In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit

No. 98-2453 

Nathan L. Huey,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

United Parcel Service, Inc.,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
No. 95-C-0963--John W. Reynolds, Judge.

Argued December 15, 1998--Decided January 8, 1999



  Before Eschbach, Easterbrook, and Ripple, Circuit
Judges.

  Easterbrook, Circuit Judge.  Formerly employed by
United Parcel Service, Nathan Huey contends that
his discharge came in retaliation for making a
claim of racially hostile working conditions,
plus discrimination in training and promotions.
UPS sought and received summary judgment on all
theories other than retaliation. If the district
judge was entitled to act on the basis of UPS's
submission of undisputed facts, summary judgment
was proper. Huey contends, however, that Local
Rule 6.05, which authorizes the court to act as
it did, conflicts with Fed. R. Civ. P. 56.

  UPS supported its motion with a detailed
statement of facts and pinpoint references to the
record, as Local Rule 6.05 requires. Huey did not
file a timely response. Concerned that counsel
did not understand his obligations, the district
judge sua sponte extended Huey's time to reply
and specifically called counsel's attention to
Local Rule 6.05. When nothing arrived by the
extended date, the court contacted Huey's lawyer,
who at last filed an affidavit (in the form of a
brief)--but the court concluded that this did not
conform to the local rule because it did not take
issue with UPS's submission point-by-point and in
many respects did not address UPS's submissions
at all. Once again the court reminded Huey's
lawyer of Local Rule 6.05 and invited him to file
a proper response. Counsel's next effort was no
better than the last, and the court gave up and
analyzed the facts as UPS had framed them.

  Along the way the judge made a remark that
presages Huey's current argument (emphasis in
original): "Huey's counsel apparently
misunderstands the local rule, contending that
parties may not involuntarily be forced to
stipulate to facts. Neither the local rule nor
order of this court requires that Huey must
stipulate to facts; the parties may, but are not
required to, submit stipulated facts. However, if
Huey disputes UPS's proposed facts, he must refer
specifically to the disputed facts and submit
evidentiary materials which provide a basis for
his dispute." Huey repeats in this court the
argument that the district judge addressed: that
Local Rule 6.05 conflicts with Rule 56 by
requiring parties to "stipulate" to facts. But
stipulation is just one of three options in Local
Rule 6.05(a); a detailed response is another.
This court has entertained and rejected an
argument that the Eastern District of Wisconsin's
rule conflicts with the national rule. Doe v.
Cunningham, 30 F.3d 879, 882-83 (7th Cir. 1994).
We see no reason to revisit that question--
particularly not in light of the plenitude of
decisions holding that the other district courts
of the circuit are entitled to enforce their
comparable rules. Corder v. Lucent Technologies
Inc., No. 97-3618 (7th Cir. Dec. 10, 1998), slip
op. 5-6, is but the most recent in a long series.
District courts may elaborate on the requirements
of the national rules, adding operational
details, without being "inconsistent" with the
national rules and thus running afoul of Fed. R.
Civ. P. 83.

  The national rules themselves entitle parties to
insist that their adversaries stipulate
(technically, "admit") to facts that they cannot
reasonably dispute. Fed. R. Civ. P. 36; cf. Fed.
R. Civ. P. 16(c). Rule 36(a) provides that
failure to respond within 30 days to a request
for admission has the same effect as an
admission. So if Local Rule 6.05(d) equates
silence with admission, it has the company of
Rule 36(a). But, as the district court noted,
this is not what the local rule does. It requires
parties to point to the facts on which they rely
to support or contest a factual issue. Failure to
do this does not stipulate to or admit the
opponent's submissions--though it has much the
same effect unless the judge is willing to take
an unguided excursion through the record. As we
have held many times, however, judges need not
paw over the files without assistance from the
parties. Making it clear to litigants that the
judges of the Eastern District of Wisconsin won't
go on tour without their Baedecker is all the
rule accomplishes, and such a modest demand--
which contributes to the efficient management of
judicial business--is entirely compatible with
Rule 56. The district judge tried to be
accommodating but in the end was entitled to
enforce the local rule.

  After a trial on the retaliation claim, the jury
returned a verdict for UPS. Huey portrayed
himself as a good employee who received high
ratings until he complained about racial
discrimination, and then was sacked. UPS replied
that the discharge occurred because a verbal
altercation occurred between Huey and his
supervisor, and Huey attempted to have the police
arrest the supervisor by falsely alleging that
the supervisor assaulted him. The jury obviously
accepted UPS's explanation of the discharge. The
only claim of trial error requiring discussion is
Huey's contention that the court should have
permitted Q.R. Verdier, a "forensic vocational
expert" with a Ph. D. in human resource
development, to testify that UPS retaliated
against Huey for his claim of discrimination. On
January 13, 1998, Verdier sent this letter to
Huey's lawyer, who turned it over in discovery as
the report of an expert witness:

Per your letter of December 19, 1997, requesting
my expert opinion in the subject case with
respect to the question of retaliatory discharge
of Mr. Huey by UPS as a result of his filing of a
discrimination complaint, I have thoroughly
reviewed all the documents which you forwarded
and researched all sources available to me in
this holiday period.

