Thompson Everett Inc v. National Cable Adv

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• Decided: May 7, 1997
• Docket: 96-1346
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

THOMPSON EVERETT, INCORPORATED, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

NATIONAL CABLE ADVERTISING, L.P.; CABLE NETWORKS, INCORPORATED; No. 96-1346 CABLE MEDIA CORPORATION, Defendants-Appellees,

and

COX CABLE COMMUNICATIONS, Party in Interest.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Richmond. James R. Spencer, District Judge. (CA-93-452)

Submitted: April 17, 1997

Decided: May 7, 1997

Before NIEMEYER and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges, and BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge.

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Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

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COUNSEL

Sa'ad El-Amin, Beverly D. Crawford, EL-AMIN & CRAWFORD, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellant. Stephen A. Northup, Andrew G. Mauck, MAYS & VALENTINE, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See Local Rule 36(c).

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OPINION

PER CURIAM:

Appellant Thompson Everett, Inc. challenges the district court's order denying its motions objecting to the taxation of costs in favor of the Appellees for all depositions submitted with a successful motion for summary judgment. Although the motions contained tech- nical defects, the district court considered them on the merits and denied relief. Finding no error, we affirm.

Appellant filed an antitrust complaint against three large, national cable companies. Depositions were taken from fifty-eight witnesses, most of them noticed by Appellant. After discovery, the Appellees filed a motion for summary judgment, which was granted, and they were then awarded costs for these depositions. Appellant challenged the award on the ground that the parties agreed to take the depositions of more witnesses than allowed by local rule.* The district court, interpreting its own rule, found no violation and denied Appellant's motions for relief.

A district court's interpretation of its own rules is entitled to great deference, and we find no abuse of discretion here. See United States Fidelity & Guar. Co. v. Lawrenson, 334 F.2d 464, 467 (4th Cir. 1964) (district court is the best judge of its own rules). Only four non-party witnesses were attributed to the Appellees. Appellant asserts that ten more should have been attributed to them. Even if this were correct, there would be no violation of the rule because the Appellees were entitled to five non-party depositions each for a total of fifteen.

We therefore affirm the order of the district court. We dispense _________________________________________________________________ *Local Rule 11.1(B) allows each party to only depose five non-party witnesses unless the court, pursuant to a written motion, permits other- wise.

2 with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are ade- quately presented in the material before the court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED