Mid-America Apartment Communities, Inc. v. Dennis Michael Philipson

Summary

The United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee denied Defendant Dennis Michael Philipson’s renewed motion to correct and settle the appellate record, require filing or lodging of materials allegedly used in the proceedings, and obtain an indicative ruling under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 62.1. The court held that the requested materials were not material to the pending appeals and that Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 10(e) could not be used to introduce new evidence or supplement the record with materials not previously before the district court.

Holdings

1. Rule 10(e) does not permit a party to supplement the appellate record with new evidence or materials that were not before the district court and were not omitted or misstated by error or accident.
2. A motion to correct or supplement the record should be denied when the movant fails to demonstrate that the proposed materials are material to the appeal.
3. Rule 5(d)(1)(A) does not provide a basis to compel filing or lodging of discovery materials where the movant does not identify discovery requests used in the proceeding that should have been filed and seeks materials that were already provided or were not part of the district-court record.
4. An indicative ruling was unnecessary because Rule 10(e) permitted the district court to address record corrections before or after the record was forwarded.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 10(e) authorized the district court to supplement or correct the appellate record with subpoenas, discovery materials, credit-card-related documents, and a sworn declaration that were not shown to have been before the district court or relied upon in entering judgment.
2. Whether Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5(d)(1)(A) authorized the district court to require filing or lodging of discovery materials in the circumstances presented.
3. Whether an indicative ruling under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 62.1 was necessary or appropriate.

Disposition

other