As you know, at your suggestion I have previously
met with Mr. Huey on April 19, 1997 in Madison to
be brought up to date by him on developments
subsequent to his discharge by UPS, apparently
for his filing a request for police intervention
after the May incident involving his supervisor,
Mr. Sims, in Watertown, WI.

Mr. Sims in his deposition dated February 6, 1997
stated that he did not have authority to
discharge Mr. Huey, although he instructed him in
person and on the phone the next day to leave the
work place and not to return until he was
contacted by UPS. Mr. Radovic in his deposition
of the same day also confirmed that Mr. Huey's
dismissal was due to a higher level management
decision made after an investigation which was
finalized without Mr. Huey been [sic] given a
fair hearing, warning or other opportunity to
defend himself.

Mr. Huey's discharge was based on his "failure to
perform his work", which he was prevented from
doing by Mr. Sims' orders, although his previous
work record was satisfactory and he had recently
been commended for performance of a new
assignment without benefit of training.

My conclusions from the facts presented, based on
my professional experience and training and
exposure to current laws and regulations as an
employment agent for over thirty years, is [sic]
that Mr. Huey was the victim of a retaliatory
discharge by UPS for racially motivated reasons
in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 42
U.S.C. #1981, as amended, 1991, because Mr. Huey
asserted his protected right as a minority to be
free from employment harassment and also his
right to be free from bodily harm at his place of
employment.

Experts in discrimination cases often do
statistical analysis to determine whether race
(or some other protected characteristic) is an
explanatory variable, but Verdier did no such
thing. Nor did he study UPS's personnel files to
determine whether the handling of Huey's
situation departed from the firm's norm in a way
that might imply retaliation. He did not attempt
to reconstruct the underlying facts to determine
whether UPS had a good explanation. He did not
explain what field of knowledge a professional in
human resource development masters or how this
knowledge was employed to analyze Huey's
situation. As far as this letter reveals, Verdier
did not do anything except talk to Huey, read
documents Huey's counsel sent, and write a
letter. Verdier does not describe the reasoning
used to reach his conclusion. During an offer of
proof, Verdier was clear about the limits of his
inquiry and the basis of his opinion. Asked if he
did more than accept Huey's view that UPS
retaliated, Verdier replied: "I think he's the
one that [sic] best knows what happened in the
situation."

  This will not do as the work of an expert.
Decision does not depend, as Huey supposes, on
using the framework of Daubert v. Merrell Dow
Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), to
evaluate testimony that is not "scientific." We
have held that Daubert applies to all expert
testimony, Tyus v. Urban Search Management, 102
F.3d 256, 263 (7th Cir. 1996), and the Court will
decide in Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, cert.
granted, 118 S. Ct. 2339 (1998) (argued Dec. 7,
1998), whether this is right, but the answer does
not matter to Huey's case. The controlling law is
Fed. R. Evid. 702: "If scientific, technical, or
other specialized knowledge will assist the trier
of fact to understand the evidence or to
determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as
an expert by knowledge, skill, experience,
training, or education, may testify thereto in
the form of an opinion or otherwise." The
district judge thought that Verdier had not
exhibited "scientific, technical, or other
specialized knowledge". He gave a conclusion, but
no more. Daubert says that courts must ensure
that purportedly scientific testimony employs
scientific methods to reach reliable conclusions,
and by extension Rule 702 requires any other
application of specialized knowledge to be
professionally sound and reliable. Frymire-
Brinati v. KPMG Peat Marwick, 2 F.3d 183, 186-87
(7th Cir. 1993). But the reliability issue does
not arise until the expert proposes to give an
opinion that depends on "scientific, technical,
or other specialized knowledge", which Verdier
did not.

  "An 'opinion has a significance proportioned to
the sources that sustain it.' Petrogradsky
Mejdunarodny Kommerchesky Bank v. National City
Bank, 253 N.Y. 23, 34, 170 N.E. 479, 483 (1930)
(Cardozo, J.). An expert who supplies nothing but
a bottom line supplies nothing of value to the
judicial process." Mid-State Fertilizer Co. v.
Exchange National Bank, 877 F.2d 1333, 1339 (7th
Cir. 1989). See also, e.g., McMahon v. Bunn-O-
Matic Corp., 150 F.3d 651, 657-58 (7th Cir.
1998); Minasian v. Standard Chartered Bank, PLC,
109 F.3d 1212, 1216 (7th Cir. 1997); Rosen v.
Ciba-Geigy Corp., 78 F.3d 316 (7th Cir. 1996).
The district court cited Minasian for the
proposition that an expert must "substantiate his
opinion; providing only an ultimate conclusion
with no analysis is meaningless." Huey has not
attempted to overcome this obstacle; his brief
does not discuss Minasian or similar cases;
instead it assumes that anyone with "expertise"
may testify as an expert. That just is not so.
Expertise is a necessary but not a sufficient
condition of admissibility under Rule 702.
Verdier may have specialized knowledge or skills,
but he did not apply them to the analysis of
Huey's claim. Our review is deferential, see
General Electric Co. v. Joiner, 118 S. Ct. 512
(1997), and the district court's decision, far
from being an abuse of discretion, is clearly
correct.

Affirmed

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