VICTOR A. BOLDEN, District Judge.
On October 5, 2018, First State Insurance Company and New England Reinsurance Corporation ("Plaintiffs") moved for reconsideration of the Court's September 28, 2018 Ruling and Order on several motions for summary judgment. First State Insurance Company and New England Reinsurance Corporation's Motion for Reconsideration Pursuant to Local Rule 7(c), dated Oct. 5, 2018 ("Pls.' Mot."), ECF No. 265; see Ruling and Order on Motions for Summary Judgment, dated Sept. 28, 2018 ("Ruling & Order"), ECF No. 262. Specifically, Plaintiffs argue that discovery during the pendency of the summary judgment motions yielded new evidence that was unavailable at the time the motions were briefed. Id. at 1.
For the reasons that follow, the Court
Familiarity with the facts and prior proceedings, summarized in the Court's September 28, 2018 Ruling and Order, is assumed. See Ruling & Order at 3-10.
On January 8, 2018, Plaintiffs and Ferguson Enterprises, Inc. ("Ferguson") both filed motions for summary judgment on the number of aggregate limits provided by a policy issued by Swiss Reinsurance America Corporation ("Swiss Re"), as successor-in-interest to Forum Insurance Company. First State's Motion for Summary Judgment on the Number of Aggregate Limits, dated Jan. 8, 2018 ("First State Mot."), ECF No. 161; Ferguson's Motion for Summary Judgment on the Swiss Re Policy's Limits of Liability, dated Jan. 8, 2018 ("Ferguson Mot. on Swiss Re"), ECF No. 162.
On March 1, 2018, Swiss Re moved for partial summary judgment on the aggregate limits of its policy. Swiss Re's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, dated Mar. 1, 2018 ("Swiss Re Mot."), ECF No. 179.
On April 30, 2018, American Home Assurance Company ("American Home") moved for partial summary judgment on the number of aggregate limits under the policy it issued to Familian, Ferguson's predecessor-in-interest. American Home's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (Aggregate Limits), dated Apr. 30, 2018 ("American Home Mot. on Agg. Limits"), ECF No. 192. American Home also moved for partial summary judgment on the statute of limitations, which American Home argued barred Plaintiffs' claims against them. American Home's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (Statute of Limitations), dated Apr. 30, 2018 ("American Home Mot. on SOL"), ECF No. 191.
On June 4, 2018, Columbia Casualty Company and The Continental Insurance Company (together, "CNA") moved for partial summary judgment, arguing that certain claims are barred by the statute of limitations, and for partial joinder of American Home's motion for partial summary judgment on the statute of limitations, to the extent that it asks the Court to impose a limitations period on First State's claims with respect to past settlements. CNA's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (Statute of Limitations), dated June 4, 2018 ("CNA Mot.")
On September 5, 2018, this Court held oral argument on the parties' motions for summary judgment. Minute Entry, dated Sept. 5, 2018, ECF No. 254; Transcript of Motion Hearing, filed Sept. 13, 2018 ("Tr."), ECF No. 256.
On September 20, 2018, American Home moved for leave to file a supplemental statement of facts and brief in support of their motion for partial summary judgment on the statute of limitations, based on the deposition testimony of First State corporate representative Renee Trett that it believed was "relevant to the Court's determination" of that motion. American Home Assurance Company's Motion for Leave to File a Supplemental Statement of Facts and Brief in Support of its Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (Statute of Limitations), dated Sept. 20, 2018 ("Mot. to Supp."), ECF No. 260, ¶¶ 2-3.
On September 24, 2018, Plaintiffs opposed the motion to supplement the record. Response in Opposition to Mot. to Supp., dated Sept. 24, 2018 ("Pls.' Opp. to Mot. to Supp."). Plaintiffs "disagree[d] that there is need for additional briefing and statements of facts" but stated that if the Court "believes the transcript may be helpful to the Court's consideration of the pending motion" it had "no objection to providing to the Court the full deposition transcript so the Court may read for itself what First State's designee said. . . ." Id.
On September 28, 2018, this Court issued several rulings on the parties' motions for summary judgment.
First, the Court granted Swiss Re's motion, and denied Plaintiffs' and Ferguson's motions, on the number of aggregate limits in Swiss Re's policy, holding that "the Swiss Re insurance policy cover[ed] a single policy period of 15.5 months, from December 18, 1984 to April 1, 1986, and ha[d] a single aggregate limit of $5 million of coverage." Ruling & Order at 14, 33.
