Successive summary judgment motions permitted by 9th Circuit
Joining 5 other circuits, the Ninth Circuit ruled in Hoffman v. Tonnemacher that FRCP 56 gives the district court the discretion to consider successive motions for summary judgment. Here, in a medical malpractice case, the district court had partially denied a pre-trial motion for summary judgment and denied a motion for judgment as a matter of law on the remaining issues following presentation of evidence at trial. The jury deadlocked. After receiving permission to designate a new expert witness, the defendant filed another motion for summary judgment, which the court granted. The plaintiff challenged both the ruling and the consideration of the motion. While the Court found consideration of the motion was not an abuse of discretion, the grant of summary judgment was reversed in a separate memorandum disposition. While the ruling makes clear that consideration of successive summary judgment motions is within the district court’s discretion, the decision is not exactly ground breaking. The Court had previously ruled such motions were permissible on the issue of qualified immunity, and had previously noted that summary judgment decisions are subject to reconsideration at any time. The language of FRCP 56 itself expressly grants a court discretion to alter the default timing limits on summary judgment motions. The Court did note that district courts “retain discretion to weed out frivolous or simply repetitive motions." The Court joined the 2d, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th Circuits on this issue.
Opinion issued January 21, 2010, authored by Graber, joined by Tashima and Bybee.
