Sandra Slater v. United States Steel Corporation ( 2018 )

Case: 12-15548 Date Filed: 06/12/2018 Page: 1 of 3
[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 12-15548
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 2:09-cv-01732-KOB
SANDRA SLATER,
Plaintiff – Appellant,
versus
U.S. STEEL CORPORATION,
Defendant – Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Alabama
________________________
(June 12, 2018)
Before TJOFLAT and WILLIAM PRYOR, Circuit Judges, and SCOLA, * District
Judge.
*
Honorable Robert N. Scola, Jr., United States District Judge for the Southern District of
Florida, sitting by designation.
Case: 12-15548 Date Filed: 06/12/2018 Page: 2 of 3
PER CURIAM:
Sandra Slater failed to disclose to the Bankruptcy Court in her pending
Chapter 7 case the employment discrimination claims she was prosecuting in the
instant case against U.S. Steel Corporation. Upon discovering Slater’s failure to
disclose the claims to the Bankruptcy Court, U.S. Steel, citing our precedent in
Burnes v. Pemco Aeroplex, Inc., 291 F.3d 1282 (11th Cir. 2002), moved the
District Court to dismiss her claims under the doctrine of judicial estoppel. U.S.
Steel argued that Slater’s maintenance of inconsistent positions in the two judicial
proceedings, standing alone, constituted a “mockery of the judicial system.” See
id. at 1285 (quotation omitted). The District Court agreed and granted U.S. Steel’s
motion, and this panel affirmed. Slater v. U.S. Steel Corp. (“Slater I”), 820 F.3d
1193 (11th Cir. 2016).
Upon rehearing en banc, this Court overruled the portions of Burnes 1 “that
permitted the inference that a plaintiff intended to make a mockery of the judicial
system simply because he failed to disclose a civil claim” and remanded the case to
the panel for further consideration of the District Court’s judicial estoppel ruling.
Slater v. U.S. Steel Corp. (“Slater II”), 871 F.3d 1174, 1185 (11th Cir. 2017).
In Slater II, we said that
1
Also overruled was the portion of Barger v. City of Cartersville, 348 F.3d 1289 (11th
Cir. 2003), which adhered to the overruled portion of Burnes’ holding.
2
Case: 12-15548 Date Filed: 06/12/2018 Page: 3 of 3
to determine whether a plaintiff’s inconsistent statements were
calculated to make a mockery of the judicial system, a court should
look to all the facts and circumstances of the particular case. When
the plaintiff’s inconsistent statement comes in the form of an omission
in bankruptcy disclosures, the court may consider such factors as the
plaintiff’s level of sophistication, whether and under what
circumstances the plaintiff corrected the disclosures, whether the
plaintiff told his bankruptcy attorney about the civil claims before
filing the bankruptcy disclosures, whether the trustee or creditors were
aware of the civil lawsuit or claims before the plaintiff amended the
disclosures, whether the plaintiff identified other lawsuits to which he
was party, and any findings or actions by the bankruptcy court after
the omission was discovered.
Id. We emphasized that this list “is not exhaustive; the district court is free to
consider any fact or factor it deems relevant to the intent inquiry.” Id. n.9.
The District Court, bound as it was by Burnes, considered none of these
factors in granting U.S. Steel’s motion for summary judgment. Its application of
the judicial estoppel doctrine therefore constituted an abuse of discretion. For that
reason, we vacate its summary judgment order and remand the case for further
proceedings not inconsistent herewith.
VACATED AND REMANDED.
3