Alfonso v. Community Bridges Incorporated

Opinion

WO

Lisa Alfonso, No. CV-21-01305-PHX-DWL

Plaintiff, ORDER

v.

Community Bridges Incorporated,

Defendant. Pending before the Court is Defendant’s request for summary disposition of its summary judgment motion. (Doc. 63.) The motion is denied. The advisory committee’s notes to Rule 56’s 2010 amendment explain that “summary judgment cannot be granted by default even if there is a complete failure to respond to the motion.” This is because “under the summary judgment standard, if the moving party fails to meet its initial burden of production, the opposing party need not produce anything.” Finkle v. Ryan, 174 F. Supp. 3d 1174, 1181 (D. Ariz. 2016). Thus, “a local rule permitting a district court to treat a lack of a response as consent to granting a motion does not apply to summary judgment motions.” Id. at 1180. Instead, in the summary judgment context, “the opposing party’s failure to respond to a fact asserted in” a summary judgment motion merely “permits a court to consider the fact undisputed for purposes of the motion.” Heinemann v. Satterberg, 731 F.3d 914, 917 (9th Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks omitted). Rule 56 does not, in contrast, “condon[e] summary judgment by default.” Id. 1 Accordingly, IT IS ORDERED that Defendant’s motion for summary disposition (Doc. 63) is denied. The Court will rule on the pending summary judgment motion (Doc. 62), as to which the briefing process is now closed, in due course. Dated this 10th day of October, 2023. fT-L "Dominic W. Lanza United States District Judge

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