The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia amended its Local Rules effective March 8, 2003. Among the most recent revisions, the Court added a provision to Local Rule (“LR”) 56 prohibiting parties from filing multiple summary judgment motions without prior leave of Court. See Local Rule 56(c) (“Unless permitted by leave of Court, a party shall not file separate motions for summary judgment addressing separate grounds for summary judgment.”).
This revision to LR 56.1 is the Court’s response to a practice that had developed in patent infringement cases in which parties would file separate motions and briefs to address different grounds for summary judgment. When fully briefed, and considering the exhibits, these separate motions comprised hundreds of pages and no doubt severely taxed the Court’s resources. Now, under Rule 56.1(c), counsel must obtain leave of Court before filing multiple summary judgment motions.
This new limitation challenges counsel to identify the likely grounds for summary judgment relatively early in the case to allow time to move the Court either for relief from the page limit of LR 7.1 or for leave to file multiple motions. I anticipate that the Court will be sensitive to the difficulties the current page limitations impose on summary judgment motions in complex cases and to grant the parties some relief. At the same time, I expect the Court to limit both the length of and frequency with which summary judgment motions can be filed in a given case. Consequently, counsel should anticipate having to make difficult decisions about which summary judgment grounds to pursue.
The content of and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author individually. If you have questions or comments about this article or about litigating on the “Rocket Docket” generally, please address your inquiries to: Dana McDaniel e-mail: dmcdaniel@spottsfain.com
