Gupta v. International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), No. 5:2014cv01358 - Document 106 (N.D. Cal. 2015)
Court Description: ORDER denying 103 Motion for Leave to File Motion for Reconsideration. Signed by Judge Edward J. Davila on 12/29/2015. (ejdlc1S, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 12/29/2015)
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1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 SAN JOSE DIVISION 7 8 PIYUSH GUPTA, Case No. 5:14-cv-01358-EJD Plaintiff, 9 ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE A MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION v. 10 United States District Court Northern District of California 11 INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION (IBM), Defendant. 12 13 14 Re: Dkt. No. 103 I. INTRODUCTION The above-entitled action is presently scheduled to commence a jury trial on January 5, 15 2016. Two of Plaintiff Piyush Gupta’s claims (“Plaintiff”) are set to be tried: (1) the second claim 16 for failure to engage in a timely, good faith interactive process, and (2) the third claim for failure 17 to provide a disability accommodation. 18 Both parties filed motions in limine in anticipation of the trial and on December 16, 2015, 19 this court issued a written order addressing several of those motions. See Docket Item No. 90. 20 There, among other rulings, the court denied Plaintiff’s third motion in limine which sought to 21 exclude any and all testimony, reference or argument indicating that the jury may not consider 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 whether Defendant IBM (“IBM”) could have offered some form of leave of absence, such as short term disability leave, as a form of reasonable accommodation. The court also granted IBM’s third motion in limine which essentially sought the opposite relief; to preclude Plaintiff from offering evidence or otherwise arguing a theory that IBM failed to accommodate Plaintiff’s disability by not discussing the availability of medical leave as a form of accommodation. As a basis for these rulings, the court reasoned that Plaintiff had failed to disclose previously that his remaining two 1 Case No.: 5:14-cv-01358-EJD ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE A MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION 1 claims were based on the allegation that IBM failed to offer him some form of disability leave as a 2 possible accommodation. In response to these rulings, Plaintiff made an oral motion for reconsideration at the 3 4 pretrial conference on December 17, 2015. He also requested leave to amend the complaint in 5 order to include disability benefits as a possible accommodation that was not offered to him. IBM 6 opposed the motion, and the court indicated on the record it would deny it. A written order 7 denying the motion was then filed later that same day. See Docket Item No. 94. Plaintiff now moves for leave to file a motion for reconsideration of the order denying his 8 9 10 United States District Court Northern District of California 11 12 13 14 15 third motion in limine. See Docket Item No. 103. The court has carefully considered this motion, but again finds no reason to alter the ruling. Thus, the motion will be denied for the reasons explained below. II. DISCUSSION In this district, motions for reconsideration may not be filed without leave of court. Civ. L.R. 7-9(a) (“No party may notice a motion for reconsideration without first obtaining leave of Court to file the motion.”). To succeed, a request for such leave must have two attributes. First, the moving party must demonstrate at least one of the following grounds: 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 (1) That at the time of the filing the motion for leave, a material difference in fact or law exists from that which was presented to the Court before entry of the interlocutory order for which reconsideration is sought. The party also must show that in the exercise of reasonable diligence the party applying for reconsideration did not know such fact or law at the time of the interlocutory order; or (2) The emergence of new material facts or a change of law occurring after the time of such order; or (3) A manifest failure by the Court to consider material facts or dispositive legal arguments which were presented to the Court before such interlocutory order. 24 Civ. L.R. 7-9(b). 25 Second, the party may not repeat any oral or written argument previously made with 26 27 28 respect to the interlocutory order that the party now seeks to have reconsidered. Civ. L.R. 7-9(c). 2 Case No.: 5:14-cv-01358-EJD ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE A MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION 1 Plaintiff contends that reconsideration is warranted because “IBM incorrectly represented 2 to the court that Plaintiff never disclosed during the litigation process that he had requested 3 disability leave as a form of reasonable accommodation.” In support of that argument, Plaintiff 4 provides excerpts from his deposition which suggest that Plaintiff revealed his intent to assert 5 disability benefits as a potential accommodation. For example, in response to a question seeking 6 to clarify whether his accommodation claim was based on anything other than “business travel 7 approval and the ergonomic furniture,” Plaintiff stated: “Yeah, those two and the disability. Those 8 are the three that we’re talking about.” He believes these statements “unequivocally establish that, 9 at all times, Plaintiff has maintained, and indeed made explicitly clear” that disability benefits 10 United States District Court Northern District of California 11 were at issue for his failure to accommodate and failure to engage claims. In the context of Rule 7-9, however, mere citation to this previously-undisclosed 12 deposition testimony is insufficient itself to obtain leave to file a motion for reconsideration. This 13 is because Plaintiff has attempted to show, as a basis for this motion, that there exists a material 14 difference in fact from that which was presented to the court when it issued rulings on the parties’ 15 motion in limine. Along with that, Rule 7-9 required Plaintiff to do something more than just 16 bring forth some new fact; he must also show under a reasonable diligence standard that he was 17 unaware of the new fact in the first instance. Otherwise, the fact is not “new” but is instead 18 available information which, for whatever reason, was not previously raised. 