Opinion
17 Civ. 8796 (NRB)
07-24-2024
FUJIFILM NORTH AMERICA CORPORATION, Plaintiff, v. PLR IP HOLDINGS, LLC and PLR BRAND SERVICES, LLC, Defendants. PLR IP HOLDINGS, LLC, PLR BRAND SERVICES, LLC, POLAROID FILM B.V., and POLAROID AMERICA CORP., d/b/a POLAROID ORIGINALS, Counterclaim Plaintiffs, v. FUJIFILM NORTH AMERICA CORPORATION AND FUJIFILM CORPORATION, Counterclaim Defendants.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
NAOMI REICE BUCHWALD UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Pending before the Court is Fujifilm's motion for summary judgment. ECF No. 147. Included in the briefing are Fujifilm's Rule 56.1 Statement, ECF Nos. 149, 152; Polaroid's Rule 56.1 Statement in opposition to Fujifilm's Rule 56.1 statement, ECF Nos. 165, 171; Polaroid's additional Rule 56.1 Statement, ECF Nos. 166, 172; Fujifilm's response to Polaroid's Rule 56.1 Statement, ECF Nos. 182, 185 (“Polaroid 56.1”); and a reply to Polaroid's responses to Fujifilm's Rule 56.1 Statement, ECF No. 183 (“Fujifilm 56.1”). In total, the parties' 56.1 Statements include 404 purported statements of undisputed material facts across 315 pages.
The purpose of a 56.1 statement is to “streamline the consideration of summary judgment motions by freeing district courts from the need to hunt through voluminous records without guidance from the parties.” Holtz v. Rockefeller & Co., Inc., 258 F.3d 62, 74 (2d Cir. 2001). Rule 56.1(a) requires the party moving for summary judgment to submit a ““short[] and concise statement, in numbered paragraphs, of the material facts as to which the moving party contends there is no genuine issue to be tried.” Local Civ. R. 56.1(a) (emphases added). The nonmoving party, in turn, must submit “a correspondingly numbered paragraph . . . responding to[] each numbered paragraph in the statement of the moving party.” Local Civ. R. 56.1(b). “[I]f necessary,” the nonmoving party may submit “additional paragraphs containing a separate, short and concise statement of additional material facts as to which it is contended that there exists a genuine issue to be tried.” Id. (emphases added).
Both parties have “flagrantly violated” Local Rule 56.1 in numerous ways. Graves v. Deutsche Bank Sec., Inc., 548 Fed.Appx. 654, 657 n.2 (2d Cir. 2013). First, Rule 56.1 requires a “short and concise” statement. By contrast, the parties have submitted statements of facts that, combined with the parties' various responses, total 315 pages. See id.; see also Tripathy v. McCloskey, No. 21 Civ. 6584 (CS), 2024 WL 2135623, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. May 13, 2024) (finding that the plaintiff's 56.1 response exceeding 350 pages violated Local Rule 56.1). These clearly are not “short and concise” statements of material fact.
Making matters worse, the parties in their Rule 56.1 statements regularly cite to lengthy exhibits in their entirety without including any specific page numbers. See, e.g., Polaroid 56.1 ¶¶ 60-63, 70. “Such vague citations defeat the purpose of [Local Rule] 56.1, which was ‘instituted, in part, to obviate burdening the courts with the onerous task of hunting through voluminous records for evidence supporting a nonmovant's opposition.'” Tripathy, 2024 WL 2135623, at *2 (citing Butler v. Suffolk County, No. 11 Civ. 2602, 2023 WL 5096218, at *20 (E.D.N.Y. Aug. 9, 2023)); see also Brown v. City of New York, No. 16 Civ. 1919 (ALC), 2018 WL 3821620, at *6 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 10, 2018) (declining to consider portions of 56.1 response that did not include specific record citations).
Finally, “the purpose of a [Local Rule] 56.1 response is simply to advise the Court as to whether the specific fact asserted by the moving party is or is not disputed, and if it is disputed, to provide the Court with the evidence on which the non-moving party relies to dispute that particular fact. It presents no occasion for context, argument, semantic quibbles, opinions or conclusions.” Tripathy, 2024 WL 2135623, at *2. Although Rule 56.1 requires non-argumentative statements, the parties here regularly include legal argument in their statements of fact or responses. See, e.g., Fujifilm 56.1 ¶¶ 103, 109, 143, 157; Polaroid 56.1 ¶¶ 90 n.5, 90 n.6, 149, 172. For instance, Fujifilm argues in its reply to paragraph 103 of its 56.1 Statement that a survey Polaroid conducted in 2023 must be disregarded in the secondary meaning analysis. Fujifilm 56.1 ¶ 103. As another example, Polaroid chooses to clarify the contours of its registered trademark claim in a response to Fujifilm's 56.1 Statement, on page 86 of the document. Id. ¶ 90 (“Polaroid continues to allege that two-dimensional representations of Fujifilm's Instax Square film outside the packaging (for example, in images on the internet) infringe Polaroid's registered trademark in the CBL.”). These types of arguments and clarifications are wholly unsuitable for 56.1 statements and responses, “which should not contain ‘legal conclusions or unsubstantiated opinions,' and must instead, where a dispute exists, specifically controvert the facts asserted by the movant via material facts supported by admissible evidence.” Tripathy, 2024 WL 2135623, at *2 (internal citation omitted); see also Graves, 548 Fed.Appx. at 657 n.2 (“[Local Rule] 56.1 . . . requires a short and concise, non-argumentative response.”) (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted).
While a district court has “broad discretion to determine whether to overlook a party's failure to comply with local court rules,” and instead rely on its own review of the record, Holtz, 258 F.3d at 73, that approach is not feasible here. See, e.g., Collins v. City of New York, No. 14 Civ. 08815 (AJN), 2017 WL 11582468, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. July 10, 2017). This conclusion is further supported by the overreliance on the 56.1 Statements in the parties' memoranda of law.
The parties submitted over 540 exhibits, exceeding 9,000 pages.
In sum, the parties' 56.1 Statements were filed in violation of this Court's Local Rules. Accordingly, Fujifilm's motion for summary judgment is dismissed without prejudice to refiling. The Clerk of the Court is respectfully directed to close the motions pending at ECF Nos. 146, 147, 157, 175, 180.
SO ORDERED.