Vera v. Rodriguez et al

Filing 124

ORDER by Magistrate Judge Steven C. Yarbrough denying 82 Motion to Prohibit Piecemeal Motion Practice (cm)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW MEXICO

ESTHER VERA, as personal representative
of MANUEL FLORES, deceased,
Plaintiff,
v.

Civ. No. 16-491 SCY/KBM

SAMUEL RODRIGUEZ, in his individual capacity,
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF
BERNALILLO COUNTY, and DAN HOUSTON,
in his individual and official capacities as Bernalillo
County Sheriff,
Defendants.
ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION TO PROHIBIT PIECEMEAL MOTION
PRACTICE
THIS MATTER comes before the Court on Plaintiff’s Motion to Prohibit Piecemeal
Motion Practice. Doc. 82. In the Motion, Plaintiff contends that Defendants’ multiple motions
for partial summary judgment were improper and have unnecessarily complicated the briefing
process. Although the Court ultimately sympathizes with many of Plaintiff’s frustrations, the
Court will deny Plaintiff’s Motion.
At the outset, it is worth noting that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56 contemplates the
filing of motions for partial summary judgment as the Rule permits challenges not just to an
entire claim but also to parts of each claim or defense. It could be argued that the purpose of this
language is to merely allow a moving party to challenge only those parts of the non-moving
party’s claims or defenses that are truly at issue rather than to permit a party to file successive
motions for partial summary judgment against every claim or defense to which that party objects.
Regardless, while Rule 56 does not explicitly limit the number of motions for summary

judgment a party may file, “[i]t is well established that federal district courts possess the power
to administer their dockets in a manner that conserves scare judicial resources and promotes the
efficient and comprehensive disposition of cases.” Hartsel Springs Ranch of Colo., Inc. v.
Bluegreen Corp., 296 F.3d 982, 985 (10th Cir. 2002). District judges in this district have
accordingly exercised this power in some instances to limit successive motions for summary
judgment. See United States v. Copar Pumice Company, Inc., Civ. No. 09-1201, 2013 WL
12159365, * 3 (D.N.M. Sept. 12, 2013) (Parker, J.) (“The Court concludes that a decision to limit
successive summary judgment motions and briefing falls within its sound discretion to manage
its docket and secure the efficient resolution of this proceeding.”); Cash v. Lockheed Martin
Training Solutions, Inc., Civ. No. 09-901, Doc. 81 (D.N.M. Sept. 3, 2010) (Black, J.) (denying
the defendants’ multiple motions for summary judgment without prejudice and ordering the
defendants to file a single dispositive motion); Rice v. The City of Santa Fe, Civ. No. 00-1669,
Doc. 199 (D.N.M. Aug. 21, 2002) (Johnson, J.) (denying all pending motions without prejudice
with the directive that no “piecemealing of summary judgment motions in serial form” will be
permitted).
The basis for discouraging this type of piecemeal litigation—“breaking what is in reality
a single motion for summary judgment into distinct and individual pleadings”— is clear: such a
practice “forces the parties to file multiple motions, responses, and replies, when a single
omnibus document would suffice” and further “causes extra work for this busy Court, which has
to read and analyze overlapping and often duplicative arguments.” Caldera Pharmaceuticals,
Inc. v. Bellows, Civ. No. 10-222, Doc. 232 (D.N.M. Dec. 21, 2012). As the Honorable Bruce
Black emphasized, “such tactics—which look like transparent attempts to skirt the rules—waste
judicial resources, unnecessarily burden the litigants, and ultimately prove counterproductive

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because…they create additional haystacks in which courts are obliged to look for the needle.”
Cash, 09-901, Doc. 81 at 1-2. See also Cole v. Convergys Customer Mgt. Group, Inc., 2013 WL
1446556, at *1 (D. Kan. Apr. 9, 2013) (stating that “filing summary judgment motions seriatim
on one’s own initiative not only makes the court’s task of shuffling paperwork more complex,
but also permits any number of permutations of the page-limitation rule, all of which would be
sure to be exploited by creative counsel more frequently than desired by the court or warranted
by the circumstances” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)).
That said, the Court recognizes that multiple motions for summary judgment may be
appropriate in some circumstances. For instance, it is usually more efficient for a defendant to
file a dispositive motion raising jurisdictional issues early in the litigation, before challenging the
merits of a plaintiff’s claim. While the Court declines to affirmatively delineate all instances in
which multiple motions for summary judgment are appropriate, the baseline inquiry into the
propriety of successive motions is the extent to which they contribute to the efficient resolution
of the issues before the Court. Along these lines, piecemeal motions which strike the Court as
merely attempts to skirt procedural rules, including those providing page limitations, should be
disallowed. The Court accordingly agrees with Judge Black that separating summary judgment
motions merely on the basis of the legal theory being argued or claim being addressed is an
insufficient justification, by itself, for successive summary judgment motions.
Viewing Defendants’ Motions in this light, the Court agrees with Plaintiff that
Defendants should have sought leave of the Court to file an omnibus motion and to exceed the
normal page limitations rather than split the current motions into the morass of briefing that
currently sits before the Court. As an example of inefficiency Defendants’ seriatim filings
caused, the Court notes that Defendants’ first and second motions for partial summary judgment

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rely on nearly the same corpus of material facts. Yet, Defendants’ alleged undisputed material
facts, and the accompanying exhibits, are attached to their second motion for partial summary
judgment; whereas Plaintiff’s responses, and accompanying exhibits, are attached to their
response to Defendant’s first motion for partial summary judgment.

Such briefing tactics

unnecessarily require an undue amount of paper-shuffling in order to cross reference the parties’
arguments and alleged facts. Thus, when issues can be more efficiently resolved through the
filing of one omnibus motion, litigants should seek leave of the Court to file an omnibus motion
with, if necessary, a request to exceed page limitations.
Although the Court agrees with Plaintiff that Defendants should have sought to file one
omnibus motion rather than a series of motions that cross referenced each other, at this stage in
the litigation it would create additional burden, expense, and delay for the Court to order
Defendants’ to reformat and resubmit their motions. Therefore, the Court DENIES Plaintiff’s
Motion to Prohibit Piecemeal Motion Practice (Doc. 82).
IT IS SO ORDERED.

____________________________________
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
Sitting by Consent

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