” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c)(3); see also Emerson v. Novartis Pharm. Corp., 446 Fed.Appx. 733, 736 (6th Cir.2011) (“ ‘[J]udges are not like pigs, hunting for truffles' that might be buried in the record.”); Chi. Title Ins. Corp. v. Magnuson, 487 F.3d 985, 995 (6th Cir.2007) (“A district court is not required to ‘search the entire record to establish that it is bereft of a genuine issue of material fact.’ ”). “In considering a motion for summary judgment, [a court] must draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party.

The Court, for the sake of completeness, considers Defendants' argument as if asserted under Ohio law. Under that law, “a non-compete clause's enforceability is a matter of law for the court.” Chi. Title Ins. Corp. v. Magnuson, 487 F.3d 985, 990 (6th Cir.2007). “[A] noncompete covenant is enforceable to the extent it is reasonable.”

The parties' competing motions and related briefing address the scope of what discovery this Court should permit upon remand from the Sixth Circuit. That appellate court previously affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded this litigation for a new trial on compensatory damages. Chicago Title Ins. Corp. v. Magnuson, 487 F.3d 985 (6th Cir. 2007). The parties are now arguing over the scope of that remand and what discovery is necessary to meet the court of appeals' directive.

Chi. Title Ins. Corp. v. Magnuson, 487 F.3d 985, 995 (6th Cir. 2007) (citation omitted). And we review the "record in the same fashion as the district court."

See Romano v. U-Haul Int'l, 233 F.3d 655, 673 (1st Cir. 2000) (defendant's actions were reprehensible where it violated plaintiffs rights and then attempted to conceal the violation); Hopkins v. Dow Corning Corp., 33 F.3d 1116, 1127 (9th Cir. 1994) (punitive damages award was constitutionally permissible where defendant concealed studies relating to product defects); cf. Hawkins v. Allstate Ins. Co., 152 Ariz. 490, 497, 733 P.2d 1073, 1080 (1987) (in calculating "a punitive damage award that is reasonable under the circumstances," the trier-of-fact may consider the "duration of the misconduct, the degree of defendant's awareness of the harm or risk of harm, and any concealment"). ¶ 100 Security Title also argues First American has engaged in similar bad acts elsewhere, citing Chicago Title Insurance Corp. v. Magnuson, 487 F.3d 985 (6th Cir. 2007). In Chicago Title, as here, First American was sued for its conduct in seeking to staff its newly formed Talon division.

Adkins, 105 F.4th at 854; see Bennett v. Hurley Med. Ctr., 86 F.4th 314, 324 (6th Cir. 2023); Scottsdale, 513 F.3d at 551-54; Chicago Title Ins. Corp. v. Magnuson, 487 F.3d 985, 995 (6th Cir. 2007); Guarino, 980 F.2d at 405. That is what happened here.

We generally decline to entertain factual recitations not brought to the district court's attention in the first instance. See Chicago Title Ins. Corp. v. Magnuson, 487 F.3d 985, 995 (6th Cir. 2007) ("[T]he opposing party 'has an affirmative duty to direct the court's attention to those specific portions of the record upon which it seeks to rely to create a genuine issue of material fact.'" (quoting In re Morris, 260 F.3d 654, 665 (6th Cir. 2001))); Sumpter v. Wayne Cnty., 868 F.3d 473, 490 (6th Cir. 2017) ("We have said time and again, district courts cannot be expected to dig through the record to find the seeds of a party's cause of action.").

For even where the jury has found an entitlement to punitive damages, the appropriate punitive damages award may still be zero. Chicago Title Ins. Corp. v. Magnuson , 487 F.3d 985, 1001 (6th Cir. 2007) (applying the State Farm factors and holding that the district court erred in upholding a jury verdict for any punitive damages following the jury's $32.4 million punitive damages and $10.8 million compensatory damages award). In making that threshold assessment, the "most important indicium of the reasonableness of a punitive damages award is the degree of reprehensibility of the defendant's conduct."

Even if the rule applies to district courts and appellate courts—a proposition far from certain, see LidoChem, Inc. v. Stoller Enters., 500 F. App'x 373, 388-91 (6th Cir. 2012) (Thapar, J., dissenting) (collecting cases)—the rule is quite clearly discretionary, and we decline to reverse the district court on this basis. See Chicago Title Ins. Corp. v. Magnuson, 487 F.3d 985, 995 (6th Cir. 2007) (quoting Street v. J.C. Bradford & Co., 886 F.2d 1472, 1479-80 (6th Cir. 1989)) ("A district court is not required to 'search the entire record to establish that it is bereft of a genuine issue of material fact.'"). The first piece of evidence offers little.

Lawyers's chain of causation is too attenuated and speculative to withstand summary judgment. Lawyers argues that we adopted the functional equivalent of its "excluded causation theory" in Chicago Title Insurance Corp. v. Magnuson, 487 F.3d 985 (6th Cir. 2007), where we affirmed a jury verdict against former Chicago Title executive James Magnuson who breached a non-compete provision by working for a competitor after leaving Chicago Title. Although Magnuson's employment agreement contained a non-compete provision, Lawyers questions the relevance of this distinction because even Bittinger was forbidden from competing with Lawyers during her employment and the solicitation of Frattaroli occurred while Bittinger was employed by Lawyers.