Plumey-Cruz v. Westinghouse Electronic Corp. , 51 F. App'x 892 ( 2002 )

[NOT FOR PUBLICATION-NOT TO BE CITED AS PRECEDENT]
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 02-1111
JOSE G. PLUMEY-CRUZ, et al.,
Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRONIC CORPORATION, et al., etc.,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Hector M. Laffitte, Chief District Judge]
Before
Boudin, Chief Judge,
Howard, Circuit Judge,
and Shadur,* Senior District Judge
Robert E. Schneider, Jr. for appellants.
Edwin J. Seda-Fernandez, with whom Marshal D. Morgan and
Carlos R. Paula were on brief, for the appellees.
November 27, 2002
*
Of the Northern District of Illinois, sitting by
designation.
SHADUR, Senior District Judge. Jose Plumey-Cruz (“Plumey”),
his wife Nohra Soto Vahos and their conjugal partnership (for
convenience, all referred to here simply as “Plumey”) appeal the
dismissal of Plumey's ERISA claim against Westinghouse Electric
Corporation/CBS Corporation and Thermo King de Puerto Rico, Inc.
(collectively “Westinghouse”). For the reasons stated in this
memorandum opinion, we affirm the district court's decision in all
respects.
Background
Because this is an unpublished and non-precedential ruling,
and because the litigants are of course familiar with the facts, we
state them only in the skeletal form required for this opinion.
Plumey initially instituted this lawsuit pro se, and he continued
to act without counsel until the case was well along. On March 31,
2000 the district court dismissed Plumey's ADEA and Title VII
claims as time-barred, simultaneously dismissing the corresponding
Commonwealth-law claims without prejudice (see, e.g., Figueroa Ruiz
v. Alegria, 896 F.2d 645, 650 (1st Cir. 1990)). That left
surviving only a potential ERISA claim.
After discovery had taken place on the latter claim,
Westinghouse moved for summary judgment under Fed. R. Civ. P.
(“Rule”) 56, accompanying its motion with an appropriate submission
under the district court's Local Rule 311.12. Plumey answered the
motion, including what he labeled as a responsive submission under
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Rule 311.12. After receiving that response, Westinghouse tendered
a November 27, 2001 reply that pointed to what it urged (and what
we agree) was a fatal admission made in Plumey's response: that he
was not a participant in any Westinghouse “top hat” plan.
In that respect, Westinghouse's sound position was that such
non-participation foreclosed Plumey's attempted ERISA claim. For
one thing, Plumey had made no assertion that he was entitled to
participate in a “top hat” plan but was wrongfully barred from
doing so, for Westinghouse's only such plan extended to its
mainland executives and not to those based in Puerto Rico. Nor is
such noncoverage itself actionable under ERISA: That aspect of
Westinghouse's plan “was, of course, a feature that the employer as
plan sponsor was free to adopt without breach of any fiduciary duty
under ERISA, since an employer's decisions about the content of a
plan are not themselves fiduciary acts” (Pegram v. Herdrich, 530
U.S. 211, 226 (2000)).
Early in 2001 the same counsel who represents Plumey on the
current appeal had appeared on his behalf in the district court,
and counsel had filed Plumey's summary judgment response in mid-
November. Then on November 30, 2001, just three days after
Westinghouse had submitted its reply, the district court granted
summary judgment. Its decision did not rely at all on that reply,
referring instead to the district court's own review of the record.
Because Plumey's notice of appeal refers only to that order and
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does not assert any error in the earlier dismissal of his ADEA and
Title VII claims (nor has he done so in his briefs or oral argument
before us), we deal here only with his rejected ERISA claim.
Insubstantiality of Plumey's Contentions
On this appeal Plumey complains of:
1. the district court's asserted abuse of discretion in
failing to require Westinghouse to provide more discovery
before the court issued its final decision on November 30,
2001;
2. the district court's asserted abuse of discretion in
failing to give Plumey the opportunity to file a surreply to
Westinghouse's November 27, 2001 reply; and
3. the asserted invalidity of Rule 311.12.
None of those contentions requires more than brief discussion.
As for Plumey's first argument, his counsel (who, as stated
earlier, had by then entered the case) never invoked Rule 56(f) at
the district court level to explain what further discovery was
needed and to ask for more time to obtain it (in that respect, see
Filiatrault v. Comverse Tech., Inc., 275 F.3d 131, 138 (1st Cir.
2001)). That failure to present the issue to the district court
(even via a post-November 30, 2001 motion for reconsideration)
could well preclude Plumey from raising the question before this
Court. But even were that not so, the already-described fatal
flaws in Plumey's ERISA-based claim would have called for any such
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Rule 56(f) motion to be denied on relevancy grounds in any event.
Parallel reasoning defeats Plumey's second contention as well.
Westinghouse's reply had advanced nothing new--it simply pointed to
the same deficiency that the district judge had picked up on his
own. Once again, with Plumey's counsel not having requested such
relief from the district court even after having received its
ruling, it is doubtful that the issue has been properly preserved
for appeal (cf. Beaird v. Seagate Tech., Inc., 145 F.3d 1159, 1164-
65 (10th Cir. 1998)). And as with the first contention, Plumey
says nothing that could have led to a different outcome even if a
surreply had been requested and allowed.
Finally, Rule 311.12 has repeatedly been upheld as valid by
this Court (see, e.g., Morales v. A.C. Orssleff's EFTF, 246 F.3d
32, 33 (1st Cir. 2001), discussing that “anti-ferreting” rule); and
see also the specific reference to permitting such rules in the
last sentence of the Advisory Committee Note on the 1995 amendment
to Rule 83(a)(2)). There is no reason to reexamine that position
here.
Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district court's
rulings in all respects.
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