Velez v. Awning Windows, Inc.
United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
375 F.3d 35 (1st Cir. 2004)
Velez (plaintiff) sued Awning Windows, Inc. (AWI) (defendant) for employment discrimination; throughout pretrial proceedings AWI repeatedly sought extensions, missed deadlines, and dragged its feet from the case's inception. After Velez moved for summary judgment, AWI missed its opposition deadline, received a new deadline from the district court, and instead of filing its opposition, filed a further extension motion that merely provided reasons the extension should be granted without satisfying the elements of a proper Rule 56(f) motion. The district court, having already been fairly lenient with AWI, disregarded the late opposition and took Velez's factual statements as true, and separately, after AWI failed to respond to a request for a legal memorandum on a hearsay issue, precluded that testimony as a sanction; AWI appealed.
Whether, if a party seeking to oppose a motion for summary judgment files a statement that merely provides reasons why an extension to file the opposition should be granted, that is sufficient for a court to order the extension.