J. W. v. Fresno Unified School District

Filing 101

ORDER on Defendant's 95 MOTION to STRIKE Plaintiff's Separate Statement of Disputed Facts, signed by District Judge Lawrence J. O'Neill on 2/18/2009. (Kusamura, W)

1 2 3 4 5 6 Plaintiff, 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 vs. FRESNO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, Defendant. / INTRODUCTION By notice on February 12, 2009, defendant Fresno Unified School District ("District") moves to strike (Doc. 95) plaintiff J.W.'s ("Student's") Separate Statement of Disputed Facts (Doc. 88) in this Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA") action. District moves to strike Student's 141page Separate Statement of Disputed Facts ("Statement of Facts") for failure to comply with Fed. R. Civ. P. 56 and this Court's Local Rule 56-260. District argues that Student prepared and filed his Statement of Facts in bad faith to place an unfair burden on District. Student asserts that the "strict rules of Rule 56 concerning statements of facts" do not apply in an IDEA administrative appeal. Additionally, Student believes that his Statement of Facts is a "useful tool for the Court." For the following reasons, this Court STRIKES Student's Separate Statement of Facts and ORDERS Student to file an amended statement. BACKGROUND Student appeals an administrative law judge decision pursuant to 20 U.S.C. §1415. To resolve the administrative appeal, Student moved for summary judgment on January 26, 2009, pursuant to the January 12, 2009 stipulation and order. The January 12, 2009 order incorporated the terms of this Court's December 19, 2008 Order to require the parties to file a Joint Statement of Undisputed Facts and a Separate Statement of Disputed Facts with the party's initial brief. The Court granted the parties' 1 ORDER ON DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO STRIKE PLAINTIFF'S SEPARATE STATEMENT OF DISPUTED FACTS (Doc. 95) J.W., a minor, by and through his parents J.E.W. and J.A.W., CASE NO. CV F 07-1625 LJO DLB IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

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January 12, 2009 stipulation to continue the briefing schedule to allow the parties additional time to prepare the Joint Statement of Undisputed Facts and the Separate Statements of Undisputed Facts. The parties failed to file a Joint Statement of Undisputed Facts on January 26, 2009. Additionally, Student's January 26, 2009 memorandum in support of his motion was deficient in that it failed to include necessary components and it exceeded the page limits set by this Court's previous order. The Court also addressed the parties failure to lodge the administrative record in accordance with this Court's Standing Order and local rules and their failure to file the Joint Statement. The Court issued an order to strike plaintiff's memorandum in support of summary judgment and to require plaintiff to file an amended brief "in compliance with this Court's orders and local rules." ("Order to Strike," p. 3, filed on January 27, 2009). The Court further required both parties to re-lodge the administrative record and to file a Joint Statement of Undisputed Facts. Id. at p. 4. The Court warned both parties that the "failure to file the required joint statement will result in sanctions" and "further failure to follow this Court's orders and local rules will result in sanctions." Id. at 3. On February 6, 2009, Student re-filed the memorandum in support of his summary judgment motion and filed his Statement of Facts. Student's 141-page Statement of Facts contains 1650 "facts." Thereafter, District moved to strike Student's Statement of Facts. The Court agreed to hear District's motion to strike on an expedited schedule, as District's opposition to Student's summary judgment motion shall be filed no later than February 23, 2009. Student opposed the instant motion on February 17, 2009. This Court finds this motion suitable for decision without additional briefing or a hearing. Accordingly, this Court VACATES the February 23, 2009 hearing on this motion, pursuant to Local Rule 78-230(h), and issues the following order. DISCUSSION Failure to comply with this Court's orders, local rules, and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure "may be grounds for the imposition by the Court of any and all sanctions...within the inherent power of the Court." Local Rule 11-110. District moves to strike Student's Statement of Facts for failure to comply with Fed. R. Civ. P. 56 and this Court's Local Rule 56-260. District submits that "some, but not all of the facts are disputed, and only a handful of them are material." Def. Memo, 2. District argues that it would be overly 2

