Roberts v. Ferman — civil — affirmance — Smith

Fellow Third Circuit enthusiasts will recall the court’s ruling last year in Lehman Brothers, where the court held that a litigant’s failure to include a transcript in the appellate record resulted in forfeiture of the litigant’s claim. The ruling sparked much discussion, some of it critical of the opinion, some of it on this blog (see for example my post and this Third Circuit Bar Association newsletter article by Howard Bashman and me).

Today, the Third Circuit revisited Lehman Brothers, vigorously reaffirming the ruling but also emphasizing its narrowness. The court tartly noted, “we did not cavalierly hold that any failure to comply with [FRAP] Rule 10(b) would result in forfeiture.” It explained:

The takeaway, then, from Lehman Brothers should be clear: Gateway made an affirmative and serious misstatement in its brief before this Court when it stated that no record of the telephonic oral argument existed. This, we concluded, evinced either an intent to deceive the Court or a “remarkable lack of diligence.” Id. at 101. Even so, that alone was insufficient to warrant forfeiture, because we went on to consider Gateway’s post hoc explanation for its failure. Only upon finding Gateway’s explanation lacking did we conclude that forfeiture was an appropriate sanction.

The court held that Lehman Brothers‘ forfeiture sanction was not warranted in this case, even though this appellant also failed to include in the record some available and relevant transcripts, because “[t]here is no allegation that Roberts [the appellant] misrepresented the existence or non-existence of the trial transcript or that the explanation for his omission was a disingenuous post hoc rationalization.”

If today’s opinion’s ended there it would still be CA3-nerd can’t-miss reading, but there’s much more.

Gaps in the transcript were discovered while the case was still in district court, and the court directed the appellant to follow the FRAP 10(c) procedure for recreating the missing record. When the appellant failed to do so, the district court dismissed for failure to prosecute the appellant’s post-trial motion. With some withering language — for example, “Roberts’ counsel should take the time to read Rule 10(c)” — the Third Circuit held that this ruling was no abuse of discretion, and, alternatively, that the appellant’s actions would also foreclose review of the merits of his appeal. The opinion gives this useful practice guidance:

[O]ur holding in this case leaves open avenues for appellants to seek appropriate relief if they can show that they were prejudiced by the loss of part or all of the record below. Such an appellant must comply with the dictates of Rule 10(c) and then present specific reasons why his or her attempt to recreate the record was insufficient. This would allow us on appeal (or the district court when considering a posttrial motion) to properly assess whether we could in fact grant meaningful review of the appellant’s claims without the actual trial transcript available to us.

Finally, the court held that the district judge did not err in reconsidering sua sponte an earlier denial of summary judgment.

Joining Smith were Ambro and Krause. The case was decided without oral argument. Counsel for the appellant was Brian Puricelli, who in 2004 was the subject of a New York Times story (!) describing one of his briefs as “infested with typographical errors,” and reporting that a federal judge wrote, “Mr. Puricelli’s complete lack of care in his written product shows disrespect for the court.” Counsel for the appellee was Carol VanderWoude of Marshall Dennehy.