Mark Vasquez, a worker injured by toxic chlorine gas during maintenance at a Lubrizol chemical plant, sued his employer and Lubrizol for negligence. The case was removed to federal court in the Southern District of Texas. After more than two years of continuances to accommodate discovery, the district court set a final deadline for dispositive motions and explicitly warned that no further extensions would be granted. Lubrizol timely filed a motion for summary judgment. The deadline for Vasquez to respond passed, and he filed an emergency motion to submit an opposition late, citing a clerical error by his legal assistant. The district court denied the emergency motion, treated Lubrizol's motion as unopposed, and granted summary judgment. Vasquez appealed, arguing the district court abused its discretion by refusing the late filing and that summary judgment was improper.
The Fifth Circuit reviewed the district court's refusal to allow an untimely opposition for abuse of discretion. The court emphasized that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 6(b) grants district courts broad discretion to extend deadlines only for 'excusable neglect.' The court applied the four-factor test from Pioneer Inv. Servs. Co. v. Brunswick Assocs., considering prejudice, delay length, reason for delay, and good faith. The court found that Vasquez's counsel's failure to file was due to a legal assistant's mistake in reading a minute entry rather than the court's order. The court held that such inadvertent mistakes do not usually constitute excusable neglect, especially after the court had warned that no further extensions would be granted. The court also addressed the propriety of granting summary judgment on an unopposed motion. While a motion cannot be granted solely because there is no opposition, the district court was permitted to accept the facts alleged by the movant as undisputed under Rule 56(e)(2). The court found that Lubrizol made a prima facie showing of entitlement to judgment under Texas Chapter 95, which shields premises owners from negligence liability for independent contractors unless the owner exercises control over the work or has actual knowledge of the danger. The record showed Lubrizol did not control the manner of work and lacked actual knowledge of the specific gas leak at the time of the accident.
The judgment stands, and Vasquez receives no relief on his negligence claims. The decision reinforces that district courts have wide discretion to enforce filing deadlines and that clerical errors by legal staff are generally insufficient to justify untimely filings after explicit warnings. It also clarifies that unopposed summary judgment motions can be granted if the movant establishes a prima facie case, and that constructive knowledge of a potential risk is insufficient to overcome Chapter 95 immunity; actual knowledge of the specific dangerous condition at the time of the accident is required.
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