Ruddell v. Marathon Petroleum Co., L.P., Marine Transportation

Filing 58

ORDER DENYING 41 Motion for the Court to Take Judicial Notice filed by Plaintiff Ryan Ruddell. Signed by Judge Nancy J. Rosenstengel on 4/12/2017. (mlp)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
RYAN RUDDELL,
Plaintiff,
vs.
MARATHON PETROLEUM CO., LP,
and MARINE TRANSPORTATION,
Defendants.

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Case No. 3:15-CV-1253-NJR-DGW

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
ROSENSTENGEL, District Judge:
This matter comes before the Court on Plaintiff Ryan Ruddell’s Motion for the
Court to Take Judicial Notice (Doc. 41). For the reasons stated below, Ruddell’s motion is
denied.
BACKGROUND
Ruddell initiated this lawsuit on November 11, 2015, pursuant to the Jones Act,
46 U.S.C. § 30104. According to the Complaint, Ruddell was an employee of Defendant
Marathon Petroleum Company LP (named as Marathon Petroleum Company, L.P.,
Marine Transportation) (“MPC”), serving as a crewmember aboard its vessels. Ruddell
alleges that on August 27, 2014, the vessel upon which he was working set out in
inclement weather too severe for safe navigation due to storm and lightning conditions
(Doc. 1, p. 1). Ruddell claims he was “required to work at breakneck speed, taking off
kinked wires and laying them in order to hurry and get through a lock and tie off to a
fleet” (Id.). As a result of this “overexertion,” Ruddell alleges, he suffered injury (Id.).
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Ruddell now argues that the storm and lightning conditions present at the time of
the incident caused or contributed to cause his claimed injury, “putting weather
conditions in and around the Wood River, Illinois area on the evening of August 27, 2014
at issue in the case.” (Doc. 42, p. 1). Ruddell served various discovery requests upon
MPC regarding its understanding of what constitutes a “thunderstorm,” including
requests for admissions that a thunderstorm is a storm characterized by the presence of
lightning and that every thunderstorm produces lightning (Doc. 42, pp. 2-3). MPC
objected to Ruddell’s requests and denied the requests for admissions. With the present
motion, Ruddell asks the Court to take judicial notice that (1) thunder accompanies
lightning, and (2) a thunderstorm is a storm accompanied by thunder.
LEGAL STANDARD
A court may take judicial notice of an adjudicative fact that is both “not subject to
reasonable dispute” and either (1) “generally known within the territorial jurisdiction of
the trial court” or (2) “capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources
whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned.” Gen. Elec. Capital Corp. v. Lease
Resolution Corp., 128 F.3d 1074, 1081 (7th Cir. 1997) (quoting FED. R. EVID. 201(b)). Judicial
notice is proper only when the matter is beyond reasonable controversy. Hennessy v.
Penril Datacomm Networks, Inc., 69 F.3d 1344, 1354 (7th Cir. 1995) (“In order for a fact to be
judicially noticed, indisputability is a prerequisite.”). Courts have traditionally taken
judicial notice of facts of universal truths that cannot reasonably be controverted, such as
geography or matters of political history. 520 South Michigan Ave. Associates, Ltd. v.
Shannon, 549 F.3d 1119, n. 14 (7th Cir. 2008); see also Shahar v. Bowers, 120 F.3d 211, 214

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(11th Cir. 1997). In other words, courts take judicial notice of matters of common
knowledge.
Judicial notice is “an adjudicative device that substitutes the acceptance of a
universal truth for the conventional method of introducing evidence.” Gen. Elec. Capital
Corp., 128 F.3d at 1081. “When a court takes judicial notice of an adjudicative fact in a
civil case, the court must then instruct the jury to accept the noticed fact as conclusive,
effectively directing a verdict on this point and taking the issue out of the case.” FED. R.
EVID. 201(f). As a result, courts should “strictly adhere to the criteria established by the
Federal Rules of Evidence before taking judicial notice of pertinent facts.” Id. “Judicial
notice is a powerful tool that must be used with caution.” Daniel v. Cook Cty., 833 F.3d
728, 742 (7th Cir. 2016).
DISCUSSION
Ruddell argues that the facts he asks the Court to judicially notice—that “thunder
accompanies lightning” and that “a thunderstorm is a storm accompanied by
thunder”—are not subjects of reasonable dispute because they can be accurately and
readily determined from sources whose accuracy cannot be reasonably questioned. To
support his request for judicial notice that thunder accompanies lightning, Ruddell
offers the Court various dictionary definitions of “thunder,” including “the crashing or
booming sound produced by rapidly expanding air along the path of the electrical
discharge of lightning” and “a loud, explosive, resounding noise produced by the
explosive expansion of air headed by a lightning discharge.” To support his request for
judicial notice that a thunderstorm is a storm accompanied by thunder, Ruddell points

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only to an interrogatory response by MPC stating that “Defendant’s understanding of a
thunderstorm is that it is a storm accompanied by thunder.”
In response, MPC argues that taking judicial notice of these supposed facts would
mischaracterize or skew witness testimony about the weather conditions at the time of
the incident, thereby misleading the jury (Doc. 46). MPC also argues that the facts at
issue are not “adjudicative facts” and, thus, are not proper facts of which the Court can
take judicial notice. MPC claims that the facts about thunder and thunderstorms are
“non-evidence facts” that may be used to appraise or assess the adjudicative facts of a
case, but that are “not an appropriate subject for a formalized judicial notice treatment.”
See FED. R. EVID. 201, Adv. Comm. Note (a).
In this instance, the Court declines to take judicial notice that thunder
accompanies lightning and a thunderstorm is a storm accompanied by thunder.
Although his intentions are unclear, it appears to the Court that Ruddell is attempting to
somehow demonstrate that MPC must be liable for his injuries if lightning was present
at the time of the incident because MPC has a rule against working in lightning
conditions (see Doc. 46, p. 3). With its opposition, however, MPC provided excerpts of
deposition testimony from other crew members who stated there was no lightning while
the crew was working on August 27, 2014 (Docs. 41-1, 46-2). Captain Michael Scott, on
the other hand, referred to a thunderstorm occurring, but stated that just because there is
a thunderstorm does not mean that lightning is present (Doc. 46-3). In fact, he testified
that it was raining heavily while the crew was working, but that there was no lightning
until the crew was back on board the boat.

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The Court agrees with MPC that taking judicial notice in this instance may
mischaracterize the testimony of the witnesses and mislead the jury as to a disputed fact.
While the Court agrees it is generally “beyond reasonable controversy” that a
thunderstorm includes thunder and that thunder follows lightning, in this case taking
judicial notice of those facts would effectively allow Ruddell to misconstrue Captain
Scott’s testimony to the jury. Captain Scott testified that a thunderstorm (in the form of
heavy rain) had hit when the incident occurred, but that he saw no lightning until the
crew was back aboard the boat. Given the caution the Court must take in exercising
judicial notice, the Court declines to judicially notice the facts as requested. Instead, the
parties may present evidence to establish the weather conditions at the time of the
incident.
For these reasons, Plaintiff Ryan Ruddell’s Motion for the Court to Take Judicial
Notice (Doc. 41) is DENIED.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATED: April 12, 2017
s/Nancy J. Rosenstengel___________
NANCY J. ROSENSTENGEL
United States District Judge

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