MaCaulay Williams v. Christine Wormuth

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
• Decided: July 2, 2024
• Docket: 23-2562
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT ___________

No. 23-2562 __________

MACAULAY WILLIAMS, Appellant

v.

CHRISTINE WORMUTH, In her Official Capacity as Secretary of the Department of the Army; UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY ____________________________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey (D.C. Civil Action No. 3-16-cv-05693 District Judge: Honorable Peter G. Sheridan ____________________________________

Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a) June 26, 2024

Before: BIBAS, PORTER, and MONTGOMERY-REEVES, Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed: July 2, 2024) ___________

OPINION * ___________

PER CURIAM

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent. Macaulay Williams appeals the District Court’s judgment entered in favor of

Appellees. For the reasons that follow, we will affirm the judgment.

The procedural history of this case and the details of Williams’s claims are well

known to the parties and need not be discussed at length. Briefly, Williams filed a

counseled complaint alleging employment discrimination based on race and national

origin. He asserted that his supervisor had called him a racial slur and threatened to

terminate his employment. Shortly after this meeting, Williams’s employment was

terminated. After a four-day trial, where Williams proceeded pro se, the jury returned a

verdict in favor of Appellees. After the District Court entered judgment in favor of

Appellees, Williams filed a notice of appeal. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C.

§ 1291.

On appeal, Williams first challenges the denials of his motions for sanctions.

Before trial, Williams filed a motion alleging that Appellees were committing fraud on

the court. He alleged that Appellees had falsified documents regarding which department

he was assigned to at the time of his termination. A Magistrate Judge denied the motion

without prejudice to the issue’s being addressed at a pretrial conference. Counsel later

withdrew, and Williams raised the issue again in a pro se motion for sanctions. The

Magistrate Judge again denied it, noting that it was untimely, filed in violation of a court

order, and that the issues raised therein could be addressed at trial. At a pretrial hearing,

the Magistrate Judge noted that Williams could elicit testimony “from the witnesses as to

what your role was, and who you were reporting to, and whether or not that means that

this individual versus that are the supervisors whose opinions matter.” Tr. 9/12/22 at 24.

2 Appellees argue that we cannot review this issue because Williams did not appeal

the Magistrate Judge’s ruling to the District Court. Williams does not dispute that he did

not appeal to the District Court. Rather, he argues that he did not forfeit this issue

because the Appellees also presented this false evidence at trial. However, he is

challenging the Magistrate Judge’s denials of his motions and not any rulings at trial

regarding this evidence. We agree that Williams has forfeited his challenge to the

Magistrate Judge’s denials of his motions and decline to review them. See Cont’l Cas.

Co. v. Dominick D’Andrea, Inc., 150 F.3d 245, 252 (3d Cir. 1998), as amended (Sept. 8,

1998) (noting that “a party failing to appeal to the district court a magistrate judge’s order

in a nondispositive matter may not raise an objection to it on appeal to a circuit court”);

Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a) (providing that “[a] party may not assign as error a defect in the

[nondispositive Magistrate Judge’s] order not timely objected to”). Moreover, Williams

had the opportunity at trial to present his own evidence to dispute Appellees’ evidence.

Next, Williams argues that his due process rights were violated when the District

Court did not allow him to call two witnesses whom he did not identify during discovery.

These proposed witnesses were listed on an organizational chart as being supervisors in a

department Williams had worked in. This chart was provided to Williams during

administrative hearings before the District Court litigation began. The Magistrate Judge

noted in the final pretrial order that Williams had not established that these witnesses

would give relevant testimony, noting that “[s]omething more than placement on the

organizational chart indicating a superior position is required.” ECF #127 at 22.

Williams appealed this ruling. The District Court decided before trial that Williams

3 could not present these witnesses because they were never identified as witnesses during

discovery. ECF #151; Tr. 6/26/23 at 36.

We review the District Court’s exclusion of these witnesses for an abuse of

discretion. See In re TMI Litig., 193 F.3d 613, 721 (3d Cir. 1999). Williams does not

dispute that he did not identify these persons as witnesses until three years after discovery

had closed. Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(c)(1), a party is not allowed to use a witness if

the party has failed to identify the witness unless the failure was substantially justified or

harmless. In explaining why Williams could not call these witnesses, the District Court

noted that the evidence was from 2008, the District Court litigation had been ongoing

since 2016, and to allow these witnesses would require discovery to be reopened and

depositions and interrogatories permitted. The District Court did not abuse its discretion

in excluding these witnesses. See id. (describing factors to be considered in evaluating

exclusion of evidence pursuant to Rule 37). Nor did their exclusion violate Williams’s

right to due process. He had notice and an opportunity to name these witnesses in

discovery and the opportunity to argue for their inclusion. See Mullane v. Cent. Hanover

Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306, 314 (1950) (fundamental requirements of due process

are notice and opportunity to be heard).

Williams also raises two issues regarding jurors. First, he contends that the

District Court erred in failing to dismiss a juror for cause during voir dire. This juror

indicated that she would tend to believe people in authority, the military, and law

enforcement. Williams does not assert that he objected to this juror, asked her questions

to explore any bias, or exercised a preemptory strike against her. A challenge to the

4 selection of jurors in a civil case is due within seven days after the party could have

discovered the grounds relied upon. See 28 U.S.C. § 1867(c). Williams failed to

challenge the selection of this juror in the District Court, and we will not review the

District Court’s failure to remove her.

Williams also challenges the District Court’s dismissal of a juror during the trial.

A witness had asked the juror a question about her shoes which the juror appeared to take

as a criticism. The juror stated that the comment “made [her] think very negatively about

her” and referred to the witness as a “mean old lady.” Tr. 6/29/2023 at 345. The District

Court excused the juror. A District Court may excuse a juror during a trial for good

cause. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 47(c). A District Court’s determination of whether a juror can

serve impartially is entitled to special deference and will only be reversed for an abuse of

discretion. United States v. Salamone, 800 F.2d 1216, 1226-27 (3d Cir. 1986). Given the

juror’s characterization of the witness as a “mean old lady,” the District Court did not

abuse its discretion in determining that there was good cause to excuse the juror.

Finally, Williams argues in his brief that Appellee should not have been awarded

costs. The Appellee moved for costs in the District Court, and by order entered

September 27, 2023, the Clerk of the District Court granted the motion in part and

awarded Appellee costs in the amount of $3330.96. Appellees argue that Williams

forfeited this issue because he did not appeal the Clerk’s order to the District Court. We

agree.

For the above reasons, we will affirm the District Court’s judgment.