Second, the Court granted American Home's motion and denied Ferguson's motion on the number of aggregate limits in American Home's policy, holding that American Home's ten-day extension from March 5, 1977 to March 15, 1977 extended the third policy period and did not create a fourth policy period with an additional $10 million aggregate liability limit. Ruling & Order at 21, 33.
Third, the Court granted American Home and CNA's motions on the statute of limitations, holding that any of the potential years, in which Plaintiffs may have first brought claims against American Home or CNA, fell outside of both Connecticut's one-year statute of limitations and California's two-year statute of limitations. Ruling & Order at 26, 28, 33.
On October 5, 2018, Plaintiffs moved for reconsideration of the Court's summary judgment rulings. See Pls.' Mot. Plaintiffs claim that reconsideration is warranted "on the ground that new evidence is available to show genuine disputes of material fact as to the motions the Court granted." Id. at 1. Plaintiffs allege "[b]ecause discovery has proceeded during the pendency of these motions, new evidence is now available to the Court that was not available at the time the motions were briefed." Id. (citation omitted). Specifically, Plaintiffs argue that new evidence arose from: (1) depositions of American Home witnesses on August 15, 16, and 21, 2018, for which Plaintiffs only received transcripts on August 27, 29, and 30, 2018, id. at 2; and (2) the deposition of First State witness Renee Trett on September 13, 2018, for which Plaintiffs received the transcript on September 20, 2018, id. at 3.
Plaintiffs therefore move the Court for reconsideration of all its rulings "based on the availability of new evidence and the need to correct a clear error." Id. at 3.
On October 5, 2018, Ferguson filed a memorandum in support of Plaintiffs' motion for reconsideration. Ferguson Enterprises, Inc.'s Response in Further Support of First State Insurance Company's and New England Reinsurance Corporation's Motion for Reconsideration, dated Oct. 5, 2018 ("Ferguson Mem."), ECF No. 268.
On October 26, 2018, American Home, CNA, and Swiss Re opposed reconsideration. American Home Assurance Company's Opposition to First State Insurance Company's and New England Reinsurance Corporation's Motion for Reconsideration Pursuant to Local Rule 7(c), dated Oct. 26, 2018 ("American Home Mem."), ECF No. 270; Columbia Casualty Company's and The Continental Insurance Company's Memorandum of Law in Opposition to First State Insurance Company and New England Reinsurance Corporation's Motion for Reconsideration, dated Oct. 26, 2018 ("CNA Mem."), ECF No. 274; Swiss Reinsurance America Corporation's Opposition to Plaintiffs' Motion to Reconsideration, dated Oct. 26, 2018 ("Swiss Re Mem."), ECF No. 275. They argue, inter alia, that Plaintiffs' "motion: (1) seeks to re-litigate issues that were already fully presented to and decided by the Court, (2) raises issues not previously argued by First State, (3) cites purported evidence that, even if it were newly available, does not support reconsideration of the Court's Ruling, and (4) does not identify any errors of law that require correcting." American Home Mem. at 1-2; see also CNA Mem. at 3-5; Swiss Re Mem. at 3. They assert that the information from the deposition transcripts, if not previously available, was either "incomplete" because the witness deferred to counsel on a given question, or taken out of context in Plaintiffs' motion for reconsideration. American Home Mem. at 9-13, 16-21; see CNA Mem. at 4, Swiss Re Mem. at 3.
On October 31, 2018, Plaintiffs and Ferguson filed replies. First State Insurance Company's and New England Reinsurance Corporation's Reply in Support of Reconsideration Pursuant to Local Rule 7(c), dated Oct. 31, 2018 ("Pls.' Reply"), ECF No. 278; Ferguson Enterprises, Inc.'s Reply in Further Support of First State Insurance Company's and New England Reinsurance Corporation's Motion for Reconsideration, dated Oct. 31, 2018 ("Ferguson Reply"), ECF No. 280.
Plaintiffs argue that Swiss Re, American Home, and CNA all "concede, as they must" that Plaintiffs received the deposition transcripts "only one to two weeks before the Court's hearing[,] and [that] First State's own witness was not deposed until a week after the hearing." Pls.' Reply at 1. Plaintiffs then argue that it was not their burden to supplement the record, but that they had, in fact, "offered to submit the entire transcript" of their witness because they knew that his testimony "created genuine issues of material fact." Id. at 2 ("American Home criticizes First State for not seeking to supplement the record with this evidence, but American Home was the party that moved for partial summary judgment and, therefore, it bore the burden. Furthermore, First State offered to submit the entire transcript of its witness. . . .") (citing Pls.' Opp. to Mot. to Supp.).
