Reconsidering Celotex: What Is the Burden of Production When a Defendant Moves for Summary Judgment on the Ground That the Plaintiff Lacks Evidence?
| Jurisdiction | United States,Federal |
| Citation | Vol. 11 No. 4 Pg. 14 |
| Pages | 14 |
| Publication year | 1998 |
Adam Price, J.
"[T]he burden on the moving party may be discharged by 'showing' that is, pointing out to the district court -that there is an absence of evidence in the nonmoving party's case." (Rehnquist, J., writing for the Court)[1]
" [T]he Court has not clearly explained what is required of a moving party seeking summary judgment on the ground that the nonmoving party cannot prove its case. This lack of clarity is unfortunate: district courts must routinely decide summary judgment motions, and the Court's opinion will very likely create confusion." (Brennan, J., dissenting)[2]
The Supreme Court's decision in Celotex Corp. v. Catrett (“Celotex If) has been cited as controlling or persuasive authority in over 34,000 published and unpublished judicial opinions. Every first year law student in the last twelve years has read this seminal decision concerning summary judgment procedures under Fed. R. Civ. P. 56. Despite this currency, however, the holding of the Celotex II decision, articulated by Justice Rehnquist in the first epigraph above, remains widely misunderstood.
On its face, Justice Rehnquist's choice of language seems to suggest that a defendant may move for summary judgment simply by making a conclusory assertion that the plaintiff lacks sufficient evidence to reach a jury. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. A close reading of Celotex II, in conjunction with the decisions rendered below (Celotex 1[3] and Celotex III[4] ), reveals that a defendant must explore the evidentiary basis for the plaintiff's claims through deposition, interrogatory or request for admission before moving for summary judgment on the ground that the plaintiff lacks evidence. That is, the defendant can meet the burden of production only by creating, through the discovery process, a record for the district court to review.
THE DECISION BELOW: MUST THE DEFENDANT DISPROVE THE PLAINTIFF'S CASE TO PREVAIL ON SUMMARY JUDGMENT?
The plaintiff in Celotex I sued several asbestos manufacturers whom, she alleged, had produced the asbestos to which her husband had been exposed. During discovery, the defendants filed a set of interrogatories. In particular, Interrogatories Nos. 52 and 53 sought detailed information from the plaintiff about "the type and identity of each such asbestos material with which [her husband] had contact."[5]
The plaintiff's answers to the interrogatories, in June 1981, were non-responsive.[6]
In September 1981, defendant Celotex moved for summary judgment on the ground that plaintiff had "failed to show the decedent came into contact with any product containing asbestos designed, manufactured, or distributed by Celotex."[7] In support of the motion, Celotex directed the district court's attention to the plaintiff's failure to produce any evidence in response to Interrogatories Nos. 52 and 53.
The D.C. Circuit ruled that Celotex had failed to meet its burden of production under Fed. R. Civ. P. 56 and that the plaintiff therefore had no obligation to respond.[8] The Celotex I court explained:
In this case Celotex proffered nothing. It advanced only the naked allegation that the plaintiff 'had not come forward in discovery with evidence to support her allegations of decedent's exposure to the defendant's product. Under settled rules, that barebones approach will not do. Mrs. Catrett was simply not required, given this state of the record, to offer any evidence in response.[9]
In reaching its conclusion, the D.C. Circuit followed the majority interpretation of the Supreme...
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