19 Here, recognizing that Plaintiff’s deposition was taken a year prior to pretrial conference, 20 his counsel represents he had forgotten that Plaintiff made these statements but that they 21 resurfaced during a pre-trial review of the deposition transcript. Further, Plaintiff’s counsel 22 explains that he failed to raise these statements at the December 17th pretrial conference because 23 he did not have time to re-read the deposition transcript and does not have resources comparable to 24 that of IBM’s counsel. Plaintiff’s counsel also suggests that, had the court granted a trial 25 continuance, he “would have had more time to review the deposition and correct IBM’s 26 mischaracterization of the record.” 27 28 3 Case No.: 5:14-cv-01358-EJD ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE A MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION 1 With this explanation, Plaintiff has not established reasonable diligence. First and most 2 importantly, Plaintiff’s counsel did not state he was unaware of Plaintiff’s deposition, but rather 3 states he forgot what statements Plaintiff made. Accordingly, nothing Plaintiff said at the 4 deposition constitutes a new fact that could not have been raised earlier. 5 Second, knowing that Plaintiff’s deposition had been taken, the fact that his counsel did 6 not review the transcript at any time prior to the eve of trial cannot be equated with a finding of 7 reasonable diligence. Indeed, Plaintiff had three previous opportunities to submit this evidence - 8 first with his own motions in limine, second with his opposition to IBM’s motions in limine, and 9 third at the pretrial conference when the very issue concerning disability benefits was argued - but he did not, and the resources that may or may not be available to IBM’s counsel have no bearing 11 United States District Court Northern District of California 10 on when and how Plaintiff should prepare for trial. 12 Third, the court notes that the trial date and pretrial deadlines for this case were scheduled 13 and reserved on the court’s calendar in April, 2015, which allowed for more than sufficient time 14 for the review of a deposition transcript. Moreover, the parties represented in their joint pretrial 15 statement filed on December 3, 2015, that “[i]f the case remains scheduled to commence on 16 January 5, 2016, the parties will be ready to proceed with jury trial.” With that representation, a 17 two-week continuance of the commencement of trial - which was requested not to complete 18 preparations but to allow for a ruling on a motion to remand in another case that has since been 19 sent back to state court - would not have assisted Plaintiff in an effort to show reasonable 20 diligence. Either way, Plaintiff’s counsel apparently would not have reviewed the deposition 21 transcript until shortly before trial. 22 In addition, the court must note what is left unanswered by the instant motion. As noted in 23 the order filed on December 17th addressing Plaintiff’s oral motion for leave to amend and for 24 reconsideration, Plaintiff answered interrogatories in March, 2015 – more than three months 25 subsequent to his deposition – in which he unequivocally stated that the failure to accommodate 26 and failure to engage claims were based on two items: (1) that it took “an inordinately long time” 27 28 4 Case No.: 5:14-cv-01358-EJD ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE A MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION for IBM to approve his request for business class air travel, and (2) that his request for ergonomic 2 furniture was never fulfilled. No mention of disability benefits was made, and Plaintiff does not 3 explain why he did not include those benefits in the interrogatory responses he provided to IBM 4 after his deposition. Without such explanation, the court cannot find that it was unreasonable for 5 IBM to rely on the interrogatory responses when fashioning its defense up through trial, since 6 those responses constituted a more recent commentary on Plaintiff’s theory of the case. Similarly, 7 the court cannot agree that IBM necessarily mispresented anything in the motion in limine briefing 8 because it is true that, as of March, 2015, Plaintiff had not citied disability benefits as a potential 9 accommodation. Under these circumstances, it would be unduly prejudicial to IBM to permit 10 Plaintiff to raise a theory right before trial that was not previously litigated in the context of his 11 United States District Court Northern District of California 1 two remaining claims. In sum, Plaintiff has only succeeded in identifying an argument that he could have made 12 13 earlier but did not. Without a basis to find that he acted with reasonable diligence, such a showing 14 cannot form the basis of a motion for reconsideration. See Frietsch v. Refco, Inc., 56 F.3d 825, 15 828 (7th Cir. 1995) (“It is not the purpose of allowing motions for reconsideration to enable a 16 party to complete presenting his case after the court has ruled against him. Were such a procedure 17 to be countenanced, some lawsuits really might never end, rather than just seeming endless.”). 18 The motion for leave to file such a motion must therefore be denied. 19 III. 20 21 ORDER The motion for leave to file a motion for reconsideration (Docket Item No. 103) is DENIED. 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 IT IS SO ORDERED. Dated: December 29, 2015 ______________________________________ EDWARD J. DAVILA United States District Judge 5 Case No.: 5:14-cv-01358-EJD ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE A MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 United States District Court Northern District of California 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 6 Case No.: 5:14-cv-01358-EJD ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE A MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION
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