"The standard for granting [a motion for reconsideration] is strict, and reconsideration will generally be denied unless the moving party can point to controlling decisions or data that the court overlooked—matters, in other words, that might reasonably be expected to alter the conclusion reached by the court." Shrader v. CSX Transp., Inc., 70 F.3d 255, 257 (2d Cir. 1995) (citations omitted).
"Reconsideration is not intended for the court to reexamine a decision or the party to reframe a failed motion." Fan v. United States, 710 F. App'x 23, 24 (2d Cir. 2018) (citing Questrom v. Federated Dep't Stores, Inc., 192 F.R.D. 128, 130 (S.D.N.Y. 2000)); accord Shrader, 70 F.3d at 257 ("[A] motion to reconsider should not be granted where the moving party seeks solely to relitigate an issue already decided.").
Generally, motions for reconsideration seek to have a court re-examine important evidence already contained in the record, but for some reason not explicitly considered or referenced in the court's decision—in other words, facts that the Court actually overlooked.
Plaintiffs argue, under Virgin Atlantic Airways, that deposition testimony obtained from four witnesses two months before the Court's summary judgment rulings constitutes new evidence that was not available at the time the motions were briefed, and that reconsideration of all of the Court's summary judgment rulings therefore is warranted. See Pls.' Mot. at 1.
More specifically, Plaintiffs argue: (1) that the ruling in favor of Swiss Re must be reconsidered because "there is no record evidence to support the Court's finding" of mutual expectations between Plaintiffs and Swiss Re at the time of contracting, id. at 3; (2) that the ruling in favor of American Home on the aggregate limits must be reconsidered because of "new evidence," the deposition testimony of American Home's witnesses on August 15-16, 2018, id. at 4-5; and (3) that the rulings in favor of American Home and CNA on the statute of limitations must be reconsidered because of "new evidence," the deposition testimony of American Home's witness on August 21, 2018 and Plaintiffs' witness on September 13, 2018, id. at 5-12.
The Court disagrees.
First, any allegedly newly available evidence must be relevant to the underlying ruling in order to justify reconsideration of that ruling. Because Plaintiffs cite no newly available evidence relevant to the Court's rulings on the aggregate limits of Swiss Re's policy, reconsideration of that ruling is not warranted. See Analytical Surveys, Inc. v. Tonga Partners, L.P., 684 F.3d 36, 52 (2d Cir. 2012) ("It is well-settled that [a motion for reconsideration] is not a vehicle for relitigating old issues, securing a rehearing on the merits, or otherwise taking a `second bite at the apple[.]'") (quoting Sequa Corp. v. GBJ Corp., 156 F.3d 136, 144 (2d Cir. 1998)).
Second, evidence in a party's possession before a court's ruling is not considered "newly available" evidence. See Kopperl v. Bain, No. 3:09-cv-1754 (CSH), 2016 WL 310719, at *3 (D. Conn. Jan. 26, 2016) ("[N]ewly discovered evidence must not have been available prior to the entry of the judgment leading to reconsideration. If that were not the case, the movant in a motion for reconsideration would have a proverbial `second bite at the apple.'") (citations and footnote omitted); Rodriguez v. British Airways, PLC, No. 17-CV-03691, 2018 WL 501568 (E.D.N.Y. Jan. 19, 2018) (rejecting reconsideration in part because "what Feuerborn stated, not the transcript of what he stated, is the evidence at issue, and that was obviously available to and discovered by the plaintiff at the time of the deposition—before the Court entered judgment."); cf. Lauray v. Hannah, No. 3:14-cv-838 (KAD), 2019 WL 494623, at *1 n.2 (D. Conn. Feb. 8, 2019) (indicating skepticism as to whether new evidence allegedly justifying reconsideration was "newly discovered," and observing that "although the Plaintiff's counsel may have only recently seen the video footage, at oral argument the parties represented that no discovery was conducted during the four and a half years this case was pending.").
Here, the evidence now considered significant, he deposition testimony of American Home witnesses obtained on August 15, 16, and 21, 2018, were in Plaintiffs' possession before the Court's September 5, 2018 hearing. But Plaintiffs did not move for the Court to consider this additional evidence before the hearing, nor did they notify the Court of this additional evidence at the hearing.