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burdensome to required District to respond to Student's 1,650 "facts," and to determine whether these facts are accurate, complete, in context, admitted, relevant, material, and cited. This Court agrees. Student's 141-page Statement of Facts is a series of excerpts and summarized testimony of twenty-three witnesses and six reports. The Statement of Facts is organized according to witness and report. Some of Student's lengthy "facts" span across multiple pages. (Fact Nos. 1646-1650, pp. 128141). Student's Statement of Facts includes "facts" that are immaterial (e.g., Fact Nos. 9-10, Alexander Graham Bell was associated with the Clarke School for the Deaf in 1851). The Statement of Facts is repetitive (e.g., Fact Nos. 61, 172, 195, teachers at Clarke have masters degrees). The Statement of Facts includes over a thousand facts that Student fails to mention in his memorandum brief in support of his motion for summary judgment. Student's "facts" are not, necessarily, facts. The Court finds Student's Statement of Facts to be overly-burdensome. Neither opposing counsel nor this Court is required to determine which facts Student deems relevant and in dispute, and which facts Student relied upon in support of his summary judgment motion. With over 1,000 pending cases, this Court has neither the resources nor the ability to distill that which Student should have distilled in the initial presentation of this motion. This Court uses its inherent power to control its docket to require Student to file a concise Statement of Disputed Facts. In addition, Student's Statement of Facts fails to conform to this Court's local rules and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Local Rule 56-260 requires a party to "enumerate discretely each of the specific material facts relied upon in support of the motion and cite the particular portions of any pleading, affidavit, deposition, interrogatory answer, admission, or other document relied upon to establish that fact." (emphasis added). Fed. R. Civ. P. 56 requires that the fact in contention must be material. "As to materiality, the substantive law will identify which facts are material." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). "A `material' fact is one that is relevant to an element of a claim or defense and whose existence might affect the outcome of the trial." T.W. Elec. Serv., Inc. v. Pacific Elec. Contractors Ass'n, 809 F.2d 626, 630 (9th Cir. 1987). As discussed above, Student's Statement of Facts contains immaterial "facts," and facts not relied upon in support of the motion. Accordingly, Student's Statement of Facts violates Local Rule 56-260 and Fed. R. Civ. P. 56. Student argues that because this IDEA administrative appeal "does not fit well into any 3

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pigeonhole of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure," Capistrano Unified Sch. Dist. v. Wartenberg, 59 F.3d 884, 892 (9th Cir. 1995), "the strict rules of Rule 56 concerning statements of facts do not form an exact guide for how the parties are to provide the essential facts for the Court for disposition of this appeal." Opp., 3:21-24. The Court notes that a "puzzling procedural problem arises whenever the district court adjudicates administrative appeals, because the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not plainly speak to how such appeals should be handled." Capistrano, 59 F.3d at 892.1 To address the "puzzling procedural problem," this Court modified Local Rule 56-260 and Fed. R. Civ. P. 56 to require a Joint Statement of Undisputed Facts and a Separate Statement of Disputed Facts filed by each party. This modification was in accordance with the Capistrano court, which approved a modified summary judgment procedure in IDEA administrative appeals: "Because this [summary judgment] appears to be what Congress intended under the Act, we conclude that it is the right thing to do, even though it does not fit well into any pigeonhole of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure." Id. at 892 (emphasis added). Moreover, the difficulty in resolving an IDEA administrative appeal through summary judgment, as discussed in Capistrano, supra, and Ojai Unified Sch. Dist. v. Jackson, 4 F.3d 1467 (9th Cir. 1993), relates to the applicable standard of review, which is not at issue in this case. Student fails to cite authority to support its position that his overly-burdensome Statement of Facts is proper in an IDEA administrative appeal pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 56. Thus, while this Court notes the "difficulty is using a summary judgment framework for what amounts to resolution of conflicting evidence," Capistrano, 59 F.3d at 891, Student is not excused from following the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, this Court's local rules, and this Court's orders. Generally, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure "govern the procedure in all actions and proceedings in the United States district courts." Fed. R. Civ. P. 1. "The federal procedural rules...govern the action, at least when there is a federal rule to apply." S.J. v. Issaquah Sch. Dist. No. 411, 470 F.3d 1288, 1289 (9th Cir. 2006) (applying Fed. R. Civ. P. 3 to an IDEA administrative appeal). While a summary of the administrative record may be helpful to this Court in its ultimate review of this action, providing this
The Court explained: "Though the parties may call the procedure a `motion for summary judgment' in order to o b ta in a calendar date from the district court's management clerk, the procedure is in substance an appeal from an a d m i n i s t r a t i v e determination, not summary judgment." Capistrano Unified Sch. Dist. v. Wartenberg, 59 F.3d 884, 892 (9th C i r . 1995)
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Court with a summary does not supplant Student's obligation to file a Separate Statement of Disputed Facts in accordance with this Court's order and federal and local rules. Accordingly, this Court strikes Student's Statement of Facts and orders Student to file an amended Separate Statement of Facts to include only "specific material facts relied upon in support of the motion." Local Rule 56-260.

CONCLUSION and ORDER For the foregoing reasons, this Court: 1. 2. 3. VACATES the February 23, 2009 hearing on this motion; STRIKES Student's Separate Statement of Facts (Doc. 88); and ORDERS Student, no later than February 23, 2009, to file an amended Separate Statement of Facts in accordance with Fed. R. Civ. P. 56, Local Rule 56-260, this Court's order, and the applicable standards; 4. SETS the following revised summary judgment briefing schedule: (A) (B) (C) District's opposition shall be filed and served no later than February 25, 2009; Student's reply shall be filed an served no later than March 16, 2009; and The hearing date, if required, remains set on April 6, 2009 at 8:15 a.m. in Courtroom 4 (LJO); and 5. ADMONISHES the parties that failure to comply with this Order shall result in an additional order to strike all further documents filed in violation of this Court's order, local rules, and/or the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The Court will not allow the parties any further opportunities to see through their duties as counsel. The Court will decide this matter based on what is submitted by the parties in compliance with this Court's orders, local rules, and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

IT IS SO ORDERED. Dated: b9ed48 February 18, 2009 /s/ Lawrence J. O'Neill UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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