Hatch v. Boulder Town Council ( 2009 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS January 14, 2009
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
JULIAN HATCH, doing business as
Freedom From Religion; LYNNE
MITCHELL, doing business as Match,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v. No. 07-4239
(D.C. No. 2:01-CV-00071-DAK)
BOULDER TOWN COUNCIL; (D. Utah)
BOULDER PLANNING
COMMISSION,
Defendants-Appellees.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before O’BRIEN, McCONNELL, and TYMKOVICH, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiffs Julian Hatch, d/b/a Freedom From Religion, and Lynne Mitchell,
d/b/a Match, appeal from the district court’s order granting summary judgment to
the defendants on all of the remaining claims in this civil rights action brought
*
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously to grant the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs without oral
argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore
ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding
precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and
collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent
with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and various state statutes. They also challenge the
district court’s decision striking their declarations filed in opposition to summary
judgment. We affirm.
BACKGROUND
Plaintiffs filed this case in January 2001, “alleging a plethora of
constitutional violations concerning zoning, permitting and road maintenance
issues.” Hatch v. Boulder Town Council, 471 F.3d 1142, 1143 (10th Cir. 2006)
(Hatch I). The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants, ruling
that nearly all of plaintiffs’ claims were precluded based on an earlier federal
civil rights suit and a state-court petition for review. In Hatch I, we reversed this
decision in part and remanded for further consideration of certain of plaintiffs’
claims.
On remand, the district court entered a 62 page order granting summary
judgment on all of plaintiffs’ remaining claims. In that order, it also struck
plaintiffs’ declarations in opposition to summary judgment, reasoning that “[a]n
entire affidavit may be disregarded if inadmissible matter is so interwoven or
inextricably combined with the admissible portions that it is impossible, in the
practical sense, to separate them.” Order, Aplt. App. at 534 (quotation and
footnote omitted).
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ANALYSIS
1. Motion to Strike
Defendants’ motion to strike plaintiffs’ declarations sought to exclude
evidence and we therefore review the district court’s grant of the motion for an
abuse of discretion. Lantec, Inc. v. Novell, Inc., 306 F.3d 1003, 1016 (10th Cir.
2002). “Under this standard we will not disturb the district court’s decision
unless we have a definite and firm conviction that the lower court made a clear
error of judgment or exceeded the bounds of permissible choice in the
circumstances.” Id. (quotation omitted).
As plaintiffs point out, the general rule is that “a court will disregard only
those portions of an affidavit that are inadmissible and consider the rest of it.”
Casas Office Machines, Inc. v. Mita Copystar Am., Inc., 42 F.3d 668, 682 (1st
Cir. 1994). See also Jones v. Barnhart, 349 F.3d 1260, 1270 (10th Cir. 2003).
But an exception is made to that rule: “the entire affidavit may be disregarded if
inadmissible matter is [so] interwoven or inextricably combined with the
admissible portions that it is impossible, in the practical sense, to separate them.”
Southern Concrete Co. v. United States Steel Corp., 394 F. Supp. 362, 380-81
(N.D. Ga. 1975), aff’d, 535 F.2d 313 (1976). Faced with literally hundreds of
specific objections that covered many or most of the statements contained in
nearly every paragraph of plaintiffs’ lengthy declarations, which were filled with
inadmissible evidence, conclusory statements, and argumentative rhetoric, the
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district court declined to search plaintiffs’ affidavits for admissible statements
using the “needle-in-the-haystack” method, and instead struck them in their
entirety. We cannot say the district court abused its discretion in doing so.
Nevertheless, in an abundance of caution, we have parsed the declarations and
find that the evidence contained therein properly considered under Fed. R. Civ. P.
56(e) would not change our decision to affirm the district court’s order granting
summary judgment for the defendants.
2. Summary Judgment
“We review a district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, applying
the same standards as the district court.” ACLU of New Mexico v. Santillanes,
546 F.3d 1313 (10th Cir. 2008). “Summary judgment is appropriate when ‘the
pleadings, the discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits show
that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is
entitled to judgment as a matter of law.’” Id. (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)).
“We view the facts in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.” Id.Having reviewed the district court’s well-reasoned order on summary
judgment, the record, the briefs, and the applicable law, we affirm the grant of
summary judgment for substantially the reasons stated in the district court’s order
of summary judgment, dated October 10, 2007.
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The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. The defendants’ motion
to dismiss the appeal is denied.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
PER CURIAM
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