Because Plaintiffs failed to timely supplement the record with the evidence from these depositions, they are not entitled to reconsideration based on that evidence. See Williams v. Murphy, No. 3:13-cv-01154 (MPS), 2018 WL 3105109 (D. Conn. Jun. 25, 2018) ("[A] motion for reconsideration cannot be employed as a vehicle for . . . introducing new evidence that could have been adduced during the pendency of the underlying motion.") (citing Palmer v. Sena, 474 F.Supp.3d 353, 355 (D. Conn. 2007)). Accordingly, the Court's ruling on the aggregate limits of American Home's policy will not be reconsidered.
Third, while the deposition of Plaintiffs' client-witness, corporate representative Renee Trett, could arguably be considered "newly available," given that it was only obtained after the hearing, and therefore was not part of the record before the Court, Plaintiffs could have deposed their own client before the hearing, if her testimony was critical to the then-pending motions.
Because Plaintiffs had ample opportunity to obtain this evidence but chose not to do so, and also expressly disclaimed the import of this evidence after briefing had closed, the Court's summary judgment rulings on the statutes of limitations will not be reconsidered.
Plaintiffs' remaining arguments seek merely to litigate again issues of law already decided by the Court, and do not raise any controlling decisions or law that the Court has overlooked. See Kolel Beth Yechiel Mechil of Tartikov, Inc. v. YLL Irrevocable Trust, 729 F.3d 99, 108 (2d Cir. 2013) (affirming denial of reconsideration because "[t]he district court properly found that Appellants did not present any new facts or controlling law that the court overlooked that might be reasonably expected to alter the court's decision and order."); Alpert v. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., No. 3:14-cv-01872 (SRU), 2019 WL 2341684, at *3 (D. Conn. Jun. 3, 2019) (denying plaintiffs' motion for reconsideration because "they are merely attempting to relitigate their . . . arguments."); Sankar v. City of N.Y., No. 07-CV-4726 (RJD)(SMG), 2012 WL 2923236, at *2 (E.D.N.Y. Jul. 18, 2012) (denying reconsideration because motion was "in substance and form, is an appeal; to wit, defendants argue that the Court simply came out the wrong way on each of plaintiff's claims. . . . [and] present only repetitive arguments on issues that have already been considered fully by the court.") (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
Accordingly, the Court's summary judgment rulings will not be reconsidered as a result of these arguments.
For the reasons explained above, the Court
A number of courts, however, have rejected the notion that reconsideration is appropriate based on evidence that was not part of the record before them. See, e.g., Levin v. Gallery 63 Antiques Corp., No. 04-CV-1504 (KMK), 2007 WL 1288641, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 30, 2007) ("It is clear that `the sole function of a proper motion for reconsideration is to call to the Court's attention dispositive facts or controlling authority that were plainly presented in the prior proceedings but were somehow overlooked in the Court's decision: in other words, an obvious and glaring mistake.'") (quoting M.K.B. v. Eggleston, No. 05 Civ. 10446, 2006 WL 3230162, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 7, 2006); citing Xiao v. Continuum Health Partners, Inc., No. 01 Civ. 8556, 2002 WL 31760213, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 9, 2002) ("Although a party seeking reconsideration may advert to controlling decisions or factual matters that were before the court on the underlying motion, the party may neither put forth new facts, issues or arguments that were not presented to the court on that motion. . . .")); Cohen v. Fed. Express Corp., Nos. 06 Civ. 482 RJH/THK & 07 Civ. 1288 RJH/THK, 2007 WL 1573918, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. May 24, 2007) ("The law in this Circuit is clear: a party is not permitted to put forth new facts, issues or arguments that were not presented to the court on [the original] motion.") (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
In one non-precedential summary order, the Second Circuit stated that "we do not consider facts not in the record to be facts that the court `overlooked.'" Rafter v. Liddle, 288 F. App'x 768, 769 (2d Cir. 2008). While Local Rule 7(c) articulates the Shrader standard, see D. Conn. L. Civ. R. 7(c) ("Such motions will generally be denied unless the movant can point to controlling decisions or data that the court overlooked in the initial decision or order."), courts in this District have also been among those citing the "availability of new evidence" as a basis for reconsideration. See, e.g., Morneau v. Connecticut, 605 F.Supp.2d 372, 377 (D. Conn. 2009) (citing Virgin Atlantic & Shrader together in explaining legal standard for reconsideration); Archibald v. City of Hartford, 274 F.R.D. 371, 382 (D. Conn. 2011) (same); Macamaux v. Day Kimball Hosp., 702 F.Supp.2d 25, 27 (D. Conn. 2010).