the daunting burden of seeking a needle in a haystack, the court needs help from counsel. Almost two decades ago, we confessed our increasing "frustration [with] the more and more typical phenomenon . . . of a district court having to decide a motion for summary judgment without the assistance the court should expect from counsel." Stepanischen v. Merchants Despatch Transp. Corp., 722 F.2d 922, 927 (1st Cir. 1983). We encouraged district courts to adopt "anti-ferreting" rules, which warn parties opposing summary judgment that, to preclude judgment as a matter of law, they must identify factual issues buttressed by record citations. "[O]nce so warned," we added, "a party's failure to comply would, where appropriate, be grounds for judgment against that party." Id. at 931.

The district of Puerto Rico has such a rule, Local Rule 311.12, which in relevant part requires a party opposing summary judgment to submit "a separate, short, and concise statement of the material facts as to which it is contended that there exists a genuine issue to be tried, properly supported by specific reference to the record." D.P.L.R. 311.12. We have recently reiterated, with reference to this particular rule, that "parties ignore [it] at their own peril," and that "failure to present a statement of disputed facts, embroidered with specific citations to the record, justifies deeming the facts presented in the movant's statement of undisputed facts admitted." Ruiz Rivera v. Riley, 209 F.3d 24, 28 (1st Cir. 2000) (citing prior cases).

Along with its motion for summary judgment, defendant-appellee submitted to the district court, in accordance with the local rule, a statement meticulously enumerating some three dozen uncontested facts. Plaintiff responded by filing contemporaneously two separate documents, his own designation of uncontested facts and an opposition to defendant's statement of uncontested facts, both of which were deficient.

Two thirds of the items listed in plaintiff's designation of uncontested facts are either completely unsupported by citations to the record, or else only reference an entire deposition or statement without page citations. There is not a single record citation in plaintiff's opposition to defendant's statement of uncontested facts. Plaintiff accepted two-thirds of the proffered statements. Among those to which the plaintiff objected, the district court found none sufficient to raise a triable issue, and accordingly granted summary judgment in favor of defendant.

The district court found that by conceding facts proffered by the defendant, and then lending support to those uncontroverted facts in his deposition, Morales admitted that he alone was at fault for his injury. Although plaintiff contested the general proposition that harbor pilots take over the command of vessels once aboard, he accepted defendant's proffered fact number 8, which stated that, on this occasion, Morales gave all instructions and navigational orders for maneuvering the Malene "up to and including the positioning of the vessel for his disembarkation." He also accepted number 30, defendant's characterization of the critical moment: "[Morales] stepped from the ladder into the pilot boat when he deemed it safe to do so." This admission was based on Morales' own deposition testimony, specifically referenced by defendant in number 30:

Q. [H]ow long a time was it that you waited at the ladder for the captain to make this turn that you had asked him to make?

A. It would have been three or five seconds, five minutes. Not seconds; minutes.

* * *

Q. [D]id the MALENE actually start the turn to the left, as you had asked them?

A. As I asked, and he would run back in and I guess he would put more w[heel] to the ship and the ship would have come down. By that time, not only would the...